MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explains how Donald Trump, the “most economically ignorant president in history,” backed down on his “illegal tariffs” against Canada and Mexico after Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau rebuked his tariff lies in speaking directly to the American people more convincingly than the “blustering, lying” Trump.
For more context and news coverage of the most important stories of our day click here: https://www.msnbc.com/
» Subscribe to MSNBC: https://www.youtube.com/msnbc
» Subscribe to MSNBC on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@msnbc
» Subscribe to MSNBC on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/msnbc
Download our new MSNBC app for the latest breaking news and daily headlines at a glance: https://www.msnbc.com/information/download-msnbc-app-n1241692
Follow MSNBC Show Blogs
MaddowBlog: https://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog
MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth analysis of political headlines, commentary and informed perspectives. Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Inside with Jen Psaki, Morning Joe, The Beat, Deadline: White House, All In, The Last Word, The 11th Hour, and more.
Connect with MSNBC Online
Visit msnbc.com: https://www.msnbc.com/
Subscribe to the MSNBC Daily Newsletter: https://link.msnbc.com/join/5ck/msnbc-daily-signup
#Trudeau #Trump #tariffs
For more context and news coverage of the most important stories of our day click here: https://www.msnbc.com/
» Subscribe to MSNBC: https://www.youtube.com/msnbc
» Subscribe to MSNBC on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@msnbc
» Subscribe to MSNBC on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/msnbc
Download our new MSNBC app for the latest breaking news and daily headlines at a glance: https://www.msnbc.com/information/download-msnbc-app-n1241692
Follow MSNBC Show Blogs
MaddowBlog: https://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog
MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth analysis of political headlines, commentary and informed perspectives. Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Inside with Jen Psaki, Morning Joe, The Beat, Deadline: White House, All In, The Last Word, The 11th Hour, and more.
Connect with MSNBC Online
Visit msnbc.com: https://www.msnbc.com/
Subscribe to the MSNBC Daily Newsletter: https://link.msnbc.com/join/5ck/msnbc-daily-signup
#Trudeau #Trump #tariffs
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Well, Donald Trump backed down today.
00:03It doesn't happen every day.
00:05But because Donald Trump is actually, by far, the most cowardly president we have ever had
00:12who's pretending to be a tough guy, he has backed down in his first presidency and now
00:19in this one, more than any other president has done it.
00:23He backs down within a day of making decisions, pulls them back.
00:29Donald Trump backed down today and no one was surprised.
00:34There are people who have to make their living based on knowing when Donald Trump is going
00:40to back down.
00:41They include the richest people in America and their day-to-day investment practitioners
00:47on Wall Street.
00:49Wall Street knows that Donald Trump is a pathological liar, which everyone knows.
00:54And Wall Street knows that Donald Trump doesn't understand anything about economics, nothing.
01:02Wall Street has been listening to Donald Trump very carefully for years, and they've never
01:06once heard Donald Trump accurately describe what a tariff is.
01:12The truth of tariffs forced Donald Trump to back down today.
01:19Wall Street knows that Donald Trump lies every time he talks about tariffs.
01:23Everyone on Wall Street knows that no foreign country has ever paid an American tariff and
01:28never will.
01:29Wall Street knows the only people who pay Trump tariffs are people in the United States
01:34who pay for imported goods, like, say, coffee, unless you're one of the lucky ones who has
01:41tasted the very small batch and very expensive coffee grown in Hawaii.
01:48One drop of coffee you have swallowed in your life came from an American coffee bean.
01:55Every ounce of coffee you have swallowed came from another country.
01:59According to Donald Trump, the United States of America should be buying nothing from other
02:04countries.
02:05Tell that to the 211,000 people working in Starbucks just in the United States and the
02:11361,000 people working in Starbucks worldwide.
02:15The coffee economy in the United States employs literally millions of people, all based on
02:26a product imported from other countries, imported from Africa, imported from South America.
02:32And this country could not survive a day without coffee, and we all know it.
02:40I could go on and on listing examples of why international trade is a good and necessary
02:45thing.
02:46That is a fact that has been known since before the American colonies were settled, but Donald
02:52Trump doesn't know it.
02:53And so Wall Street knows that their job is to teach their slowest student, Donald Trump,
03:00whenever he goes dangerously too far on his illegal Trump tariff crusade.
03:07And the Trump tariffs are illegal because the Constitution puts Congress exclusively
03:11in charge of tariffs, just as Congress is exclusively in charge of income tax rates.
03:17But a provision that entered federal law during the Cold War provided the president with the
03:21authority to change individual tariffs only, only for national security reasons.
03:28The intention at the time was to allow the president to personally change tariffs in
03:33the event of war.
03:35No one writing that law thought that such tariffs could ever, under any circumstances,
03:42be imposed by the president of the United States on the most faithful and peaceful and
03:49supportive neighbor any country in the world has ever had, Canada.
03:56And so lost in the noise about the Trump tariffs is that very simple fact that they are illegal
04:01because none of them have the slightest relationship to national security.
04:05Wall Street did its job today and forced Donald Trump to back down from the most destructive
04:13aspect of his demented and illegal Trump tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the tariffs on automobiles
04:20entering the United States from Canada and Mexico.
04:24After 24 hours of that tariff being in place and probably not actually being paid by anyone,
04:29Donald Trump backed down, really backed down.
04:33And it was a classic Trump reversal, which he pretends is not a reversal, saying that
04:39he's going to pause, pause the tariff on automobiles from Canada and Mexico for 30 days.
04:45And he will pause it again.
04:47He will back down again.
04:49That tariff will probably never go into effect because Donald Trump will back down because
04:54Wall Street will once again convince Donald Trump of just how insane that idea is.
05:01Wall Street does that by reacting defensively to the Trump tariffs, which means a dramatic
05:07drop in the stock market as investors seek safety in the middle of the Trump economic
05:12chaos and they sell off stocks.
05:15That's what happened the first time Donald Trump had his tariffs ready to go against
05:19Canada and Mexico.
05:20The stock market collapsed and Donald Trump was able to withstand about two hours of the
05:26collapse the day before the tariffs were supposed to go into effect.
05:30And by lunchtime, then Donald Trump announced that he was going to pause those tariffs.
05:35He wasn't going to put them into effect the next day.
05:37He would pause them for 30 days.
05:39Then the stock market started to work its way back up the next day.
05:43This time around, the stock market thought they'd figured out Donald Trump.
05:49They believed Donald Trump would pull the same trick.
05:52He'd lie and threaten the tariffs and then at the last minute, pause the tariffs.
05:58He would not impose the tariffs.
06:00But this time they guessed wrong.
06:03And the most economically ignorant president in history actually did impose those tariffs
06:08yesterday.
06:09And once again, the stock market crashed.
06:12In the middle of the trading day today, when the White House announced that Donald Trump
06:17would pause the tariffs on automobiles for 30 days, the stock market digested that news
06:24and started to go back up to exactly no one's surprise.
06:29One of Donald Trump's favorite lies until last night was that the stock market just
06:33loves him and that the stock market was never higher than under his first Trump presidency.
06:38And that was a lie.
06:39Of course, the stock market was higher under President Biden than it was under Donald Trump's
06:44presidency.
06:45In fact, the highest point the stock market has ever reached in its history was in Joe
06:49Biden's last month of the presidency.
06:52And last night, Donald Trump spoke for 99 minutes in an incoherent, rambling, lifeless,
06:58exhausting presentation with nothing designed to appeal to anyone who hasn't already voted
07:04for him.
07:06Presidents use addresses to Congress and to the nation to try to reach out to voters that
07:10they don't already have on their side.
07:13Not Donald Trump.
07:15In those rambling 99 minutes, Donald Trump never said the words stock market.
07:23When is the last time you heard Donald Trump give a long, self-congratulatory speech without
07:29telling you how great the Trump stock market is doing?
07:33Donald Trump was appearing, giving that speech on the night of a stock market crash caused
07:41by him, and he didn't say a word about the stock market in his address to Congress and
07:48the country, a country that was worried about the stock market.
07:51Not one word.
07:52The stock market crash was created by one day of the Trump tariffs being in effect.
08:00One day, one day.
08:03And at the end of that one day, Donald Trump stood up in the House of Representatives and
08:07addressed the Congress and the nation.
08:09And he did not say one word about what happened that day because of his tariffs.
08:14He said nothing about the tariffs that went into effect yesterday.
08:19Nothing about that in his speech.
08:20The single biggest news of the day worldwide created by Donald Trump, the Trump tariffs
08:26not mentioned by Donald Trump in that speech last night because he was afraid of what he
08:32did.
08:33He was standing there last night, terrified of what he did with those crazy tariffs.
08:38He was so afraid of what he did that he literally did not know what to say about it last night.
08:46He talked about tariffs generally, but not about what he had actually done yesterday.
08:51And here's one of the things he said about tariffs that actually proved his tariffs are
08:58illegal.
09:01Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again.
09:05And it's happening and it will happen rather quickly.
09:07There'll be a little disturbance, but we're OK with that.
09:13It won't be much.
09:16Supposed to be about national security.
09:18His tariffs are legally supposed to be about national security.
09:22That's the only way they can be legal.
09:23Donald Trump is too ignorant, of course, to know that he was admitting in that statement
09:28that his tariffs are illegal.
09:30And of course, by a little disturbance, he meant a stock market crash and increasing
09:35prices here in the United States.
09:38The biggest problem Donald Trump ran into yesterday when he finally decided to go forward
09:43with the stupidest economic idea ever advanced by a president of the United States is that
09:48the world stopped listening to Donald Trump about tariffs yesterday and they started listening
09:54to someone else who actually knows what he's talking about.
10:00The United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their
10:07closest friend.
10:09At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir
10:16Putin, a lying, murderous dictator.
10:20Make that make sense.
10:25Canadians are reasonable and we are polite, but we will not back down from a fight.
10:31Not when our country and the well-being of everyone in it is at stake.
10:38That man got Wall Street's attention yesterday, which made them even more worried about what
10:44was coming, because clearly the Canadian government has every intention of fighting
10:52Donald Trump's illegal tariffs in a way that will be very, very harmful to the economy
10:57of the United States.
10:58So harmful that the Wall Street Journal actually used the word Great Depression in a predictive
11:04headline of what could happen because of Donald Trump's trade war.
11:08The last Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s was actually caused by the Smoot
11:13Hawley tariffs, the single stupidest economic idea of the 20th century in the United States,
11:19an idea that came from Republicans in Congress and that a Republican president went along
11:26with but did not actually champion to the extent that Donald Trump champions his own
11:31illegal tariffs.
11:33The problem for Donald Trump yesterday is that he empowered Justin Trudeau to speak
11:38directly to the American people as someone who not just knows what he's talking about,
11:44but sounds much more convincing than the blustering, lying president of the United States.
11:51I want to speak first directly to the American people.
11:57We don't want this.
11:59We want to work with you as a friend and ally, and we don't want to see you hurt either.
12:07But your government has chosen to do this to you.
12:13Your government has chosen to do this to you.
12:17And of course, by your government, everyone in the United States and Canada and the world
12:21knows that he means Donald Trump.
12:23Donald Trump has chosen to do this to you.
12:26He chose, of course, action yesterday that would add twenty thousand dollars to the price
12:31of American cars, Dodges, Dodge Ram pickup trucks, Fords, American cars sold in the United
12:41States that in the course of their assembly often cross the Canadian border through Michigan
12:48more than once in the complex manufacturing process we have now.
12:54Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk.
13:00The thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada or because of consumers
13:07in Canada or both.
13:11They've chosen to raise costs for American consumers on everyday essential items like
13:16groceries and gas, on major purchases like cars and homes, and everything in between.
13:24They've chosen to harm American national security, impeding access to the abundant
13:30critical minerals, energy, building materials, and fertilizers that we have and that the
13:37United States needs to grow and prosper.
13:44They've chosen to launch a trade war that will, first and foremost, harm American families.
13:50Who are you going to believe, that guy or the guy who lies about who actually pays tariffs?
13:58Donald Trump backed down today to that guy.
14:04The Wall Street Journal knows that Americans pay the Trump tariffs.
14:09The Wall Street Journal knows that no one else can pay the Trump tariffs.
14:14Only Americans can pay the Trump tariffs, which is why the Wall Street Journal sees
14:17the potential for a Great Depression in what Donald Trump is doing.
14:24The legal pretext your government is using to bring in these tariffs is that Canada is
14:31apparently unwilling to help in the fight against illegal fentanyl.
14:36Well, that is totally false.
14:41Let's look at the facts.
14:43Our border is already safe and secure.
14:47More or less than 1% of fentanyl flows and less than 1% of illegal crossings into the
14:53United States comes from Canada.
14:5743 pounds.
15:00The total amount of fentanyl that crossed the Canadian border into the United States
15:05in a year is 43 pounds.
15:10You could bring that in on the trunk of your car.
15:12You could hide it under this desk.
15:16That is not a national security threat to the United States of America.
15:20Prime Minister Trudeau pointed out that Donald Trump is violating his own law that he said
15:27was the greatest trade deal in history.
15:29Donald Trump initiated a renegotiation, a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement
15:35during his first presidency.
15:38He renamed it the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and signed it, as did Justin Trudeau
15:42and the president of Mexico.
15:45Donald Trump said then it's the greatest trade deal ever negotiated, of course.
15:50That's the current trade law with Canada and Mexico right now, until Donald Trump decided
15:58to change it.
15:59Why would he have to change the greatest trade deal ever negotiated?
16:03He negotiated it.
16:05That's what he told us it was, the greatest trade deal ever negotiated.
16:09NBC News is reporting that Donald Trump is very upset that his mass deportation plan
16:17is not going well.
16:18It is not mass at all.
16:21NBC News reports a source familiar with Trump's thinking said the president is getting angry
16:26that more people are not being deported and that the message is being passed along to
16:31Border Czar Tom Homan.
16:34It's driving him nuts.
16:35They're not deporting more people, said a person familiar with Trump's thinking.
16:40Driving him nuts.
16:41So far, Donald Trump is on track to deport fewer people this year than President Obama
16:48did in a typical year.
16:49And so to distract from his failed promise of mass deportations, Donald Trump apparently
16:56decided to play with tariffs and earn himself a prediction of a Great Depression from The
17:03Wall Street Journal.
17:05Republicans in the House of Representatives failed today in their desperate attempts to
17:09humiliate a group of Democratic mayors who they accused of not being eager, eager enough
17:16to help Donald Trump deport people.
17:18If you watch the hearing, other than the embarrassing presence of New York's Mayor Eric Adams, who
17:23is still under indictment for bribery and was treated like a visiting dignitary by the
17:29Republicans, what was actually on display was an astonishing demonstration of Democratic
17:35Party competence and political talent in the city halls of Chicago, Denver and Boston.
17:44Boston's Mayor Michelle Wu, who is herself a daughter of immigrants, was nursing her
17:49infant baby daughter during recesses in the hearing.
17:54She said this when she was asked about Trump's so-called border czar threatening to bring
18:02what he called hell to Boston.
18:06Shame on him for lying about my city, for having the nerve to insult our police commissioner
18:12who has overseen the safest Boston's been in anyone's lifetime.
18:18Bring him here under oath and let's ask him some questions.
18:21I am here to make sure that the city of Boston is safe.
18:25Others may want to bring hell.
18:27We are here to bring peace to cities everywhere.
18:30Because our gun laws are the strongest in the nation.
18:33Because our officers have built relationships over decades.
18:37And because all of our residents can trust that when they call 911 in the event of an
18:42emergency or to report a crime, help will come.
18:47This federal administration's approach is undermining that trust.
18:51This federal administration is making hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing residents afraid to
18:58live their lives.
19:01A city that's scared is not a city that's safe.
19:05A land ruled by fear is not the land of the free.
19:09We are the cradle of democracy and the city of champions.
19:14We are all of these things not in spite of our immigrants, but because of them.
19:18The false narrative is that immigrants in general are criminals or immigrants in general
19:24cause all sorts of danger and harm.
19:26That is actually what is undermining safety in our communities.
19:30If you wanted to make us safe, pass gun reforms.
19:34Stop cutting Medicaid.
19:36Stop cutting cancer research.
19:37Stop cutting funds for veterans.
19:40That is what will make our city safe.
19:43Like so many Boston Catholics, she had her ashes on her forehead today on Ash Wednesday.
19:50There were some words that were very conspicuously absent from Donald Trump's marathon speech
19:54last night.
19:55Words like Medicare and Medicaid.
19:58Here's the last thing Donald Trump said about that before last night's speech.
20:03Social Security won't be touched.
20:05Other than if it's fraud or something, we're going to find it's going to be strengthened.
20:09But won't be touched.
20:10Medicare, Medicaid.
20:11None of that stuff is going to be touched.
20:14Won't be touched.
20:15He didn't say that last night.
20:17He said Social Security is full of fraud, which is a lie.
20:20And he literally never mentioned the existence of Medicare or Medicaid exactly a year ago
20:27in that same chamber.
20:29The president of the United States did mention Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in
20:34a way that infuriated the Republicans sitting there.
20:37President Joe Biden, in the best televised State of the Union address I have ever seen,
20:42provoked loud objections from the Republicans when he accused them of wanting to cut those
20:49programs.
20:50Many of my friends on the other side of Iowa want to put Social Security on the chopping
20:56block.
20:57If anyone here tries to cut Social Security, Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will
21:02stop you.
21:03The working people.
21:04The working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires
21:18and billionaires do.
21:20It's not fair.
21:22We have two ways to go.
21:25Republicans can cut Social Security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy.
21:30You see that little head shaking, no, sitting there behind the president, Speaker Mike Johnson
21:36shook his head, no.
21:38When Joe Biden said Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare.
21:44We have two ways to go.
21:46Republicans can cut Social Security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy.
21:51That's the proposal.
21:52Oh, no, you guys don't want another two trillion dollar tax cut.
21:59I kind of thought that's what your plan was.
22:01Well, that's good to hear.
22:04You're not going to cut another two trillion dollars for the super wealth.
22:07That's good to hear.
22:10I'll protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share.
22:15Best, quickest, most effective ad lib by a president in a State of the Union address
22:19in that live moment of negotiating with the Republicans right there in front of everyone.
22:24Joe Biden saved Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare from Republican attacks for
22:29another year.
22:31There was no pledge last night from Donald Trump to not touch Social Security, Medicare
22:34or Medicaid, because every Republican in the House of Representatives except one has already
22:39voted to, at minimum, dramatically cut Medicaid by eight hundred eighty billion dollars.
22:44They voted for that in a budget resolution that is a promise to vote for exactly those
22:49cuts in what they call a budget reconciliation bill.
22:51And that bill comes through through the House.
22:54It is impossible to achieve the trillions of dollars in budget cutting that Elon Musk
22:59is promising, that Donald Trump is promising, that the Republicans in the House and Senate
23:02are promising without the biggest cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in
23:07history.
23:08For Social Security, that means cutting the amounts of money you will receive from Social
23:13Security.
23:14For Medicare, that means increasing the amounts of copays you have to pay and reducing the
23:20amount of medical coverage that Medicare provides to you.
23:23For Medicaid, it means cutting the amount of health care coverage Medicaid provides
23:28and disqualifying current recipients and disqualify them from continuing to receive Medicaid,
23:35which will mean throwing people out of nursing homes and shutting down most nursing homes
23:42in America because Medicaid is the primary payer for nursing homes in the United States
23:50of America.
23:51So even if your family is actually paying the full price for your grandfather being
23:56a nursing home, that nursing home could be closed down when the Republicans cut eight
24:01hundred eighty billion dollars for Medicaid, because most of the residents of that nursing
24:05home will get kicked out and there won't be enough residents who can pay the full price
24:12to keep that nursing home operating.
24:14Our health care system is very complex, as in that example I just gave you, and Medicaid
24:19and Medicare support much more in our health care system than just the patients who are
24:25the direct beneficiaries of those programs.
24:28And Donald Trump doesn't know that.
24:30If the Republicans have their way, your local TV station will be covering the days when
24:34some of the oldest people in America are being kicked out of their nursing homes after the
24:38guy who promised Sean Hannity he wouldn't touch Medicaid rips Medicaid coverage away
24:44from the poorest people in this country and the oldest people in this country.
24:48And that is the plan.
24:49And that's why Donald Trump did not dare to say the word Medicaid last night.
24:53That's why Republican members of the House of Representatives who have already voted
24:57for those Medicaid cuts have been told by the congressman in charge of funding congressional
25:02campaigns to stop doing town hall meetings where voters can voice their fears about what's
25:07going to happen at their local nursing homes.
25:11If you're one of the people or if your grandmother is one of the people who gets kicked out of
25:16her nursing home because of Donald Trump and the Republican Congress, you're going to suffer
25:20something even worse than the Great Depression.
25:24The Wall Street Journal is predicting if Donald Trump doesn't continue to back down.
25:37The Wall Street Journal is predicting if Donald Trump doesn't continue to back down.