Transcript: Trump’s Angry Tirade at Walmart Wrecks His Own Tariff Scam

I will say it’s not just the tariffs that are potentially going to result in high prices for Americans. There are a whole host of other policies moving through Congress right now, which, if they are signed into law, will also result in high prices. We heard the press secretary talk a little bit about Trump’s strength on energy prices, but it’s actually the case that the cost of electricity and utilities is up over inflation year over year. We just heard last week that the Rhodium Group, one of the big analysts who looks at climate and energy, is predicting that utility prices could increase 7 percent for American families if some of the repeals to the Inflation Reduction Act are signed into law. You’ve got a president who knows his voters are very concerned about high prices. He’s certainly not acting like it. He’s pursuing a whole host of policies that go in the exact opposite direction. And it’s not just the tariffs; it’s really across his administration. We’re seeing the possibility of higher prices still.

Sargent: It’s amazing. I think there’s something else getting lost here as well I wanted to bring up. When the president of the U.S. says about a private company, “I’ll be watching,” that’s a naked threat of retaliation. In this case, though, Trump is threatening state power against a private company in order to force it to do business in a way that pleases him—but also to force it to help him conceal the truth about his priorities from the American people, which is that these tariffs are a tax on working- and middle-class consumers to fund a massive tax cut for the rich. Trump is basically saying, Walmart, you can’t allow Americans to see what I’m actually doing here. Can you talk about that element of it?

Owens: Yeah. Look, the first thing I’ll say is I think Trump’s likelihood of success here is slim to none. Walmart is a major Fortune 500 American company, one of the largest grocers in the U.S., and one of the only retailers in a lot of quarters and pockets of the U.S. They are pretty focused on the consumer, and they’re pretty focused in these earnings calls—and when they’re making decisions—on seeing strong returns, right? That’s what their investors are interested in, that is what their shareholders are interested in, and that’s what they are interested in as well. That’s who they view as some of their key stakeholders, so I think Trump threatening Walmart is really unlikely to be successful. They are not focused on the public policy goals of their work; they’re focused on revenues. And so they are not going to be eating tariffs. They’re going to be passing them along to the extent that they can.