Trump Commerce Sec Makes Bonkers Claim About Building... Bananas?

The Trump administration’s brilliant plan to use tariffs as a means to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. has run into a bit of a hitch: Not everything that the public wants can be manufactured in America.

Testifying before the House Appropriations Committee Thursday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tried to brush off concerns over the president’s tariff proposals, insisting that the nation and its myriad businesses would learn self-reliance under the controversial policy.

“What’s the tariff on bananas? Americans, by the way, love bananas. We buy billions of them a year,” asked Pennsylvania Representative Madeleine Dean. “What’s the tariff on bananas?”

“The tariff on bananas would be representative of the countries that produce them,” said Lutnick, eventually clarifying that the tariff rate would be generally 10 percent.

Bananas top the list of America’s favorite fresh fruits, with the average American consuming approximately 27 pounds of bananas every year, according to the Mayo Clinic. That’s the basis of a colossal global trade network, fueling billions of dollars in trade between the U.S. and its biggest banana suppliers: Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Honduras. In March alone, the U.S. imported roughly $260 million in bananas. But Americans have already started to notice changes at the till in the handful of weeks that have passed since Donald Trump first announced his tariff plan.

“Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by 8 percent,” Dean said. Bananas are Walmart’s most popular product. By the middle of May, banana prices at the big box store had gone up to 54 cents per pound, from 50 cents.

“As countries do deals with us, that will go to zero,” Lutnick said. (On Wednesday, Lutnick let slip that he believes reciprocity—or the idea of bringing tariffs between two countries to zero—would be the “silliest thing we could do.”)

“Mr. Secretary, I believe you know better. I believe you realize that a trade deficit is not something to fear. I believe you know that predicability is essential for businesses. I wish you would show that truth to this administration,” Dean said.

But after Dean’s time expired, Lutnick insisted that he had a final comment to make on the issue.

“There is no uncertainty, if you build in America and you produce your product in America, there will be no tariff,” Lutnick said, as Dean interjected: “We cannot build bananas in America.”

President Trump told reporters he was “disappointed” in Elon Musk, and Tesla’s stock took a nosedive minutes later. 

This comes as the conflict over the predicted deficit increase in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” reaches a new level. The president claimed on Thursday that his removal of the E.V. mandate is what set Musk against the massive spending bill.  

“Elon endorsed me very strongly, he actually campaigned for me.… I would’ve won Pennsylvania easily anyway, even if the governor ran, the real governor,” Trump said on national television. “I’m very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of the bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people, he knew everything about it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re gonna have to cut the E.V. mandate.”

“Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,” Musk replied on X, insisting that it was about the debt and not his own company.  “In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that[’s] both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.”

Tesla stocks have fallen by nearly 30 points since Trump’s initial comment, a nearly 9 percent drop. Musk had previously cited Tesla’s poor financial performance as one of the reasons he was stepping back from politics. But he’s continued to stay involved since his going-away party in the Oval Office last Friday, and now this week his E.V. company will suffer more. 

Shares have dropped 12 percent since May 27, around the time of his announced exit from politics. Tesla is also facing sales issues and an overall tarnishing of its reputation. 

“He knew every aspect of this bill, and he never had a problem until right after he left. And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I’m sure you can get very easily, it’s very fresh … he said the most beautiful things about me,” Trump said on Thursday. “And he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next. I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.” 

President Trump told reporters Thursday that Elon Musk opposes his “big, beautiful bill” because it removes the electric vehicle mandate that subsidizes Tesla. Musk responded in real time, only adding more speculation as to just how amicable their political divorce really is.

Trump was asked about the status of his relationship with Musk while meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the White House. In recent days, as Trump and Musk have gone from being attached at the hip (and pocket) to publicly feuding over the most defining legislation of Trump’s second term.

“Elon’s upset because we took the E.V. mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles, and you know they’re having a hard time, the electric vehicles. And they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Elon knew this from the beginning, he knew it for a long time ago, that’s been.… I would say, JD, that hasn’t changed,” he said, as Vice President Vance voiced his agreement.

“Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,” Musk replied rather bitterly on X, the platform he owns. “In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that[’s] both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.”

This is the most recent installment in a somewhat surprising spat, as Musk has spent months hailing Trump and his agenda as he carried out his slash-and-burn work as DOGE head. Now, right as Musk makes his exit from the administration, he has fallen on the side of the deficit hawks, the few true fiscal conservatives left in the Senate. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit.

Musk continued to rail against Trump and his bill online as Trump expressed disappointment with Musk in real life.

“Elon endorsed me very strongly, he actually campaigned for me.… I would’ve won Pennsylvania easily anyway, even if the governor ran, the real governor,” Trump said. “I’m very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of the bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people, he knew everything about it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re gonna have to cut the E.V. mandate.

“He knew every aspect of this bill, and he never had a problem until right after he left. And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I’m sure you can get very easily, it’s very fresh … he said the most beautiful things about me,” Trump continued. “And he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next. I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

“False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” Musk replied.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” he wrote. “Such ingratitude.”

It was easy to see a rift between these two extreme personalities happen, but perhaps not over this. It would seem that Musk, given his senior role on the campaign and within the administration, would have some sense that the budget bill that Trump had been hyping up for months would impact the deficit. Or is Musk really just now realizing that Republicans don’t actually care about decreasing the deficit and cutting spending unless it’s for social programs and “woke” stuff?

Now the X posts are flying and the beef seems real. This caps off a tumultuous week for Musk, who pulled up to his DOGE exit press conference last Friday with a black eye, telling reporters that his 5-year-old son punched him in the face. It was also reported last week that he has a ketamine dependency and was frequently high while on the campaign trail.

Politics aside, this is a man who was living at Mar-a-Lago for months, and seemed inseparable from the president. They can’t just have a meeting or a phone call instead of talking around each other on X or at press conferences?

Does Donald Trump think that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is a Nazi?

During a press conference with Merz Thursday, Trump seemed confused when the foreign leader brought up the anniversary of the D-Day invasion, when U.S. troops landed on the beaches in Normandy during World War II, on June 6, 1944. The military operation marked a significant turning point in the war against the Nazis.

“That was not a pleasant day for you?” Trump asked Merz. The U.S. president then turned to the press, adding, “This was not a great day!”

“No, that was not a pleasant—well, but in the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship,” Merz said, as the U.S. president laughed.

Trump quickly composed himself. “That’s true, that’s true,” he said.

Trump’s wild comment about Germany’s defeat in World War II betrays a weak understanding of world history, framing the Nazis as simply a German political party and not a genocidal regime responsible for the murder of six million Jewish people, and millions of others.

This strange remark is yet another installment of the president’s sympathetic ideas about Nazis. Last month, during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump suggested that some Nazi soldiers had treated their Jewish prisoners with “love.” Trump also infamously claimed that Hitler had done “some good things.”

Despite Trump’s gaffe, Merz continued, saying that Germany and other European countries were hoping for help from the United States once again, and hoped to discuss Trump putting “more pressure on Russia” to end its invasion of Ukraine.

DOGE Committee Chair Marjorie Taylor Greene is apparently “proud” to have voted for the “big, beautiful bill” that she trashed just Tuesday.

During an exchange with Representative Robert Garcia in Wednesday’s House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency meeting, Greene said that she was “proud to have voted for that bill to fund border security.”

“The bill actually destroys what you guys voted for for the past four years,” the Georgia lawmaker said.

But that was a far cry from the language that Greene used to describe the reconciliation package just 24 hours prior.

On Tuesday, Greene admitted on X that she hadn’t even read the bill in its entirety, and that she “would have voted NO” if she knew of some of the things that had been added to it, such as a provision that will prevent states from drafting regulation around the artificial intelligence industry for the next decade.

“Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years,” Greene wrote. “When the OBBB comes back to the House for approval after Senate changes, I will not vote for it with this in it. We should be reducing federal power and preserving state power. Not the other way around.”

In an interview with NewsNation Tuesday, Greene specified that the AI detail is “pretty terrifying.”

“We don’t know what AI is going to be capable of within one year, we don’t know what it will be capable of in five years, let alone 10 years,” Greene told the network.

In the same interview, Greene attempted to ideologically saddle herself alongside Elon Musk, the ex-DOGE adviser who has gone on a multiday tirade against the bill. In dozens of posts, Musk has lambasted practically the entirety of Donald Trump’s domestic agenda as “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination.”

“I fully understand what Elon is saying, and I agree with him to a certain extent,” Greene said, underscoring her support for the Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting mission.

The bill passed the House by a vote of 215–214, with two Republicans joining all Democrats in voting against it. Republicans rushed the spending bill through the House, executing meetings and votes during late nights and over the weekend, in order to send it to the Senate.

The GOP has spent months attempting to pencil out the bill’s primary goal of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for multimillionaires and corporations, which the Congressional Budget Office projected Wednesday would add $2.4 trillion to the national deficit. To make the cuts a reality for America’s elite, conservatives have taken a metaphorical chain saw to Medicaid and other popular social programs, demanding some $880 billion in cuts.

Senator John Kennedy tore into Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Thursday over his nonsensical answer on the logic of Donald Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariff policy.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the Louisiana Republican described his experience questioning Lutnick during a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee the day before.

“Well, it’s clear that President Trump listens to Secretary Lutnick, so I spent the time I had trying to figure out where he’s coming from. And I don’t understand,” Kennedy said.

“I mean my vision of reciprocity, which I think is a good thing, is to lower tariffs if you can to zero on both sides. And let there be a free exchange of services on both sides, and let there be a free exchange of goods and services, and let the best product and the best service win. And I thought that’s where Secretary Lutnick was going,” Kennedy explained.

But that was in fact not what Lutnick had in mind at all. When asked if he would take a hypothetical deal with Vietnam where the tariffs on both sides went down to zero, Lutnick replied that accepting such a deal would be “the silliest thing we could do.” Lutnick’s baffling answer exposed that the goal of the ongoing tariff talks was not to ensure reciprocity, or even to reduce foreign tariffs on U.S. goods.

“So the obvious question is who’s on first, what’s on second, why are we having these trade talks? And I don’t understand based on his answers,” Kennedy explained.

Lutnick’s poor response Wednesday undermined the ultimate purpose of the tariff-induced trade talks, and the tariffs themselves.

“Can you get a sense, what is the point of these tariffs?” MSNBC co-host Jonathan Lemire asked.

“Well, I know what the point is for me. It’s reciprocity. But clearly the markets haven’t figured that out yet,” Kennedy replied.

“What I was trying to do with Mr. Lutnick was sort of flesh out, where are we going here? Where are we going here? And I don’t know whether he doesn’t know, I’m going to assume he was being purposefully evasive, but the uncertainty is hurting us,” he added.

The Trump administration has come a long way from its pledge to complete 90 deals during the 90-day pause on Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs. So far, Trump has only announced one deal with the U.K.—and that deal wasn’t even finished. Earlier this week, the U.S. sent out a friendly reminder to other countries urging them to formulate their best offers by Wednesday, but with Trump’s ever-vacillating tariff policies, it’s unclear why any country would take that request seriously.

Trump finally got his call with China.

After Trump repeatedly told Americans that it was China that was so desperate to get him on the phone to discuss a trade deal, a recent post from the Chinese Embassy all but confirms the opposite. It is Trump, not President Xi Jinping, who was sitting by the phone waiting day and night for a call that didn’t come for months.

“Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday held phone talks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the latter’s request,” China’s U.S. Embassy posted from its X account on Thursday.

The “at the latter’s request” is certainly intentional. Since “Liberation Day,” Trump has insisted that he has the leverage, that countries far and wide will be lining up, eager to kiss the ring and make a deal with us. But still, China, the Asian powerhouse that faced the most aggressive tariffs from Trump, has shirked a potential deal-making phone call with the president, halting his visions of a sweeping agreement on trade, TikTok, and fentanyl export. The administration has nudged China to initiate the call since April, but to no avail until today. If you have to call someone just to tell them to call you, who really has the leverage?

“I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal. The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries.... Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated. As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing. The conversation was focused almost entirely on TRADE. Nothing was discussed concerning Russia/Ukraine, or Iran. We will inform the Media as to scheduling and location of the soon to be meeting. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Trump’s own summary of the conversation made no mention of who requested it.

President Trump is spending $2.1 million on an investigation into whether diversity, equity, and inclusion policies played a role in the January plane crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and other recent aviation accidents, according to The Atlantic. This comes after he blamed the January plane crash—which killed 67 people—on diversity hiring.

The investigation, which began in March, is being led by Alex Spiro, a high-profile celebrity lawyer who has represented Jay-Z, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and most notably billionaire Elon Musk. The investigation is expected to end soon and yield nothing, all while potentially costing even more than the $2.1 million Trump initially budgeted in March.

This investigation is a massive waste of taxpayer funds, especially while federal aviation is in the midst of an employment crisis. Millions will go down the drain based on Trump’s “very strong opinions and ideas,” according to the investigation’s scope of work document.

“The [Federal Aviation Administration] is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website. Can you imagine?” Trump said back in January. “Hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism, all qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country.”

When Trump was pressed about how he could blame women, disabled people, and people of color for a plane crash well before any evidence was found, he doubled down, saying he just had “common sense.” His sense just spent millions of dollars to conclude that white people can cause crash planes too.

Tensions are rising between Donald Trump and his biggest 2024 campaign financier, Elon Musk.

The dynamic duo—who were practically inseparable after November—are driving apart over their differing opinions on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” an extension to his 2017 tax cuts for multimillionaires and corporations that is projected to add trillions to the national deficit.

The president reportedly “wasn’t happy” and was left “confused” as to why his richest MAGA ally had become more outspoken in his criticism of the bill since exiting his role as a special government employee, according to senior White House officials who spoke with The Wall Street Journal. The whole situation caught senior Trump advisers off guard, the Journal reported.

Last month, Musk confessed in an interview with CBS that he believed Trump’s spending package was actually a bad idea. But the tech billionaire has become more brazen in his read of the bill in the weeks since he’s left the White House.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote Tuesday afternoon on X, the social media platform he owns. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

In a separate post, the world’s richest man—who had promised to bankroll Republican primaries mere months ago—made clear what he now planned to do with his cash.

“In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” wrote Musk.

The bill passed the House by a vote of 215–214, with two Republicans joining all Democrats in voting against it.

By Wednesday, Musk’s directive for more than 200 million of his social media followers was clear: “KILL the BILL.” That same day, Trump posted an image of Musk’s exit message from the previous week without further comment.

Media commentators picked up on the signal, with CNN host Erin Burnett laughing off Trump’s response to Musk’s online tirade against his “entire domestic agenda” as “thinly veiled.”

Republicans plan to offset the expensive tax cut by slashing some $880 billion from Medicaid. But Musk’s issue with Trump’s plan has little to do with slashing programs aimed at supporting and uplifting the most vulnerable Americans—instead, he’s condemned the bill on the basis that it would effectively undo his work atop the Department of Government Efficiency, which was tasked with paring down government spending.

Musk was Trump’s top financial backer in the 2024 election, spending at least $250 million in the final months of the president’s campaign after Trump was shot in July. Musk had also promised to funnel funds toward other Republicans, declaring in the wake of the November election that his super PACs would “play a significant role in primaries.” In the following months, Musk threatened to use his money to fund primary challengers to Trump’s agenda and go after Democrats, and that he would be preparing “for the midterms and any intermediate elections, as well as looking at elections at the district attorney level.”