Raging Moderates: The Affordability Crisis Trump Can’t Spin

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1:06companies what they are today. Listen to Crucible Moments and hear about unlikely triumphs at Supercell, Palo Alto Networks, and more. Check out cruciblemoments.com or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

1:22Support for this show comes from strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown or never wanted in the first place? Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying, but are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarloff. Jess, Jess, Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, Scott. I just made a bunch of, like, incredibly racist and homophobic jokes off mic.

2:10I was here. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't that bad. I don't want people to, like, try to find it. How bad? We have to bring the producer. How bad, David? Exhibit 24 in the lawsuit. I think that's going to hurt your chances if you're going to run for president. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. Sorry to the tribe. I think you're right. Everyone will be devastated. Yeah, there you go. I'm off. Even on the Cialis ticket. I don't know. The Cialis ticket is a totally different world that I am thankfully not yet familiar with. Give us 10 years, I guess. Your husband's familiar with it before you know you're familiar with it.

2:46Oh, is that going to be like the discovery? Because the girls go through all of our drawers and they'll just be like, what's this? Let me just give you a little 411 that we start taking it. It's not a group decision that we start. Do you just let us know once you think you're having a heart attack and you're like, by the way, I've been taking tons of dick drugs? We let you know in other ways that are more implicit. But yeah, no, trust me on this. It's usually not a group family. It's not like a family meeting. Dad, sex with dad is like a taffy pole right now. So we had a family meeting. And what do you think of dad taking?

3:24Why does that make me happy? Well, we have to get to talking about affordability. But I will say I remember my parents telling me this is not about their sex life, but they were driving, you know, they were at Oregon to California a lot and they were driving and listening to a local Oregon radio host who was talking, taking callers. And a guy called in and he said, like, our sex life is terrible. He was like in his late 60s, I think at this point. He said, I just I roll it in. And my parents laughed. Roll it in. Well, he says like a taffy pole. Isn't that like eventually what you have to do? Yeah.

4:04Those things are. Those things? Older penises? It's coming. It's coming for all of us. David's back. Let's get into it. Affordability. Today, we're discussing Trump's continued spin on the affordability crisis, how women are treated in the GOP, and we'll check in on the Texas Senate race. All right, let's get into it. President Trump is launching a nationwide affordability blitz with a major speech in Pennsylvania touting falling gas prices and arguing his tariffs will ultimately help the middle class. But he's doing this as key indicators move the other way. Consumer sentiment is down sharply.

4:36Retailers won prices will rise in January once inventories run out and layoffs have already topped$1.1 million this year, with small businesses hit hardest. Despite calling affordability concerns a hoax, the White House is scrambling to show action, opening a price-fixing probe into imported food and rolling out a$12 billion bailout for farmers hurt by Trump's own tariffs. All of this lands just as the Fed weighs another rate cut. Healthcare adds even more pressure. Senate Republicans remain split on how to counter Democrats through your extension of ACA subsidies, floating options from HSA-based aid to a trim two-year extension.

5:11But none are expected to reach the floor before Thursday's vote. Democrats say their clean extension is the only way to prevent premium hikes. Trump promised lower prices, but tariffs, Medicaid cuts, and rising health care costs have left him playing defense and scrambling to sell an economy. many Americans say still feels really unaffordable. Jess, is affordability a hoax? How does the White House square that circle with the decline in sentiment, rising layoffs, and looming price hikes? Promises made, promises beyond broken. I am always shocked by the level of spin that people like Kevin Hassett have to bring out.

5:54I mean, to their credit, they still do these interviews and show up on like CNBC and really get pushed. But it's getting embarrassing at this point. And I think I've mentioned to you this before, but watching Republicans very much do the same things that Democrats did when they were defending an economy that average Americans were screaming from the rooftops is not working for them is the height of stupidity. And there's no, So, you know, like when you're teaching your kids math and the teachers are always saying, like, show your work, show your work. I feel like nobody is showing their work. They're just telling us, well, the tariffs are going to be a huge boon to the American economy.

6:36When? How? Why? If so, why are you rolling back all of them and then saying that that's the relief? Like this$12 billion bailout for the farmers that's coming from the quote unquote tariff pot, which the amount that's in that changes on a daily basis by like trillions of dollars. But everybody knows what that is. And the farmers themselves being interviewed on every channel saying, we don't want to bail out. We want work, right? We want to have markets for our products, which the administration is sapping. You know, I'm curious as to whether you're seeing bright spots that I'm missing. And I'm conscious of the fact that it's very hard for me to remove my partisan hat.

7:20And I'm always looking for things that I can use on the five, which are usually negative about Donald Trump. But I'm looking at this like 70 percent of Americans say they're spending more money on groceries compared to last year. 60 percent more on utilities. 40 percent more on health care, housing, gasoline. Cost of living issue number one is housing. Satisfaction with housing dropped from 69 % to 36 % over the course of the year. U.S. manufacturing contracted for nine straight months. China now trillion dollar trade surplus. And Trump gives the green light to sell the NVIDIA chips to them, which will put them at huge computing advantage.

7:57And of course, the government is getting a kickback from that. Like the farmers, I want trade, not aid. What am I missing besides a stock market? That's obviously been propped up by, is it magnificent seven or 10? I feel like you go between the two. But is there something that I am not getting about what's going on here in the economy? I don't think so, other than people would argue that the economy churns on despite how just bass-ackward our economic policies have been at a macro level. How is that possible? Like, why? Because the American economy is just incredible. People get up every day and innovate and do incredible things.

8:30and the S &P is up 12 % because of the AI boom, 13 or 14%, which I think is going to unwind and it's become dangerously concentrated around 10 companies. And I think China is going to engage in AI dumping to take the entire economy down, but moving back to affordability. Look, you always have to ask yourself with this stuff, the tendency for experts in the media is to catastrophize because you sound smarter and I'm falling into the same thing. And you always need to ask yourself what could go right. Having said that, I don't think you're missing much here. I'm shocked the economy isn't worse, given how just stupid these policies have been and the fact that every nation in the world is trying to reroute their supply chain around ours, raising our costs, a sclerotic economic policy that no one knows how to even respond, ridiculous tariffs that then bail out farmers.

9:20Well, maybe we just shouldn't have the tariffs to begin with, trade wars that alienate our partners and massively decreased prosperity because we gain more shareholder value from shipping or exporting NVIDIA chips and importing low-margin products that accretes to us, benefit to us. So it doesn't make any sense. The thing that's so surprising is how the American economy just grinds on, that so many people get up every morning and innovate and apply new technologies and new ways of doing business and work hard and the economy just continues to grind on. But if he was serious about affordability, there's just absolutely no case for tariffs making shit more affordable.

10:01It can protect nascent industries. You can protect employment in certain industries, I would say, only over the short run. Eventually, everyone has to hold their feet to the flames of global innovation. And when we have free trade, it naturally accretes to us because Americans are just very good at what we do. And you should let low margin businesses go away in exchange for services and innovation businesses. But if they were really serious about affordability, and this is what I can't stand about the Democratic Party, is we'll spend a lot of time talking about how fucked up the economy is and then offer no solutions around affordability.

10:31If you want to get serious about affordability, one, you have to go after the biggest increase in CPI, which is housing, 8 to 10 million houses in 10 years, tax credits that unleash private development, get rid of NIMBY laws and replace them with the NIMBY laws, manufactured homes, take the tariffs off China, get some incredible innovation around new construction that lowers the cost by 50 or 60%, government-backed loans for people under the age of 40, and give people psychological and material well-being, being vis-a-vis much greater supply and housing, which will bring down costs. Rent freezes and price controls don't work.

11:04Sorry, Mom Donnie, that's just fucking stupid. It decreases supply and increases housing costs, too. It's time to nationalize medicine. That's the other CPI that's accelerated twice the cost of the other G6, lower outcomes, worse outcomes, lower Medicare eligibility by two to three years every year for 10 years, takedown costs 25%, even though they could come down 50%. That massively increases affordability. And then the third thing that has accelerated faster than inflation has been education. And you should tie tuition to income. Specifically, a kid coming from an upper income home pays full freight.

11:43A kid coming from a lower income home pays massively less in tuition. And if you have an endowment over a billion dollars, you're not growing a freshman class size faster than population growth. You've decided you are no longer a public servant, but a fucking Chanel bag and you should lose your tax free status. And we could dramatically lower education costs. And then finally, we need massive, massive antitrust. Big chicken, big ag, big streaming now. Netflix should not be allowed to buy HBO. though the streamers have increased their prices 13 % over the last 12 months as that industry is consolidating.

12:18It's pretty simple. If you have more competition, you have a reverse of the rivers of the last 40 years, which have leaked power leverage and economic value from consumers and workers and labor to shareholders. The rivers need to reverse for a little bit. So if we're really going to have an adult conversation around affordability, let's have an adult conversation. The problem is it's boring shit that will take years, if not decades. And the Democrats don't seem to have the firepower, the only actual honesty to talk about this shit. And Republicans want to propose programs that are totally inflationary.

12:53Anyways, that's my TED talk. Well, I'm glad that I came to your TED talk. No, it's a point of frustration because, and we were just talking about this with Senator Gallego. The interview is up on our YouTube channel, which you should go and check it out and subscribe, obviously. But that, you know, we're just band-aiding everything all the time versus really latching on to a pro-growth innovative agenda where we say we're not just going to clean up the mess because cleaning up the mess is actually still messy. Like the baseline level, like with Obamacare, which I think is the most obvious answer to all of this, like Obamacare needs help.

13:34You need an extension of the ACA subsidies so people's premiums don't go up 400 percent or whatever starting January 1st. But like the program itself is a problem. I wanted to ask you, though, about, you know, I'm sure you saw that we got no jobs report, no GDP report, and now no inflation report. So we're never going to see a number out of this government again. The ADP numbers came out negative 32 ,000 jobs lost. Small businesses shed 120 ,000 jobs. Joe Kernan was going crazy about that on CNBC. But what is the impact of not having the official numbers on the economy and also investment from abroad or how the global economy works?

14:18Because I understand like from a political level, like, you know, what that means and it clearly shows that they're hiding something and it's something to harp on. But what are the real-world implications of not having good data around what's going on in our economy. When you're trying to land a 747, you're trying to land a several hundred ton piece of equipment on a hard surface while flying at 170 miles an hour. And when you don't have data, as we don't, we're trying to land a$25 trillion economy on a hard surface without instruments. We don't know what's going on. And we've become China, except China's smarter than us.

14:59They actually have the data internally. They just don't want to release it publicly because they're worried it'll make the CCP look bad. This is what Russia does. Russia totally bastardizes and perverts its data, and they can't plan their economy as well. So an absence of data is just, again, this very dangerous sort of, let's not trust the experts movement. Let's go to our Ouija boards and our horoscopes and our instincts and what makes us feel good and what gets the most likes on Instagram as opposed to actual fucking truth as evidenced by data. So this is incredibly damning. We're flying blind.

15:31We don't know what the actual numbers are. The difference between America and China, though, is that there will be a bunch of private sector companies that use different means of taking the temperature of the economy to come out with their own data streams. If I was starting a business right now, I would probably get into the business of economic forecasting and fill this vacuum that used to be filled by these incredible economists at the Fed. But so but this is just stupid. This is just, you know, like Trotsky being erased from photos because we don't like what he represented. This is this makes it much more difficult to plan for the Fed to decide for companies to decide what to do with the right interest rate policy is, what the right economic policy is for voters to hold elected officials accountable.

16:12So this is just, oh, I don't like that I have high blood pressure and I don't want anyone to not think that I'm healthy. So I'm going to stop taking my blood pressure and just see what happens. This leads to an economy that's much more prone to stroke. Yeah, well, that's kind of what happened with COVID, right? Everyone just stopped testing. And it was like, oh, there's no more COVID. But you had it. It wasn't actually a common cold. I want to, before we move on to the next section, I want to get your take on the health care vote. There's going to be a vote on the ACA extensions. John Thune promised it.

16:46The Democrats are putting up a clean three-year extension bill that is going to fail. There are some outspoken Republicans like Josh Hawley saying, you know, Republicans better offer something. You have a couple of proposals. Bernie Moreno and Susan Collins have a bill that has an income cap at$200K, but also includes a two-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies. Democrat Dick Durbin has said that he's interested in it, that he might want to change one or two provisions, but he's encouraged. Mike Crepo and Bill Cassidy have a bill. Senator Roger Marshall, also a Republican, has a bill. Those two don't seem to have the Obamacare subsidy extension.

17:22We have heard nothing from the House at this point of what they would offer. What do you think happens? It feels like we're just moving towards the Obamacare subsidies going away and people are going to be hit by those premium hikes. I'm going to ask you for real insight and on-the-ground domain expertise here because I don't have it, but I do have a Senator Thune story. I was in Nantucket and I met Senator Thune. I think that's the whitest thing I've ever said. I was in Nantucket and I met Senator Thune. He was walking out with his wife and I recognized him. And I said, Senator Thune, thank you for your service.

17:54And he and his wife came over and introduced themselves to my family. He's very handsome. Oh my God, right? It's overwhelming. Very handsome. Very tall. Very handsome. His wife is very attractive. They they look like they should be in the White House. So I like him just for just for those broad shoulders. He's aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. Politically displeasing. Yeah. Very, very handsome. I don't. Yeah. But I have a similar story. I'm a little bit I'm a little bit encouraged that he's keeping to his word and bringing the vote up. But anyways, that's that's the extent of my knowledge. So that he can vote against it.

18:27But yes, I don't think that he is a liar like a Mike Johnson. I don't think that. And usually I think. more or less i don't know if i'm gonna regret this because i'm mitch mcconnell it's a difficult way to gauge the the quality of the character because he has let us down so many times but i expect more from senators than i do of congress people and more often than not i get that but i also have a senator thune story i was at the rnc it was my first day back from maternity leave summer 2024. And he came right up to me. He was like waiting to do a Fox hit. And, you know, we had a big, I think we did a remote segment for Prof G, for the Prof G pod before waging moderates was a thing from there.

19:13So you saw like, you know, we had desk space and everybody who's in the Fox orbit is walking around. It's hair and makeup. It's on air contributors, producers, tech directors, et cetera. He came right up to me and he said, you know, wanted to say hello. You do such a great job. And I thought that that was so nice. And not everybody behaves that way. There are Republicans who avoid me like the plague when they see me in a social situation and soon beelined and was delightful and also very, very handsome. I think that the premium hikes are going to go through. I think that it's just, it's like too little too late to be bringing up your bill that's going to require some degree of negotiation at least at the proverbial 11th hour and that's really frustrating to me i'm glad that dick durbin is saying that he has you know interest in working negotiating about one of these bills but ultimately republicans have been trying to get to their goal of repealing and replacing Obamacare as long as Obamacare has existed and still have never brought anything decent that speaks to the way that Americans want their health care delivered since they've been playing this game.

20:29And it's going to really suck. Putting my partisan political hat on could be a net advantage for Democrats because we'll get to own this issue that Republicans literally don't care about your health care. They're taking Medicaid away from millions of people with the big, beautiful bill, your premium spiked because of Republicans. And we were the ones that were, you know, trying to get the subsidies extended. But like always, I wish Washington just functioned better. But I'm going to have to get over that. OK, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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22:51Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Welcome back. South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace is taking direct aim at her own party's leadership, accusing Speaker Mike Johnson and top GOP brass of sign-lining rank-and-file members, especially women.

23:27in a sharply worded New York Times op-ed. May says Republicans are petrified of losing power, too timid to deliver for their base, and far less effective than Democrats under Nancy Pelosi. She warns that unless the GOP starts governing boldly on the border, affordability, health care, and public safety, they'll lose their majority and deservedly so. Jess, it's just so fucking ridiculous. If anything, they've been too bold. They've been reckless. Jess, what does the situation say about women in the GOP? I mean, too little too late, right? There's no surprises in this. It's just that she's saying it out loud and in the pages of The New York Times, which is a very intentional place to put this op-ed.

24:07It's not in the journal, right? It's in like The Gray Lady, right? Which we wake up, you know, and immediately go over to check what's going on, pop on The Daily, whatever it is. So obviously she meant to do it in this way. But, you know, she's bucking leadership because she got pushed too far that Epstein and Marjorie Taylor Greene is in this bucket as well. But also, you know, she's running for governor in South Carolina. And, you know, I think that she needs to show some sort of maverickism to her and that also she is interested in the business of governing because the crux of her piece and the argument that she's making is that it's this full bodied criticism of the way that Congress functions, that it's all about power and closed doors.

24:50are jockeying, if you're not in a position of power, so if you're just a rank-and-file congressperson, you know, you're a complete afterthought, if a thought at all. And she's been getting a front-row seat to that. She doesn't really matter to leadership to Mike Johnson. There was a stat in there that only 5 % of the bills introduced this year have seen a floor vote. They took months off, right? Mike Johnson ran away from being at work because he didn't want a deal with the Epstein files and the discharge petition. And, you know, they don't accomplish anything. It's going to be the biggest do-nothing Congress in American history.