Business leaders are nervous about the economic impact of two of Donald Trump’s signature campaign promises — and some of them are hoping they can talk him out of going through with them, according to an analyst.
The president-elect has vowed to impose stiff tariffs on imported goods and deport millions of migrants, which economists say would likely increase inflation. MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire told “Morning Joe” that Wall Street is worried.
” Trump prizes the economy most of all,” Lemire said. “That’s his favorite metric whether or not his presidency is a success, and for both on this idea of deportation and the tariffs idea, they’re linked here. There is some belief that business leaders and others will talk him out of it and say, ‘Look, you’ll ruin the economy if you do these things, it will damage your presidency.’ That’s possible.”
However, there’s no indication that Trump or his advisers are backing off their plans, which the president-elect confirmed could include declaring a national emergency and ordering the military to assist in the deportations.
“Maybe it will narrow, but at least right now they’re talking big,” Lemire said. “They’re acting like they’re going to go through it, and these are, again, the signature promises of his campaign. Maybe, yes, maybe he’ll cut a deal, maybe he’ll make it smaller. Maybe he’ll take the win and move on to something else, but maybe not. A lot of people in this country are afraid he’ll do exactly what he says.”
The president-elect has also authorized tech billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to make drastic cuts to federal spending, which would likely cast millions of government workers out of their jobs, and MSNBC’s Claire McCaskill said that poses deep threats to the economy.
“Elon Musk is talking about cutting two-thirds of the federal workforce,” McCaskill said. “Well, by the way, does he know that two of the largest employers in the federal workforce are the Pentagon and Homeland Security? If you take those agencies and set them aside and cut the workforce, then we’re talking about people who deliver payments to the American citizens. We’re talking about the Medicare system that delivers payments on behalf of Americans.
“We’re talking about Social Security that delivers payments on behalf of America. So there really is this disconnect between how realistic a mass deportation is in light of other things they say they’re going to do and how it will look to America if they erect these large holding facilities with the money they take from the military, which, by the way, they tried with the wall. He declared a national emergency and diverted Pentagon funds to do, what, 20 miles, 100 miles? He didn’t build it, but he built some of it.”
“It really is a head-scratcher,” McCaskill added. “They will be very savvy about using, deporting people who have been convicted of crimes or charged with crimes. They’ll do really smart photo-ops with those folks, and there’s about a million of those people in the country. Most of it’s low-level crime, some of it is not. That’s what they will do first and the big splashes they’ll use to try to convince Americans that he’s doing some mass deportation. But I think [to be determined] on the idea he could do a mass deportation, and I don’t think the American public will stand for it.”
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