The following is a lightly edited transcript of the March 5 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
After President Donald Trump’s tariffs went into effect, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered an extraordinary and heartfelt plea to the American people. He ran through all the awful impacts this will have and then said this to Americans: “Your government has chosen to do this to you.” This comes as anxiety is clearly rising in Republican ranks about the tariffs, and we’re not sure people yet appreciate what a disaster this could become for the GOP. Even as they’re expressing trepidation, they’re also feeling forced to keep defending the tariffs because, in today’s GOP, daring to utter the mildest criticism of the MAGA god-king is akin to a political death sentence. Columnist E.J. Dionne has a useful new piece that parses through a lot of data to illustrate just how unpopular the tariffs truly are, so we’re talking to him today about all this. E.J., it’s good to have you back on.
E.J. Dionne: It’s great to be with one of my favorite political writers going way back.
Sargent: Thank you, E.J. Well, a lot of economists are now predicting dramatic rises in prices, a potential trade war, and, in one case, a global depression from these tariffs, which are 25 percent across the board for imports from Canada and Mexico and new levies on China. Here’s what Prime Minister Trudeau had to say about all this.
Justin Trudeau (audio voiceover): I want to speak first directly to the American people. We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally. And we don’t want to see you hurt either. But your government has chosen to do this to you. As of this morning, markets are down, and inflation is set to rise dramatically all across your country. Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk at the thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada or because of consumers in Canada or both. And they’ve chosen to undermine the incredible work we’ve done together to tackle the scourge that is fentanyl, a drug that must be wiped from the face of the earth. So on that point, let me be crystal clear: There is absolutely no justification or need whatsoever for these tariffs today.
Sargent: E.J., Canada is set to retaliate with tariffs on over $100 billion in American goods. China has slapped tariffs on a whole range of agricultural products. What do you make of Trudeau’s speech?
Dionne: I don’t think I’ve ever heard a foreign leader speak that way to the American people directly. It was the speech of someone who knew that Canada was on his side—and bear in mind, Trudeau had been, until recently, an exceptionally unpopular leader, to the point where he had to step down. Since he stepped down and since Trump became president and started making this threat, his liberal party in Canada, which has been way behind in the polls, has now pulled ahead of the conservative. So he knows his country is with him. I think he also spoke as someone who understands that an awful lot of Americans agree with him, in the sense that a great many Americans do not understand why we are slapping tariffs on one of our very, very best friends in the world.
Sargent: I don’t think anybody understands why Trump is doing this. E.J., you analyzed what the polls are showing about the tariffs. A noteworthy thing here is that not only are the tariffs unpopular but Americans also think, as you wrote, that Trump isn’t focused on the things they care about, meaning prices. What I take from that is that Americans don’t see Trump’s tariffs as an economic plus—and that’s their whole stated rationale. That’s a problem, right? What are the numbers showing, E.J.?
Dionne: What the numbers show overall is that Trump’s first five weeks have slightly weakened him among his own supporters and immensely strengthened opposition to him. Those demonstrations out there at Tesla plants and the town meetings—that’s measuring something real. That opposition to him has really solidified according to the surveys. And as you said, the polls clearly show that Americans are very unhappy with Trump’s economic stewardship, and they think he’s not caring [or] he doesn’t, hasn’t focused on the problems he cares about. On the tariffs, there’s across-the-board opposition. Fifty-nine percent in a Post-Ipsos survey expressed real skepticism about the tariffs, including about a third of Republicans, on Mexico; 64 percent opposed the tariffs on Canadian goods; and even on the Chinese tariffs, which are more popular, they find a close split of 50 to 45 percent. But what’s really important is Americans understand that they’re going to pay for these tariffs. Sixty-nine percent in the Post survey said their effect would be to increase prices, so this is a real problem for Trump.
Sargent: That’s a really fascinating point you raise there, because it shows that Trump’s propaganda on this stuff has utterly failed. He has relentlessly tried to say that the only people who are going to pay for these tariffs are the countries that he’s slapping them on. And I don’t know whether he actually believes that or not—maybe he said it so many times that he’s come to believe it—but clearly the American people are not buying it. They understand what a tariff is, and that seems to me to be pretty crucial. It’s not that much to ask for, but I’m glad to see it.
Dionne: I’m a small-d Democrat, so I say this: I think people underestimate the wisdom of the people in general. No matter how often Trump says, You will pay this, I’ve seen pretty consistently at least 60 percent and usually 70 percent plus say, We understand that we’re going to pay these tariffs. And it’s heartening that all the Trump propaganda in the world doesn’t work, but it’s also a real problem for Trump. And in any event, if this does increase prices at the supermarket, everybody’s going to notice that.
By the way, these tariffs are a real mess for the American auto industry because so much of the auto industry in our country involves parts going back and forth across the border from Canada and Mexico. I saw one figure today—that [these tariffs] could increase the price of an American car, or a broadly American car, by $2,500. So people are going to see these if they endure. I wonder if the pressure from public opinion, from Republicans in Congress who oppose this, from Trudeau and the pushback from Canada and also Mexico are going to make him say, I won the concessions I want, and pull back. The last time he did it before he imposed it. I wonder if this time he’s going to have to do it after he imposed it.
Sargent: Well, he has shown an inclination to do that. And with Mexico, it’s particularly interesting because one of the fake justifications for his tariffs is that he’s forcing Mexico to actually crack down on migrants in fentanyl. In reality, the former president negotiated an arrangement with Mexico at around the time of 2023 to 2024, which got Mexico to actually start cracking down on migrants going north through Mexico to the southern border of the U.S in a big way. That’s a big reason the crossings went down. He’s trying to take credit for the lower crossings, and I think what he’ll try to say is that his threat of tariffs is what did it, when, in fact, it was his predecessor.
Dionne: Right. I think they’ve gone to a trickle now because people know Trump is president. But yes, they really started dropping under Biden. But the other thing here is the sheer—it’s not even hypocrisy—weirdness when he attacks those who made lousy deals with Canada and Mexico when the trade agreement we have, the USMCA, was negotiated by Donald Trump when he was president the first time. So when he’s saying leaders negotiated lousy trade deals, he’s talking about himself. It’s very bizarre.
Sargent: That Donald Trump, he’s really a terrible dealmaker.
Dionne: Yeah, exactly.
Sargent: That’s what Donald Trump says anyway, right?
Dionne: If you take him at his word, as it were, which is something I guess we rarely do.
Sargent: We probably shouldn’t. E.J., Republicans are starting to speak out about this now. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas said he’s “uneasy,” and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he’s “concerned.” That’s an easy thing to make fun of: Susan Collins being concerned and all that. But there’s a real issue here for them that isn’t going away: The retaliatory tariffs from Canada and China are both aimed at our agricultural exports. And that means a lot of pain in red America, in particular, right? Because exports are such a big source of the money for American farmers these days?
Dionne: This is bad for American farmers on multiple levels. First, they do export a lot. They rely on exports to the point where the last time Trump did tariffs, he had to have the taxpayers bail out the farmers with a whole lot of money. And I’m waiting to see if the new, efficient Trump-Musk government is going to have to have a new bailout for farmers. The other thing is Canadians are making a big deal about the fact that potash is very important to American farmers—and that’s an import from Canada. And so [tariffs will hit] a lot of Trump country, farm country especially. Also, it hits swing voters in states like Michigan and Ohio with the auto industry. There are just a lot of ways in which these tariffs are going to hurt people right in his base or the swing voters who helped elect him.
Sargent: E.J., you mentioned the bailout of American farmers that happened during Trump’s first term. The funny thing is, Republicans are now actually starting to talk about another one. Republicans are twisting themselves into knots to defend the tariffs. And they’re saying things like, Don’t worry, farmers, we will pass something that gives you financial assistance through this process, which is functionally an admission that Trump’s policy is going to hurt them. The problem is that Republicans can’t break with Trump on anything, even if it hurts their own voters. They are actually required to put Trump above their own constituents. How long can that last though, E.J.?
Dionne: If the bailouts are big enough, farmers will feel OK. Those farmers mostly voted for Trump in 2024. The hypocrisy [is] of a Republican Party that talks about free markets for everybody else, especially if you’re really poor by the way, but supports market-twisting bailouts to help a constituency that they really care about. I hope a lot of people out there talk about the hypocrisy of this with reference to all of the pro-market rhetoric that they throw out there.
Sargent: I think that’s a great point. Democrats really need to emphasize it, don’t they?
Dionne: I truly hope they do. For a long time, there’s been a deal in Congress where Democrats more or less support farm programs that are helpful to farmers in exchange for Republicans supporting food stamps, supporting SNAP, nutrition benefits. And a lot of farmers realize that’s actually good for them to have poor people be able to buy food too. The cuts they are talking about in their budget, the cuts signaled by their budget resolution, will include very deep cuts in SNAP. And so here you will have more subsidies for the people who produce food and less help for people to afford buying it. So again, I hope that is something we should and will hear from Democrats; and if there are any Republicans out there willing to say it, it would be very nice.
Sargent: It certainly would. I don’t think there will be unless this gets worse, which it probably will. We should probably also point out that there are a lot of food stamp recipients in Trump country too. So they’re triply screwing their own people.
Dionne: This is becoming an enormous problem for Republicans because these members of Congress are well aware how many of their constituents are on Medicaid. Lots of older Americans are on Medicaid; a huge proportion of people in nursing homes are on Medicaid; a lot of people in states—in Appalachia, for example—have benefited from Medicaid subsidies under Obamacare. So Republicans are going to have trouble passing this resolution because they’re not only going to face attacks from the right wing who want more cuts at everything but they’re also going to face reluctance both among more moderate conservatives—there are no real moderates anymore—and pretty conservative people who have a lot of constituents who depend on government help to afford healthcare.
Sargent: It’s really interesting that you put it that way. I can’t think of anything Republicans are doing that will help their own constituents, at least the lower income ones. Can you point to anything?
Dionne: The short answer: I remember a famous quote from Dwight Eisenhower. When he was asked, “What did Richard Nixon do when he was your vice president?” he said, “If you give me a week, I can think of something.” So I’ll channel that great Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, because nothing immediately comes to my head.
Sargent: By the way, on top of all that, they’re going to have to pass billions and billions and billions of dollars for Trump’s immigration crackdown, which is going to throw people out of the country who work in the agricultural sector, potentially people who are revitalizing red America as well.
Dionne: No, that’s right. There were a lot of towns in red America that have been revitalized with populations of new immigrants, which we forget about. And one of my pet peeves about this Musk operation is how much time of people who do hard work for our government is wasted filling out these stupid questionnaires that Elon Musk is asking them to fill out. I saw an estimate of something like $17 million every time people fill these out. And that’s probably a low estimate because it only counted 15 minutes—folks who are worried to death that they might lose their jobs are putting real time in answering these things. It is a total waste of time from people whom we want and we ask to deliver public services.
Sargent: The whole thing is a total joke. I want to go to Mike Johnson for a second. He really distinguished himself on the tariffs—and not in a good way. He said the long-term goal is to reset relationships with other countries. He claimed Trump doesn’t intend to trade war and doesn’t want this to be adversarial with our allies. And he called for patience. I think it’s key that Johnson has to pretend not to be aware of what we all know, which is that these tariffs absolutely are about stoking conflict among America and its allies. There’s a malice and a venality to it on Trump’s part that I don’t think we should overlook. I hope Democrats call it out more directly. Can you talk a little bit about that dimension of it? It’s starting to seem as if Trump really is trying to cause extensive damage to the country.
Dionne: The most striking thing about Trump’s foreign policy, if you can call it that, in the first five weeks is [it’s] rooted in being good to our enemies and being really, really rotten to our traditional allies. What he is doing to Canada, of all places, to Mexico, which a large part of our country once was Mexico, what he’s doing to all our European allies, and above all, what he’s doing to President Zelenskiy and Ukraine.... Here he is constantly going after our friends, and the person he really seems to empathize with, because, as he put it, they went through so much together, is Vladimir Putin.
This is an extraordinary turn in American foreign policy. And it’s really striking that beyond saying they’re concerned—and I think we should demand anybody [who] use that word, Yes, but what do you really think?—they’re really not pushing back against something that I suspect a large share of Republicans know is wrong and crazy for our long-term interests.
Sargent: Looking forward, E.J., where do you think this is going to go? You’ve watched the Republican Party for a long time. You’ve written a very good book about the Republican Party and the right, which I liked very much and people should check out. Where do see it going? Is there a real possibility that this stuff will snowball to the point where Republicans actually have to break with Trump or not? What do you think?
Dionne: Eugene Debs, the great American socialist, said there should be a “ninth beatitude,” which would go, “Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.” I really thought that there would be enough Republicans to stop Pete Hegseth or to stop Kash Patel or somebody—and there never were enough votes. And the reluctance in the Republican Party to oppose Trump on anything is really astounding. I think the polling that has come out so far may begin to give Republicans, particularly House members in vulnerable districts who are up next year and a handful of senators, some reason to say, This isn’t working. They will start worrying less about losing a primary and more about losing a general election. I don’t think we’ve hit that tipping point, but I think that may come.
And in the case of Ukraine, I got to believe there are still a few Republicans who feel really, really strongly that align with Vladimir Putin is both morally wrong and bad foreign policy. I hope we start hearing a lot more from them, but my expectations have been driven really, really low, and I’m not expecting anything soon.
Sargent: And you’re someone who’s prone to being patient with people.
Dionne: Well, that’s nice of you to say. Now, I guess I’m losing my patience. Somebody once called me a “feliciopath,” which I guess [is] somebody who hoped when there was no good reason to. I felt that about the Republican Party a long time ago; there are a lot of Republicans I could point to in the past whom I really liked and respected. But since the party has gone into complete hop to Trump, and since its voter base has changed so that anyone who takes him on is punished, I think you just got to follow the data and follow what’s happened. I wish I could feel the way I used to about a lot of people in the Republican Party. It’s just really hard these days.
Sargent: To bring it back to Trudeau, it’s simply amazing that it requires a foreign leader to tell Republican voters the truth about the Republican president and his policies. It really puts the GOP to shame, doesn’t it? Trudeau’s speech can be seen as almost shaming the Republican Party, can’t it?
Dionne: I am so curious if Fox News is going to run a significant part of the Trudeau speech—and I assume they’ll denounce him for it, saying, How dare he talk to Americans? I think it was pretty powerful. And there is enough ingrained skepticism of tariffs among Republicans—either for reasons of interest, particularly with farmers, or for reasons of free market ideology—that they’re going to hear that and they’re going to listen to it differently than they might listen to something else. But yes, it is really odd that no one in their party is willing to say anything like that of their president. Democrats are really good at criticizing their own presidents and each other in a way that Republicans aren’t these days. Maybe that’s one lesson Democrats can teach Republicans.
Sargent: One would hope. E.J. Dionne, that was such an interesting discussion. Thanks so much for coming on. It’s always great to talk to you.
Dionne: Real joy to be with you. Thank you so much.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.