Jon Stewart on Thursday revealed President Donald Trump’s lack of guidance for his tariffs has left him “shocked” more than anything else about his trade policy rollout.
“[There’s] an inability to coherently communicate what the idea is and what the plan is other than, ‘Everything’s unfair to the United States and we’re not going to take it, we’re not going to be the world’s whipping boy,’” Stewart said.
Stewart — in an interview with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on “The Weekly Show” — said he’s seen “very little consistent logic” from the president, who pumped the brakes on his sweeping tariffs for most countries except China on Wednesday.
“Why bother with that?” Buttigieg wittingly replied.
Buttigieg argued that the Trump administration doesn’t believe it has to justify what officials are doing with the tariffs, pointing to a list of several officials’ “screw-ups” including the rehiring of workers it fired, sending war plans to a journalist and imposing tariffs on penguin-populated islands.
Buttigieg — citing his work in government — noted that there are things officials sometimes don’t “get right” and, if they suspect the press will hold them “accountable,” they should learn to do better in the future.
“If, on the other hand, you think you can just beat your chest and say, ‘It’s all fake news’ … then why bother going through the finer points of making sure all of the places you’re putting tariffs on are actually countries or checking your math once or twice before you throw the markets into total turmoil,” he said.
Stewart replied, “I imagine it’s got to be mind-blowingly frustrating to watch shit like that go down, stock markets tanking, $10 trillion going out and the Democrats are like, ‘We can’t even wear a tan suit, if we wear a tan suit, the world goes bonkers, it’s the lead story for a week.’”
He then called out Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for suggesting that about 20% of cuts to his agency were “mistakes” and “always” part of the plan.
“You’re like, what if you took an extra two days, like that’s what I can’t figure out. What is the rush? It’s been two months,” Stewart said.
“What about trying to negotiate trade deals prior to killing the hostage and then asking for ransom, I don’t get it.”
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Check out Stewart’s interview with Buttigieg on “The Weekly Show” below.
