Governor Lamont Responds to Trump’s Attack on Economy

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1:53Ben Meiselas:It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. As Americans are paying more than ever for energy in their home, as Americans are paying more than ever for groceries, as Americans across the country were promised by Donald Trump that things would be made more affordable, they're less affordable, people living paycheck to paycheck. Donald Trump, though, is continuing his right-wing media tour, saying that we have no inflation. It's gone, he said. He did it. We're in a golden age. Prices are down, he says, on every single thing and way down on energy, he says.

2:33Ben Meiselas:Not matching reality, but that seems to be a theme with Donald Trump. Here, play this clip. We have no inflation. Prices are down on just about everything. Prices are way down on energy, but prices are down for people. And then he doesn't miss a beat to attack drivers in the economy and things that actually help, like he attacks wind energy, he attacks solar energy, he attacks the jobs that are being created by wind and solar, not to mention the fact that it reduces the energy prices, especially now as we have AI and all of the crypto mining and all that. that is using a ton of energy and we need these energy sources now, but he doesn't miss a beat.

3:18Ben Meiselas:Like he'll turn any topic that he's speaking about as a way to attack wind. And just so you all remember, one of the reasons he hates wind, like the reason is that when he was building his golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, they had a wind energy and he hated the way it looked. And so he's brought that into everything here in the United States as the rest of the world's like, All right, well, if the U.S. is going to fall back and not be a leader in wind and solar, China is going to be and other countries are going to be. Here's what he says when he was talking outside of the White House recently.

3:51Ben Meiselas:Let's play it. Back into the grid. So all of these big factories that are being built are building their own electric plants fired by oil and gas. They're not fired by wind, by the way, because wind doesn't work. But we won't say that. It destroys everything. It looks terrible. It's a very expensive form of energy. And we're not doing wind. And we're going back to fossil fuel. I hope not too many of you people are going to be upset, but we have to go back to what works. We can't be foolish. While actually being foolish right there. And then you have the U.S. Department of Energy posting things like this.

4:27Ben Meiselas:Wind and solar energy infrastructure is essentially worthless when it's dark outside and the wind is not blowing. There had to be a community note that batteries, something called batteries, Donald, allow electricity to be stored and used at different times than when it is generated. And again, this is causing tons of jobs to be lost. As CNN recently reported, Cancelled Wind Project puts thousands of jobs at risk across the country. I want to bring in a very pragmatic, common sense, Governor, Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut. And Governor, I mean, you're an actual dealmaker, unlike Trump. I mean, you're someone who tries to not approach these things through partisan goggles, but just this is helpful.

5:17Ben Meiselas:This creates jobs. This doesn't create jobs. How do you respond when you have the Department of Energy not knowing the way batteries work? Ben, nice to see you. Look, we have something called Revolution Wind. It's 80 % complete. It's going to power probably three, four hundred thousand homes this time next year. It will dramatically bring down pricing because it reduces those peak pricing times during very hot days in August, very cold days in January. It represented hundreds of jobs. We are almost done. And at the very last moment, a week ago, Friday, Donald Trump pulled the plug on it. Happy Labor Day.

5:56Five hundred of you are laid off. Absolutely the opposite of everything they had assured us up till then.

6:02Ben Meiselas:So what do you do in the face of that? That's arbitrary, capricious and frankly, malicious. There's no like you can't speak logically to them and say what you just said to me. So what do you do? And what do the people think right now in Connecticut and elsewhere on the East Coast? So here's what you do. You respond multifaceted. I've got the attorney generals of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Orsted, who's the wind developer. They've all brought suit. This is a breach of contract way outside the norms. I'm trying to continue to have conversations with the Secretary of Interior, Secretary of Energy, saying this is the opposite of everything you would assured us.

6:47Let's get this back on track. Maybe you don't want to do any wind going forward, but you don't pull the plug in mid-contract. I've got business leaders, including folks in the nuclear industry and the pipeline industry, saying, I'm not sure the federal government's a good counterparty. I don't know if I can trust them to make an agreement going forward, because you can't have a contract and break it. A deal is a deal. I know Trump wrote The Art of the Deal. He also should have had a chapter called A Deal is a Deal.

7:14Ben Meiselas:And you have this in kind of all sectors, right? I mean, this is energy.

7:23Ben Meiselas:We personal views about wind and he doesn't like wind and he always goes wind. That's not like a logical conversation, but they bring that into other areas. I mean, healthcare, they bring it into with all of the anti-vax conspiracies. I'm not sure if you caught RFK juniors speaking before the Senate. It was one of the most horrifying things I've seen. I would say the more horrifying thing is that they fired all the people at the CDC and on the vaccine advisory panels, and they're getting rid of all of the experts, and they're replacing it with quacks who were like, you know, the vaccine for polio and measles and mumps, that's like slavery.

8:08Ben Meiselas:I'm like, what? What are you talking about? Look, we just got our way through COVID better than almost any other state because we had so many of our people were vaccinated against the COVID. And now this misinformation coming out of CDC, coming out of Health and Human Services, right at the time our kids are going back to school, making sure they have the proper vaccination so they keep themselves safe, their neighbors safe, the teachers safe. This misinformation and this confusion is hell. So I get together with New York and Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Our public health departments get together.

8:44We'll speak with one voice. We'll say these vaccinations are safe and effective. and it's really important to keep your kid in school safely, make sure they get the necessary vaccinations.

8:55Ben Meiselas:When you and I last spoke, it was right around the time Trump announced the tariffs against the world. It was right around what he called Liberation Day and I was calling it like Liquidation Day. And so now we are several months later, you know, we're into September from when it was first announced in April. He delayed certain tariffs, pulled them back, pulled them forward, pulled it back. Truthfully, there's so much confusion right now that I think a lot of people are still unclear what all of the terms are or what deals exist or don't exist. I mean, there's no actual agreement with signatures with any country at all, which is typically what a deal is, especially of something of any bit of magnitude.

9:38Ben Meiselas:You have a signed deal. They don't do those things. But how is it impacting Connecticut? What are you seeing? What are you hearing from the business community? First of all, this confusion just stops the economy and nobody's going to build a factory based upon a tariff proposition that could change again tomorrow. That's the problem with this administration. They're herky-jerky. They stop and start. That's a good way to hit pause or add 15 % contingency to everything you do because you don't know what tomorrow will bring. Look, tariffs are slowly bringing up prices. We have a great company here in Connecticut called Stanley Black & Decker.

10:15They make a tools. They've eaten about$800 million in tariff costs over the first half of this year. They can't do it the second half of the year. You're going to see things reflected in pricing. I think you'll see that across the economy. It's very inflationary. It's just beginning to creep in now.

10:33Ben Meiselas:I mean, as a business leader, which is your background before being a governor, I mean, just the very concept, though, that there are not signed deals. I mean, to me, it's like a crazy concept. And then they have these oral understandings with a few country that are never in line with what the country actually says. And it's just sometimes talked about like this is normal behavior that, oh, this is what a trade deal looks like. I'm like, these are not trade deals. He's talking about some top line tariff number in exchange for which country is going to make up the biggest fake number promise. Like, I'm going to invest 700 billion.

11:23Ben Meiselas:I'm going to invest 600. But it's not actually binding. If anything, they're high interest loans that are discretionary. and then Trump pretends that he's investing$17 trillion into the, he goes out and says, I'm currently investing$17 trillion. And then our business media, they don't act like this is crazy. And I'm like, this is crazy. He's making up a number$17 trillion. It would be great if he had$17 trillion invested in our company. He's making up the numbers. What do you think? Ben, you know what's even worse? Let's say he had a signed agreement. I don't think it'd be worth the paper was written on.

12:02Nobody trusted. You don't have a credible counterparty there. You're right. All these tariffs things, there's a lot of hot air. There are a lot of promises. Nothing's in writing. Our win deal, that was in writing. That was done under the first Trump administration, right through the Biden administration, went through all the necessary permitting, went through all the necessary licensing, signed, sealed, and delivered. And then they pulled the plug at the last moment, right on the 10-yard line. It's just shocking. You got to have somebody you can trust in order to do business. The Trump administration is losing the trust of the business community.

12:36Ben Meiselas:And let's talk about just kind of going forward in Connecticut. What other issues are you hearing from people that may not be being talked about enough on the media? I'm often told some of the most important issues are those issues that are not being discussed out there. When you're out of town, when you're at the diner, when you're shaking hands, what are people frequently? in addition to what we've talked about. Is there any other issue you're hearing frequently on people's minds? Yeah, you had the big, beautiful bill or the big bankruptcy bill. Call it what you will. Nobody knows what the federal budget is going to be.

13:13They passed this bill. Now it's going through an appropriations process. We could have a shutdown of the federal government on October 1. You know, I'm a governor. I put together a budget. It has to be a balanced budget, by the way. We're in balance except for the fact we have no idea what the federal government is going to do. and they have no idea how to balance a budget. So I hear that a lot. What's it going to mean in terms of my Medicaid? What's that going to mean in terms of my food support that I maybe need? What's that going to mean in terms of housing? What that's going to mean in terms of energy, like wind power we've talked about?

13:45All that ambiguity and confusion out there, Cassa, Paul, gives you a sense of fear and pause.

13:52Ben Meiselas:Before we go, any final message you want to get out to the six million Midas Mighty subscribers out there, Governor. Hey, keep speaking out and talk to your friends in red states, not just in blue states. There's a lot of folks that I talk to, governors on both sides of the aisle, senators on both sides of the aisle. The red state guys are terrified to speak publicly. But if you talk to them, let them know how important this is. Maybe don't get into Trump every day, but say Medicaid is going to squash your rural hospitals in Arkansas even more than happens in Connecticut. Maybe we can start moving the ball just a little bit.

14:28It's scary out there right now.

14:31Ben Meiselas:Governor Ned Lamont, governor of Connecticut, thanks so much for joining us. Nice to see you, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's hit that 6 million subscriber mark this month.

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