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‘I almost choked’: Economist highlights gobsmacking moment of Trump’s speech
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman found himself particularly floored by a moment in President Donald Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday in which he made boasts about boosting auto manufacturing even as his tariffs on Canada and Mexico threaten to cripple auto supply chains.
Writing on his Substack page, Krugman explained how car production in the United States will be hampered by the tariffs on America's two biggest trading partners given the way that cars are assembled across all three countries.
"Automobile production, which is deeply integrated across our northern and southern borders — there really isn’t a U.S. auto industry, there’s a North American industry operating in all three countries — will be especially hard hit," he wrote. "I almost choked when Trump declared last night that 'we are going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody has ever seen.' Well, I guess we’ve never seen a large downturn in auto production outside a major recession, which is not to say that we won’t get a recession too."
ALSO READ: 'The savings aren't large': Conservatives say DOGE is just 'a distraction' for what's next
Taking stock of Trump's economic policies as a whole, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk's slash-and-burn approach to federal workers, Krugman argued that the United States right now is "trapped in a burning Tesla."
"If you don’t know this, the doors on Musk’s cars are designed to open electronically; if they have manual releases at all, they’re difficult to get at and use," he explained. "As a result, there have been multiple instances of people burning alive inside Teslas when the engines catch fire. Well, large parts of the U.S. economy and government appear to be on the verge of self-immolation. And given the combination of arrogance and ignorance shared by Musk and Trump, it’s hard to see how we get out."
National News
‘A real fracture’: GOP insider highlights ‘underappreciated’ feud in MAGA Republican party
A GOP strategist on Sunday flagged what he says is an "underappreciated fracture" among MAGA Republicans.
Brendan Buck, a former key adviser to ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), appeared on MSNBC over the weekend, and was asked about a recent "contentious cabinet meeting" involving Donald Trump appointee and richest man in the world Elon Musk.
The host asked Buck, "Can all sides coexist?"
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Buck replied that the dispute between Musk and Steve Bannon is "an underappreciated fracture in the current GOP."
"Look, Steve Bannon has been a foot soldier for Donald Trump. He went to jail for Donald Trump for a really long time. And I think he is understandably, deeply skeptical of Elon Musk, who, you know, was not even really a close ally of Donald Trump the first time around and sort of came out of nowhere and has really stolen the spotlight," Buck said. "Let's remember, Steve Bannon was a close advisor in the White House the first time around and I think he has real questions about what Elon Musk is up to."
Buck added, "We know that that Trumpism is sort of anti-immigrant nationalist and it's not clear that Elon Musk shares any of those views."
"Now, Donald trump needs both of those people. I think he likes what Elon Musk is doing," he said. "But if Steve Bannon keeps railing against him, I think that there's a real fracture that could happen here because Steve Bannon has been through this. He has the real, you know, credibility with the MAGA movement. So unless these two get on the same page, I expect trump's going to have to keep intervening."
