I can’t wait to see what the fallout is from this! The only question is whether there’s a reporter at the White House who wants to keep being a reporter at the White House, but who will risk that status to show up Karoline Leavitt for the fool and fraud that she is. Maybe Peter Doocy will continue to surprise us by asking direct questions. I know nothing of Doocy, don’t want to know, but I would bet good money that he owns a lot of stock because his stock market related questions are straightforward. He encapsulates the paranoia we all feel, whether it’s people with thousands in a money market account or investments in the millions.
So in this world of wonders where Fox News is asking direct financial questions (when it isn’t begging its Viewer in Chief to stand down) and Karoline Leavitt openly declares “tariffs are a tax CUT” we have none other than the pugalistic senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin chiming in. What is Mullin thinking to spill the beans like this? Doesn’t he know what an enemy he will have in Leavitt when this gets around? Mullin told CNN that “tariffs are a tax paid by the consumer.” Are you ready to fall over?
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) made a frank admission on Wednesday, telling CNN that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are effectively a tax that consumers will be stuck paying. Nevertheless, the senator said he supports the tariffs as part of a longer-term effort to encourage the domestic production of goods.
Trump has announced, paused, imposed, and scaled back various tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, the two largest U.S. trading partners. The whirlwind, on/off nature of the tariffs has roiled markets and cast a cloud of uncertainty over the business world.
“[T]he businesses seem confused,” Kaitlan Collins told Mullin on The Source. “What’s a business leader left to think? Or an investor?”
Mullin acknowledged, “It’s tough right now” and that businesses “need certainty.”
“Tariffs is a tax and it will be passed on to consumers,” he conceded. “But it also allows us to have open markets. So, if you want to have open markets and access to other markets, so let’s go past Canada, and let’s go past Mexico and start talking about the rest of the countries we allow to come in here that the president says we want to have reciprocal tariffs on you. If you’re going to charge us 36%, we’re going to charge you 36%. If you want to charge us zero, we’ll charge you zero.”
Collins responded by noting Mullin’s admission that tariffs are essentially a tax. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt bizarrely claimed that tariffs amount to a tax cut for Americans.
“What you just said is important – that a tariff is a tax and it is passed on to consumers,” the host said.
“Of course it is,” Mullin replied. “Everybody knows that.”
“That is something the white house does not acknowledge,” Collins said.
It’s not only something the White House won’t acknowledge, the true definition of what a tariff is constitutes fightin’ words to the harebrain at the podium, Leavitt. She got riled up at an Associated Press reporter when he asked her, “Have you ever paid a tariff?” She snarled at him, “How dare you question my knowledge of economics? I’m sorry I called on you.”
But now what will Leavitt do? She’s got Mullin telling the truth about what the definition of a tariff actually is and how is she going to refute that? Maybe she should go ask her boss, Mad King Donald, what he thinks a tariff really is?
“No, that is something that the president, who as a business person, understands that completely,” [what a tariff is] Mullin insisted. “No one understands the economy better than this president. There hasn’t been a president that understands the economy better than this president.”
Just a reminder that Dubya has an MBA and he didn’t seem to grasp the economy either. In any event, this is deadly to Mullin. Either Trump is not the genius economic mind that Mullin is making him out to be or he is and he’s deliberately made up this fable about a tariff being a due/fee of some sort that the country pays when it sends its goods here. That has been Trump’s claim all along, even this morning when he got on Truth Social and claimed in all-caps “TARIFF RELATED MONEY IS POURING INTO THE UNITED STATES.”
Great. And where is Elon directing that money to go? In his pockets? I can’t wait for the next White House presser and see if anybody calls Leavitt on this.
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Friends, we are surviving through hard times like other media outlets, except we’re a lot smaller. Views have crashed at all outlets, not just this one. Any donation that you make will go to defray our operating expenses, so that we can survive through this rough passage. I am sure that depressed Democrats will tune back in at some point. We’re here for the duration until they do. Thank you. Ursula
Tariffs are a tax paid by the consumers. If the consumers stop buying, we won’t be rolling in money. Tax champagne at 200%, at 500% or whatever. There is nothing to celebrate.
Money is not pouring into the US, it is coming from the pockets of consumers. Of course, then Trump and co. can divert into the pockets of the already wealthy. Like Matilda said, if we stop buying things, they won’t have the money to play with.
Markwayne, his parents couldn’t decide, is an unmitigated tool and should be a washed up rodeo cowboy, not a U.S. senator. As for Mullin, I can’t decide what she is. One part of me wants to call her a blonde bimbo but it may not be as simple as that. She could be wildly naive or a true believer, I just don’t know. One thing is certain, she’s every bit as qualified as the old Huskster at disseminating lies in service of the master.