On "Forbes Newsroom," Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) warned that President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs might lead to a recession, weighed in the Signal leak scandal rocking the Trump Administration.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now
00:07is Congressman Jason Crow. Congressman, thank you so much for joining me.
00:11Thank you, Brittany. It's good to be with you.
00:13Good to be with you, especially today, one day after what President Trump dubbed as Liberation
00:19Day, where he unveiled his sweeping tariff policy. He announced 10 percent or more tariffs
00:24on imports from most countries around the world. So to start off the conversation, what
00:29do you make of the plan?
00:30Well, the only thing that's going to be liberated here, Brittany, is money from Americans'
00:35pockets and from their retirement accounts. This is going to be devastating. I think it
00:39could risk a recession is what a lot of economists are predicting. Prices across the board for
00:44every product, for vehicles, for eggs, for groceries, for housing, everything is going
00:50to go up and it's going to go up very quickly.
00:53I am a proponent of targeted tariffs. Tariffs can be a really important tool when they're
01:01used as a scalpel to make sure that we have fair trade, to make sure that people are competing
01:08on a level playing field, but never have broad-based, complete tariffs like this ever effectively
01:16worked.
01:17That has been the widespread response. Tariffs are a tax on the American consumer. Prices
01:22are going to go up. Spending is going to shrink. Vice President J.D. Vance had a conversation
01:27today on the impact of tariffs and what he was asked about what seems to be the disconnect
01:31between what Wall Street is saying, what the markets are saying, and workers in the Rose
01:36Garden who were cheering President Trump on on Wednesday. He was also asked about Americans
01:41who are living paycheck to paycheck, who are concerned about the tariffs, what he says
01:45to them. And this is in part what he said, quote, We will not fix things overnight. Joe
01:49Biden left us with the largest peacetime debt and deficit in the history of the United
01:53States of America with sky-high interest rates. You don't fix that overnight. We know people
01:58are struggling. We're fighting as quickly as we can to fix what was left to us.
02:03What do you make of his response there?
02:04Well, the largest deficit increases in the last few decades have actually happened under
02:09the Trump administration. The first Trump administration saw exorbitant increases in
02:15the the federal debt and deficit. And in fact, his tax bill, his tax cut for billionaires
02:21in the top one percent is largely felt on the backs of middle class working Americans
02:27and the debt. His tax bill is going to increase the debt by several trillion dollars. So it's
02:32doublespeak is what it is. But, you know, the other thing that I've been hearing a lot
02:36of coming out of this administration, you know, all the all the CEOs, the billionaires
02:40that surround him in the White House, they say, oh, there's going to be short term pain
02:45for a long term gain. Listen, I grew up in a working class family. I worked construction
02:52to help pay my way through college. I started working when I was 15 at Arby's and McDonald's
02:57to help support my family. And, you know, the people that I grew up with and around
03:03these folks largely lived paycheck to paycheck. And what I learned is that when people at
03:08the top and people in Washington are talking about short term pain, they're not talking
03:13about themselves. Right. They're talking about everybody else. They're talking about the
03:17working folks. They're the ones that will feel the short term pain. They're the ones
03:21that won't be able to pay for their mortgage or their rent or groceries for their family,
03:26not the folks at the top. So I really don't want to hear it about short term pain. I want
03:31to make sure that we have a good solution for fair trade, that we reinvigorate our industrial
03:36base so that people can actually pay their rent or their mortgage at the end of this
03:40month. It's interesting because Democrats and Republicans alike are talking about that
03:44short term pain. But what do you think the long term implication is? Because economists,
03:50as you said, say, hey, we're getting dangerously close to a recession here because of this
03:55tariff policy. Tariffs are widely expected to raise prices and inflation rates. They're
03:59expected, as we said, to shrink consumer spending and disposable income. No one wants to hear
04:04that when the economy has continued to be a top concern for Americans over the past
04:08two years or so, and especially with summer right around the corner. So what do you think
04:12are some of those long term implications to Americans? Well, you know, I think another
04:17really important fact here must be stated, and that is this list of numbers that are
04:24the basis for the so-called reciprocal tariffs, because it sounds great, right? You say, oh,
04:29we're going to impose tariffs that are similar to what they're imposing on us. But the problem
04:35is, is those numbers, nobody knows where they come from. Economists, businesses, people
04:42in industry, they're looking at this literal chart of numbers that the Trump administration
04:47has publicized, you know, 39 percent, 28 percent, 25 percent. And nobody actually can tell where
04:55those numbers are coming from because they're not actually supported by reality and they
04:59don't add up to the number the Trump administration is saying they add up to. So there's a very
05:06real problem here in that the White House and Donald Trump appear to be creating these
05:11numbers out of whole cloth and then imposing these tariffs that will be disastrous for
05:16working class Americans that are going to undermine our relationships around the world
05:21and actually make it harder for American manufacturers that rely on raw materials and supplies from
05:27imports to actually create their products. So this is not well thought out and it's going
05:32to cause a lot of damage to a lot of folks.
05:35Aside from the Auto Workers Union, who was supporting the auto related tariffs, the response
05:40to these tariffs has largely been negative. I mean, we saw markets open today and they
05:44took a nosedive. An editorial in The Economist called Liberation Day the, quote, most profound,
05:50harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era. Politically speaking, do you
05:56think this tariff policy is going to be a death sentence for Republicans?
06:01Well, I don't know. I think that remains to be seen. And I'm frankly, a lot less concerned
06:06about what this means politically and whether it's a death sentence for a political party
06:10than the impact it's going to have. The people who are going to lose homes, the people who
06:14are going to lose jobs, the people who aren't going to be able to buy groceries for their
06:17family. Like that's who I'm worried about. And that's who's really going to be crushed
06:22by this. Listen, this has never worked. You know, these broad based tariffs, we tried
06:26this in the 1930s to raise revenue and try to get us out of the Great Depression. Guess
06:32what? It actually plunged us further into the Great Depression. So I don't understand
06:38why the Trump administration believes that a policy or an approach that has repeatedly
06:42failed in the past, they think for some reason is going to work right now. It's just not.
06:47That's proven. I mean, already people are losing money in their 401k and their retirement
06:52plan. We're already seeing increases in goods. This is this is once again a perfect example
06:58of the Trump administration creating self-inflicted pain that's unnecessary. And that's the wrong
07:05approach, whether it's, you know, destroying vast swaths of essential government services
07:11and our national security and our defense and our aviation safety and our health care
07:16system, or whether it's turning their backs on our allies and our partners that fight
07:21with us around the world and who we rely on for our national security, or in this instance,
07:26undermining our economy and our import export system because they haven't thought this well,
07:33well out or they haven't really thought this through at all. It's really a problem.
07:37Congressman, before I let you go, I do want to ask you about a story that broke a little
07:42over a week ago. It's been dubbed Signal Gate. But just to recap, the editor in chief of
07:47The Atlantic says he was inadvertently added to a signal group with the nation's top security
07:52leaders talking about an imminent airstrike against the Houthis in Yemen. I know that
07:58you've called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. What else are you
08:02looking for? How do you think the administration can rectify the situation?
08:06Well, I want a thorough and complete investigation. Listen, I'm primarily concerned here about
08:11the safety and the well-being of our service members who are, you know, tens of thousands
08:15of them, actually hundreds of thousands around the world, fighting, doing difficult missions
08:20for us, keeping us safe. And, you know, more and more revelations come out every day about,
08:26you know, dozens of these unsecure chat chains on everything from Ukraine and Russia to China
08:32to Iran issues. We're learning more and more by the day. This just needs to stop, right?
08:39We need to stop this recklessness, this carelessness. Somebody needs to clean this up. The administration
08:44still hasn't admitted that it's wrong. They still haven't admitted that it's a problem.
08:48So they have to admit that it was a mistake. Then they need to do an investigation to figure
08:52out the scope of it. And then we need to figure out what we need to do to clean it up, because
08:56that's what our troops who are doing dangerous stuff on our behalf deserve.
09:00Congressman, in your opinion, who is that somebody that needs to clean it up? Because
09:04there were a lot of our nation's top security leaders in that group chat, including Vice
09:08President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, even the National Security Advisor
09:13Michael Waltz. He was the one who set that up.
09:16Yeah, well, the two obvious organizations would be the Department of Justice, right?
09:20It can't be just one organization, DOD, the National Security Council, you know, State
09:26Department. The DOJ should have authority over this and does have authority over an
09:32investigation of this type. Unfortunately, Attorney General Bondi has refused to conduct
09:38the investigation, which is obviously a major problem. So notwithstanding that, Congress
09:44has both authority and a responsibility to do it.
09:47So a group of us from the Intelligence Committee, the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee
09:51on which I sit, wrote a letter to the administration demanding the convening of a full investigation
09:59under Congress and asking Republicans, our colleagues, to join us in that effort. We
10:04hope that they will. I'm not holding my breath. But this is really the right thing to do and
10:08what our troops deserve. So a congressional investigation should be started quickly,
10:14in my opinion. But we need Republicans to join us to do that.
10:17Appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for joining me. You're welcome back anytime.
10:21Yeah. Thanks for the conversation. Thanks for having me.