Tag: right wing
Eating Their Own: MAGA Media Trash Trump, Bondi Over Epstein Files Fiasco

Eating Their Own: MAGA Media Trash Trump, Bondi Over Epstein Files Fiasco

President Donald Trump appointed conspiracy-obsessed MAGA media favorites to the highest levels of federal law enforcement, and now those figures are coming under fire from the right-wing fever swamp for failing to confirm their bullshit.

Axios reported on Sunday night that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation had concluded that there was no evidence convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “blackmailed powerful figures, kept a ‘client list’ or was murdered.” Those findings repudiated claims that had for years permeated the MAGA influencer ecosystem and been promoted by the stars of Fox News and the broader right-wing media.

The Trump-appointed leaders of both the FBI and DOJ had previously stoked the same conspiracy theories their agencies rejected. “As social media influencers and activists, Kash Patel (now the FBI's director) and Dan Bongino (now deputy director) were among those in MAGA world who questioned the official version of how Epstein died,” Axios noted. Moreover, Attorney General Pam Bondi had claimed in a February interview on Fox News that the purported “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”

While the Epstein saga is a bit of a sideshow in the grand scheme of things, what it highlights about the underlying dynamics of the MAGA movement is deeply unsettling. It demonstrates that the Trump administration is in hock to some of the most deranged conspiracy theorists imaginable, treating them as among its closest allies and devoting substantial resources to their care and feeding.

The White House brought 15 MAGA influencers in to meet with Bondi in February, sending them home with glossy binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” When those binders did not satisfy the MAGA faithful, the attorney general reportedly tasked “hundreds of FBI employees” with reviewing Epstein investigation documents for release. In May, Patel and Bongino were sent to Fox to make the case, with the fervor of the converted, that Epstein had actually killed himself. And now the FBI and DOJ have produced a memo detailing their findings and released footage taken from outside Epstein’s cell in the hours surrounding his suicide.

The final result left Trump’s most zealous online allies with two options: They could finally acknowledge that they had been peddling nonsense for years — or they could insinuate that the Trump administration itself is part of the cover-up.

MAGA’s Epstein conspiracy theorists lash out at Bondi — and even Trump

In the hours after Axios’ story broke, several prominent MAGA influencers took the latter path, hammering the administration for failing to confirm their Epstein hypotheses.

“This new DOJ memo admits there are countless victims of Epstein on video but no client list or evidence of other rapists they can charge. Oh it claims Epstein wasn’t using videos as blackmail,” Robby Starbuck sneered on X. “NO ONE believes this for very good reason.”

Starbuck put the blame squarely on the attorney general.

“Bondi just made it all worse with this memo,” he wrote. “What a terrible, terrible idea it was to write this memo. It’s also incredibly insulting to our intelligence.”

Noting her prior claim on Fox that she was in possession of Epstein’s “client list,” he commented, “Was she lying then or is she lying now?”

Laura Loomer also blamed Bondi.

“Blondi lied,” she posted on X, using the nickname she typically utilizes for the attorney general. “She was always lying.”

Others were less specific about who was responsible for the cover-up.

“We were all told more was coming,” Jack Posobiec lamented. “That answers were out there and would be provided. Incredible how utterly mismanaged this Epstein mess has been. And it didn’t have to be.”

Tim Pool suggested that the administration was protecting “the adult child rapists who were blackmailed” and floated the possibility that they were protecting “shareholder value” from “the economic fallout if say, hypothetically, Bill Gates was revealed to have been flying around with Epstein and then we got videos of him abusing underage girls.”

And Mike Cernovich suggested that the buck stopped with the president.

“No one is believing the Epstein coverup, @realDonaldTrump,” he wrote. “This will be part of your legacy. There’s still time to change it!”

The right-wing media ecosystem is built to manufacture and distribute conspiracy theories to an audience trained to believe them. Under the incentive structure this ecosystem creates, it makes sense that the Trump campaign relied on conspiracy theorists to bolster its position, that Patel and Bongino boosted their standing within that ecosystem by echoing such claims, and that Bondi kept claiming an Epstein reckoning was imminent.

But eventually, the Trump administration trapped itself. Bondi, Patel, and Bongino were unable to produce the information that the MAGA faithful demanded, and they seem unable to convince them the information does not exist. It is the nature of conspiracy theorists to insist that anything which appears to rebut their claims actually confirms it. And now they’re turning on their erstwhile allies.

The truth about Epstein and Trump

One ironic aspect of the Epstein saga is that while MAGA influencers were apparently certain that the Trump administration was going to implicate a wave of prominent individuals in Epstein’s sex crimes and, perhaps, his death, there are few figures as prominent with ties as close to Epstein as Trump himself.

Consider:

  • Trump was quoted in a 2002 profile describing Epstein as a longtime friend and “terrific guy” about whom “it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
  • Trump was among the politicians and celebrities who hitched rides on Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s.
  • In 2019, shortly before Epstein’s arrest on sex charges, longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon prepped Epstein for a potential interview.
  • Trump chose for labor secretary in his first term Alex Acosta, who as a U.S. attorney oversaw a sweetheart plea deal for Epstein that a judge later ruled illegal.
  • Alan Dershowitz, the Trump supporter who served on the president’s second Senate impeachment trial team, was one of the defense lawyers who helped Epstein secure that plea deal.
  • Epstein’s 2019 suicide occurred while he was in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, an agency overseen at the time by the Trump-appointed attorney general, William Barr.
  • After longtime Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2020, Trump told reporters: “I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.”
  • Trump waffled about whether he would “declassify the Epstein files” during a Fox interview — but the network edited out that portion of his answer.
  • Trump appointed as attorney general Bondi, who was “Florida's attorney general 2011-2109 -- a period of time when Jeffrey Epstein's plane records became public, victims' lawsuits were filed and a lot of new evidence against Epstein surfaced –” but she did not take action.

None of this is actually proof that Epstein was killed to cover up the fact that he had possessed evidence that he had sex-trafficked underage girls for Trump. He killed himself, and the idea of a “client list” was, as the reporter who exposed Epstein put it, “a figment of the internet's imagination -- and a means to just slander people.”

But if, say, a similar set of facts linked former President Joe Biden and his associates to Epstein, you can bet that MAGA’s conspiracy corps would treat them as clear evidence. And so it will be interesting to see, as they scrounge for an explanation for the Bondi/Patel/Bongino about-face, if any of them eventually land there.

Why the right’s conspiracy theory engine matters

The Epstein saga is ultimately a minor drama. It is embarrassing for the right that so many of its leading lights pushed the conspiracy theories for so long, and it’s unnerving that some of those conspiracy theorists now occupy the highest levels of government, but on its own terms, the stakes for the public are relatively low.

But this treatment of the Epstein saga is not an anomaly — the right responds in this same fashion to every news event. Its ecosystem is constantly pumping out new conspiracy theories intended to prove the perfidity of the left, its audience is trapped in a bubble in which it is constantly bombarded by such claims, and the consequences can be real and dire.

Following MAGA media’s fervid promotion in September 2024 of the racist, baseless lie that Haitians were stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, local institutions received bomb threats and residents kept their children home from school out of fear for their safety.

Officials at all levels of government seeking to respond to a devastating hurricane in North Carolina the next month were forced to spend precious time debunking that ecosystem’s deranged lies because those were the sources some victims counted on for their information.

When the Epstein conspiracy theories are firmly in the rearview, everyone involved in propagating them will retain their influence over a Trump administration that is more concerned with placating them than in acting in the public interest. And that is truly dangerous.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Rupert Murdoch

Declining Polls On Fox News Enrage President

President Donald Trump has never liked when pollsters say he’s doing worse than he thinks he is. But now he’s escalating his war on polls and the press, suggesting that even right-wing media outlets should scrap their polling arms if the results don’t flatter him.

According to a Fox News poll released Wednesday, Trump’s approval rating is officially lower than it was during his first term, just as he approaches the 100-day mark of his second term.

The survey found his rating underwater at 44% approval and 55% disapproval—down five points from the previous month. Even worse, Trump’s 100-day rating lags behind Joe Biden’s (54%), Barack Obama’s (62%), and George W. Bush’s (63%) at the same point in their presidencies.

Even Republicans aren’t exactly brimming with optimism. Just 38% of voters overall—and 75% of Republicans—say they’re “encouraged” about the next four years. That’s a drop from his first term in 2017, which showed 45% and 84%, respectively.

The same poll gave Trump poor marks across the board—on the economy, foreign policy, guns, immigration, you name it. His economic approval in particular sank to a record low at 38%, with 55% of respondents saying conditions are getting worse for their families.

So how did Trump respond to this news? By calling for Fox News to kill its polling unit.

“Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so. This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday.

Of course, this isn’t some isolated poll. An April Ipsos survey for Reuters put Trump’s approval at just 42%, with only 37% backing his handling of the economy. A new Pew Research Center poll had him even lower, at 40%, with negative ratings across every major policy area. And a YouGov poll for The Economist wasn’t any better, with Trump clocking in at 41% approval, with every issue underwater there, too.

In other words: reality bites. But rather than face it, Trump’s trying to pressure outlets like Fox News and The Wall Street Journal into becoming full-time propaganda machines.

His push to kill off Fox’s polling arm is especially alarming given that it routinely produces some of the highest-quality polling in the business. If Fox caves, it would be a scandal—but not entirely shocking. Media executives have buckled to Trump before, afraid of the blowback if they don’t stay in his good graces.

Trump’s already suing CBS News’ “60 Minutes” for $10 billion, and he’s gone after ABC News, which recently settled a defamation suit and agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s future presidential library. The Washington Post has also drifted rightward under Trump, winning plaudits from the administration for its “balance.”

And while polling isn’t perfect, Trump has a habit of going after those who publish anything he doesn’t like.

In December, he sued The Des Moines Register and veteran pollster Ann Selzer for a pre-election poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa. Trump ended up winning the state by more than 13 points, and now he’s trying to make it a courtroom issue.

Trump’s latest tantrum makes his vision clear: Any outlet that doesn’t treat him like a demigod should be silenced, sued, or shut down. What he’s building isn’t just a cult of personality; it’s a MAGA-approved echo chamber where the “truth” is whatever he says it is.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

A Tennessee Mom Fought Back On Abortion -- By Running For Legislature

A Tennessee Mom Fought Back On Abortion -- By Running For Legislature

A rallying cry has gone up across America over the past few months, with people gathering in cities large and small to protest the influence of Elon Musk, DOGE, and Project 2025 on the federal government. In Austin, Texas, a group of more than 200 people came together in late February for a similar reason — but this gathering had a very specific goal at its core. The first-of-its kind conference was designed to strategize ways to fight the extreme right-wing attack on women’s reproductive rights.

In what’s been described as a pivotal moment for the abortion rights movement, the conference — titled “Abortion in America” and co-founded by author Lauren Peterson, activist Kaitlyn Joshua, and former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards (who died in January) — included panelists like Amanda Zurawski and Samantha Casiano, two of the 20 women who sued the state of Texas after being denied abortions, and Texas radio DJ Ryan Hamilton, who found his wife unconscious after being denied treatment for a miscarriage.

And it invited people from out of state to talk about their experiences, both the dangerous situations they and their loved ones have faced due to abortion bans, and the ways they’re fighting back.

“The aha moment that made me finally decide to go ahead was when I learned about the 10-year-old girl in Ohio, who was raped and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion,” said Allie Phillips, a panelist at the event from Tennessee. “That was the last straw. I had a six-year-old daughter and I was like, ‘That’s it. Nobody is going to protect my daughter like I would, so I’m going to do it.’”

That was the moment, Phillips said, that made her decide to run for office.

The now 30-year-old announced her campaign at the end of 2023, but it took a year of heartache — and a very disturbing conversation with her state representative — to get her to that point.

Phillips and her husband, Bryan, found out they were expecting a daughter at their 15-week sonogram appointment in 2022. Allie said the pregnancy was a celebration for their whole family.

“I remember that I handed Bryan the positive pregnancy test and he was really excited,” she said. “He picked me up and twirled me around, he was so happy.”

Adalie, Phillips’ 6-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, was excited, too. “She told everyone who asked her that she was going to be a big sister,” Phillips said.

The family joyfully named the baby Miley Rose.

‘She only had half a heart working’

But then, a few weeks later, Phillips’ pregnancy took a turn.

“During my 20-week sonogram, Bryan and I were crushed by devastating news,” Phillips said. “Miley’s brain hadn’t developed properly and neither had her kidneys, her stomach, and her bladder. Even though her little heart was beating, she only had half a heart working.”

The fetus had a brain malformation called semilobar holoprosencephaly — a condition that was so severe that it was incompatible with life.

“Not only that, the doctor warned that she could die inside me at any time, and the longer I remained pregnant, the greater the risk would be to my own future fertility and even to my life,” Phillips said.

In Tennessee, abortions are banned after fertilization with very limited exceptions. And while those exceptions allow for saving the life of the mother, Phillips would have to get to the point where her life or a major bodily function required immediate saving before she’d be able to have an abortion.

In states with such extreme abortion bans, like Texas, doctors have left in droves due to the uncertainty around when they can step in to help their patients. There are also countless stories of women dying while waiting for an abortion.

“It was the thought of Adalie motherless that cemented my decision to find a medical facility somewhere that would perform an abortion on me at 20 weeks,” Phillips said. “My mom and I eventually were able to make an appointment at a clinic in New York City that could take me in the next week. But since my husband and I live paycheck to paycheck, I had to appeal to strangers on TikTok to help me raise the $5,000 I needed for the procedure and travel to New York.”

Phillips said that after she had her abortion, she knew she wanted to do something to help people in situations like hers, “regardless of their political views.”

“Shortly after I was back home, I was contacted by the Center for Reproductive Rights, asking if I would join a lawsuit against the Tennessee abortion law. I thought, ‘That’s how I could be of help.’”

Phillips joined the lawsuit, but said she also wanted to work on more immediate change.

A disturbing meeting with her elected official

“I decided to meet with my district representative in the state legislature,” she said. Her idea was a bill she’d called “Miley’s Law,” which would create an exception in Tennessee’s abortion ban allowing for the termination of pregnancies when the fetus has a fatal diagnosis.

She said the meeting with her lawmaker — state Rep. Jeff Burkhart, a Clarksville Republican — was disturbing.

“I quickly learned that these (Republican) lawmakers don’t know anything about reproductive care,” she said. “He was confused because I had had a healthy first pregnancy, and then lost my second one. He told me, ‘I thought only first pregnancies could go bad.’”

Burkhart, a 63-year-old father, told Phillips he’d set up a meeting for her with the state’s attorney general — but never followed through, Phillips said.

“After that, my mom said, ‘Maybe you should run against him,’” Phillips said. “And then my TikTok followers started to say the same thing.”

Burkhart did not respond to a request for comment from Courier Texas.

Fighting back by running for office

Phillips announced her campaign for District 75 in the Tennessee House of Representatives in late 2023. She was 28 years old.

“When I was door-knocking, a lot of people just wanted somebody to listen to them,” she said. “There were times I would stand at someone’s door for an hour, and they would talk about the struggles they had and they would thank me.”

Phillips said she learned that she and the people of her district had more in common than not. Her husband Bryan, a forklift mechanic, and she, a daycare provider, knew what it was like to live paycheck to paycheck, like many of the folks she talked to. And like them, she and her husband cared about their public schools and preventing vouchers from sending tax dollars to private schools.

“There were people who told me, ‘I’ll vote for you for the simple fact that you came and knocked on my door, and that had never happened before,’” Phillips said. “One gentleman told me that he had voted for Republicans for his entire life, and he said he didn’t agree with a lot of things that I was running on.”

But “he said that what was going on in our state and across the country is not okay.”

He cast his ballot for Phillips.

In the summer before the November 2024 election, Phillips and her husband found out they were expecting again. They’d been trying, knowing that it might take some time for her body to fully heal after losing Miley, but not without some hesitation.

“It’s scary to be pregnant in Tennessee,” Phillips said. “It’s scary to be pregnant in this country in general. But I took the risk because I’m not going to let some lawmakers take away the dream that I’ve had since I was a little girl.”

“I got tired of letting them control my brain and my fear. I made the decision to get pregnant again because I want to be — not because JD Vance wants more babies in America, but because it was my dream,” she said.

Phillips announced her pregnancy during her concession speech on Election Night. With just over 11,000 votes, Burkhart won reelection.

Phillips had earned 45 percent of the vote in her district, though — the closest margin of any Democrat in Tennessee trying to flip a seat in the state legislature in 2024.

Moving on

Phillips and her husband learned that the baby they’re expecting is a boy, and they’ve named him Archie. But they’ve worried throughout the whole pregnancy.

“All along I’ve known that if something were to happen to my baby, I wouldn’t be able to get care in Tennessee,” Phillips said.

She had to close her daycare business to campaign, and said if she runs for office again, it’ll be for something more local — like the county commission, city council, or school board. A place “where I could make more of an impact on my local community,” she said.

Phillips said no matter what comes next, she’ll keep sharing her abortion story.

“A lot of the Republican voters I talked to while campaigning didn’t even know we had an abortion ban,” she said. “I will share my story for 20 years if I have to, because it does make a difference.”

Like Phillips, women across the country are increasingly turning their experiences with abortion bans and their passion for reproductive justice into action by running for office. Women like Gina Ortiz Jones, whose lead in the May 3 race for mayor of San Antonio is currently growing.

“As a candidate, I found that what was most effective in connecting with voters was to remain authentic,” Phillips said. “I didn’t change who I was or lie about who I was. I was very open and honest about what I was going through.”

It’s that strategy — along with the determination to stand up and do something — that Phillips shared with the audience in Austin. And as the horror stories about what’s happening to women’s health across the country continue to be shared, it’s becoming more and more likely that women will go into the 2026 election cycle looking for leaders like them.

Reprinted with permission from Courier Texas.

American Manufacturers Debunk Fox News Defense Of Trump Tariffs

American Manufacturers Debunk Fox News Defense Of Trump Tariffs

As President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff policy begins to divide his right-wing media supporters and prompt them to search out scapegoats and distractions, Fox personalities have clung to messaging that the tariffs will ultimately lead to a renaissance in American manufacturing.

However, multiple surveys of manufacturers in recent months show that Trump’s tariffs are making their operations more difficult and expensive. Additionally, experts have said the expectation that the tariffs will lead to substantially higher domestic manufacturing is unrealistic, and may lead to a further decline in manufacturing employment.

Fox claims Trump’s tariffs will help grow American manufacturing

  • Fox host Jesse Watters: “Tariffs can unwind years of bad deals. Americans want to reindustrialize.” Watters also dismissed former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying that the goal of tariffs bringing American manufacturing back is “a pipe dream.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/14/25]
  • Fox host Laura Ingraham on skepticism that Trump’s tariffs will reignite U.S. manufacturing: “Simplistic does not begin to describe this level of analysis.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/14/25]
  • Fox Business host Elizabeth MacDonald on media skepticism that tariffs will help U.S. manufacturing: “The liberal media making it clear they are not focused on why it is necessary to bring back American manufacturing jobs.” [Fox Business, The Evening Edit, 4/14/25]
  • Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed that “the working class are going to benefit from both” Trump’s border security and tariff policies, which will be “bringing the manufacturing here.” She explained, “The tariffs are about cheap labor overseas, and the open border was about cheap labor coming here domestically. … Closing the border means wages that were — the illegals who were coming over were competing for the lower end jobs with Americans. That's going to raise the wage and so is bringing the manufacturing here.” A chyron during the segment read “Trump rolls out sweeping tariffs to protect U.S.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 4/5/25]
  • In the same segment, Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins argued, “The purpose of these tariffs is to realign the global trade that has been so unfair and imbalanced … while bringing American manufacturing jobs — thousands, tens of thousands of them — back to the U.S.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 4/5/25]
  • Fox Business host Larry Kudlow argued the tariffs plan “makes a lot of sense” because they may lead to more factories built in America, “particularly if we get these tax cuts through as rapidly as possible.” Kudlow claimed, “The United States has been on the short end of the stick — tariffs, nontariff barriers, currency depreciation, you name it.” He added, “Mr. Trump is placing significant tariffs, baseline tariffs, and reciprocal tariffs on nations who are most offensive to us, and if you make their goods more expensive at home, then hopefully Americans will buy America, produce America, build factories in America. That's the plan.” [Fox Business, Kudlow, 4/2/25]
  • MacDonald claimed Trump “is trying to bring back American manufacturing, reignite a manufacturing golden age, ending a disastrous post-Cold War era.” MacDonald added: “History shows [in] President Trump's first term, higher tariffs did not trigger inflation. The stock market boomed due to his pro-growth strategies.” [Fox Business, The Evening Edit, 4/2/25]

Multiple surveys show Trump’s tariffs make manufacturing more difficult and expensive

  • The first-quarter 2025 National Association of Manufacturers outlook survey “reveals growing concerns over trade uncertainties and increased raw material costs.” According to the survey, “Trade uncertainties surged to the top of manufacturers’ challenges, cited by 76.2% of respondents, jumping 20 percentage points from Q4 2024 and 40 percentage points from Q3 of last year. Increased raw material costs came in second, cited by 62.3% of respondents.” [National Association of Manufacturers, 3/6/25]
  • The Hill: “Makers of chemical products, electronics, metals, machinery, foods and transportation equipment all expressed concerns about tariffs” in an April 1 Institute for Supply Management survey. The Hill quoted multiple manufacturers complaining about how tariffs are negatively impacting their businesses. [The Hill, 4/1/25]
  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ February Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey showed multiple complaints from manufacturers about tariffs. One business replied that “tariff threats and uncertainty are extremely disruptive.” Another explained that it has “lost business opportunities for production of goods that goes to other countries as a result of tariffs.” A third company cited tariff changes to announce its likely closure. Many other businesses expressed concerns about Trump’s tariffs as well. [Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 2/24/25]
  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s March manufacturing survey also featured multiple complaints from manufacturers about tariffs. One manufacturer was quoted as saying: “The uncertainty of the tariffs is having a direct impact on our business as well as the overall economy. We will be raising prices significantly for our imported products.” Another one stated: “Tariffs may cause problems with the ability for suppliers to deliver product at competitive prices.” [Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 3/27/25]
  • The OECD manufacturing Business Tendency Survey showed a steep drop in confidence indicators for the U.S. since January. [Federal Reserve Economic Data, 4/15/25]
  • A new CNBC survey of manufacturers revealed that “Trump tariffs won’t lead supply chains back to” the U.S. CNBC wrote in a report on its new Supply Chain Survey that “the Trump administration says a reshoring boom is coming, but most companies that responded to the survey told CNBC that bringing back supply chains could as much as double their costs and that instead a search for low-tariff regimes around the world will commence.” According to the survey, “consumer demand, raw material prices, and the ‘current administration’s inability to provide a consistent strategy’ were cited as key supply chain concerns, in addition to the tariffs.” [CNBC, 4/14/25]

Experts explain why Trump’s tariffs won’t lead to a manufacturing renaissance

  • Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome: “The Philadelphia Fed's latest (April 2025) survey of regional manufacturers shows that their plans for future capital expenditures have fallen off a cliff since January. Gee, I wonder what happened.” [Twitter/X, 4/17/25]
  • Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal: “Dismal expectations for the economy in the NY Fed's survey of regional manufacturers. Basically every line -- new orders, employment etc. -- is going down, with the exception of prices (received, and paid) which are going up.” Weisenthal quoted from the survey’s summary in another post: “Firms expect conditions to worsen in the months ahead, a level of pessimism that has only occurred a handful of times in the history of the survey.” [Twitter/X, 4/15/25, 4/15/25]
  • Former Federal Reserve chair and Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen: “I don’t understand the rationale for the tariffs. … Perhaps it’s to bring back American manufacturing, but I really think that’s a pipe dream and not something that is likely to be accomplished.” Yellen said, “To me, President Trump is taking a sledgehammer — not only is he pounding our allies with this, but he’s pounding the U.S. economy with this sledgehammer.” [CNBC, 4/14/25]
  • University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers: “Trump's tariffs made it hard for American manufacturing firms to import critical minerals, so China responded by making it harder.” [Twitter/X, 4/14/25]
  • Wolfers on the April 1 ISM survey: “The manufacturing sector isn't responding well to the tariffs designed to help the manufacturing sector.” [Twitter/X, 4/1/25]
  • Former Labor Department chief economist Betsey Stevenson: “Manufacturing jobs for people are going away due to technology. You can't try to save that industry through tariffs.” [Twitter/X, 4/4/25]
  • American Enterprise Institute Director of Economic Policy Studies Michael Strain wrote, “The president is wrong: His tariffs will not lead to a manufacturing renaissance.” [Twitter/X, 4/4/25]
  • Strain: “These tariffs will reduce manufacturing employment.” Strain added, “They will reduce the competitiveness of manufacturing firms. They will raise prices. They will increase unemployment. They will likely cause a recession.” [Twitter/X, 4/8/25]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Shop our Store

Headlines

Editor's Blog

Corona Virus

Trending

World