The Daly Weekly (4/11)

Peter Navarro, Douglas Murray, Bernie Sanders, and More!

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw at me.

Let’s get right to it…

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Greetings Sir John: Elon Musk and Peter Navarro are publicly feuding over these dumb tariffs that Trump seems to love so much (as Navarro does also but Musk does not). I’m no economist but it sounds to me like Elon is talking good sense here. While it’s obvious that Elon has a personal stake in this because of Tesla, I still think he’s making better sense than Navarro and Trump on these dumb trade wars. Do you believe that Elon will eventually can and WILL talk some sense into Trump, especially since Trump appears to respect Elon? —“Dear Elon” regards from The Emperor

Yes, after losing $40-50 billion from just a few days of Trump’s latest trade war, Musk publicly spoke out against the policy. Only, rather than go after Trump (the guy who enacted it), he set his sights on Peter Navarro.

Anyway, Musk is obviously right on this (free trade is good), and Trump and Navarro are wrong (trade wars are self-defeating). Trump did (kind of) change course — at least for now, but I don’t think it had anything to do with Musk (who I don’t think Trump so much respects, as he enjoys being flattered by the world’s richest man). And really, the tariffs Trump left in place are still very bad, and causing real damage to the U.S. economy (as have all of these tariff disruptions). The same financial organizations that were predicting a recession before his latest walk-back are still saying a recession is likely.

In my view, no one person should have this kind of power to tank the global economy. Congress should immediately and rightfully take back tariff power from the presidency. They should have never given it up in the first place decades ago.

John, what’s your take on the SAVE Act. A Gallup poll shows 84% of Americans want voter ID in our elections. Yet every Dem in House voted against the majority of their constituents on it. You can’t be a legal, residing, citizen in this country, and live and function in our society, without a valid ID. Why is having one to vote an issue. What am I missing here. — Rob O.

Hi Rob. I haven’t actually read the legislation, but I’m among that 84% that thinks a voter ID requirement is a good idea. Democrats have long argued that making voters go through that hoop amounts to voter suppression, but I’ve never understood that reasoning. Like you said, identification is required for all kinds of things less important than voting.

John: Trump owes much of his 2024 victory to the threat of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the work of Robert Hur to discredit Biden’s mental capacity. So should Trump change his pronouns to Xi/Hur? — Steve R.

*ba-dum-tshh* Well done, sir.

I find it amusing how Fox News is running old clips of Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders arguing FOR protectionism and tariffs years ago. They are obviously doing this to try and "expose" Democrats as hypocrites (as if that is breaking news). But this also means Fox is actively telling their audience that Trump's economic plan is a old, outdated left wing Democratic plan. And their audience is too stupid to understand the irony. — John M.

Yep. The MAGA-right is apparently “owning the libs” by stealing and implementing all the libs’ policy ideas. It’s really kind of amazing how many people (on both sides) don’t recognize this, but partisanship blinds individuals to a lot of things.

Did you happen to see Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan’s show debating Dave Smith? It’s all over the internet. — Ben G.

I’ve seen a number of clips from it, and I very much enjoyed watching Murray (who’s a tremendously bright guy) completely decimate Smith (who’s an overly smug know-nothing and conspiracy-dope masquerading as a bright guy). For those who haven’t seen it, I would very much recommend seeking it out. I can’t do it justice just by describing it.

We as a country are $37 trillion in debt. That is the reason for the tariffs and DOGE! It’s now or never. — Conrad P.

With all due respect, Conrad, that’s nonsense. Neither of those things address our debt problem… even a tiny bit. Nor are they intended to. Trump is increasing our deficits, not decreasing them. Overall spending is up under Trump, not down. Unfortunately, there is virtually no interest from either major political party in addressing our national debt catastrophe.

It turns out that Peter Navarro invented an “expert” source named “Ron Vara” so he could quote the made-up individual over and over again in his books to qualify how great his own ideas supposedly were. Surprised? — Alex D.

Not even a little, Alex. It can’t be emphasized enough that Navarro’s economic ideas are rejected by virtually every economist on the planet (because they’re nonsensical). Of course he would have had to invent someone to say they made sense. It can’t be emphasized enough how outrageous it was for this guy to be allowed to craft U.S. trade policy, but he was, and our country is paying a terrible price for it.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.