Latest news with #Panicans
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
John Oliver skewers ‘toddler' Trump's tariffs fiasco and JD Vance's role in administration
John Oliver ridiculed President Donald Trump's decision last week to pause his 'reciprocal tariffs' after spooking the stock markets, likening the president to 'a toddler' for his impulsiveness. Speaking on Sunday's installment of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, the British satirist described the preceding seven days as an 'emotional rollercoaster' set in motion by Trump 'with the help of the single dumbest chart in human history.' Recapping the events that led to the commander-in-chief's decision to reverse his global trade policy, Oliver turned to Trump's attempt to calm investors by warning them against becoming 'Panicans,' which he defined as a new political party for the weak and stupid. 'I'd argue the weak and stupid demo is, if anything, way overrepresented in government right now,' the host observed, nodding to a photomontage of populist Republicans Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Vice President JD Vance. When he reached Trump's boast that his fellow world leaders were 'kissing my a** to make a deal,' Oliver said: 'I'm sure some have been pretty nice to him, the same way you try to be nice if you suddenly found yourself in the same room as a monkey with a gun.' Oliver called Trump's conduct, from announcing the tariffs in triumphant fashion to suspending them amid the financial meltdown, 'total chaos' and 'incredibly stupid' and played a clip of CNBC host Jim Cramer explaining the baffling decision to place a 90 percent tariff on the small African nation of Lesotho to illustrate the illogic of it all. Asking in exasperation what the president's endgame might be, he observed: 'The best way to ensure Trump does something is to tell him not to do it. 'He's like a toddler, both because his brain is unable to grasp negations and also because he has a short torso, huge head, always looks like he's about to fall over and won't let anyone brush his hair.' The comedian went on to mock Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as an uncharismatic 'Whoville tax accountant' and further criticized Vance for unwisely referring to Chinese citizens as 'peasants.' Vance's words were 'incredibly insulting, especially coming from the man who is next in line to run the country if anything were to happen to Elon Musk,' Oliver said. 'In a way, I guess it's reassuring to know that despite our differences, the American and Chinese people can come together to agree that it is fun to dunk on this cursed Cabbage Patch b****.' After reflecting grimly on the loss of confidence in America as a world power among its allies since Trump took office, Oliver turned his attention to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for gloating over the president's U-turn on social media. 'We dodged a bullet, but the monkey still has a gun!' he reminded Schumer.
The Independent
14-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
John Oliver skewers ‘toddler' Trump's tariffs fiasco and JD Vance's role in administration
John Oliver ridiculed President Donald Trump' s decision last week to pause his 'reciprocal tariffs' after spooking the stock markets, likening the president to 'a toddler' for his impulsiveness. Speaking on Sunday's installment of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, the British satirist described the preceding seven days as an 'emotional rollercoaster' set in motion by Trump 'with the help of the single dumbest chart in human history.' Recapping the events that led to the commander-in-chief's decision to reverse his global trade policy, Oliver turned to Trump's attempt to calm investors by warning them against becoming 'Panicans,' which he defined as a new political party for the weak and stupid. 'I'd argue the weak and stupid demo is, if anything, way overrepresented in government right now,' the host observed, nodding to a photomontage of populist Republicans Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Vice President JD Vance. When he reached Trump's boast that his fellow world leaders were 'kissing my a** to make a deal,' Oliver said: 'I'm sure some have been pretty nice to him, the same way you try to be nice if you suddenly found yourself in the same room as a monkey with a gun.' Oliver called Trump's conduct, from announcing the tariffs in triumphant fashion to suspending them amid the financial meltdown, 'total chaos' and 'incredibly stupid' and played a clip of CNBC host Jim Cramer explaining the baffling decision to place a 90 percent tariff on the small African nation of Lesotho to illustrate the illogic of it all. Asking in exasperation what the president's endgame might be, he observed: 'The best way to ensure Trump does something is to tell him not to do it. 'He's like a toddler, both because his brain is unable to grasp negations and also because he has a short torso, huge head, always looks like he's about to fall over and won't let anyone brush his hair.' The comedian went on to mock Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as an uncharismatic 'Whoville tax accountant' and further criticized Vance for unwisely referring to Chinese citizens as 'peasants.' Vance's words were 'incredibly insulting, especially coming from the man who is next in line to run the country if anything were to happen to Elon Musk,' Oliver said. 'In a way, I guess it's reassuring to know that despite our differences, the American and Chinese people can come together to agree that it is fun to dunk on this cursed Cabbage Patch b****.' After reflecting grimly on the loss of confidence in America as a world power among its allies since Trump took office, Oliver turned his attention to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for gloating over the president's U-turn on social media. 'We dodged a bullet, but the monkey still has a gun!' he reminded Schumer.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump administration accused of ‘market manipulation' with tariff reversal: ‘WTF! Who's in charge?'
Donald Trump told the world to 'be cool' as his sweeping import taxes took hold, tanking global markets and sending shockwaves through the U.S. economy. Then, minutes after the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange, Trump announced: 'THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!' Four hours later, the president reversed course. He paused and lowered tariffs on goods from most nations for 90 days while raising tariffs on imports from China to 125 percent. Markets soared. White House officials — who just one day earlier said Trump would never back off — said 'this was his strategy all along' and 'the art of the deal' at work. Social media erupted with accusations that the president played a reverse 'pump and dump' scheme with the American economy: driving stock prices down only to buy them up before prices rise again. Democratic Senator Adam Schiff is calling for an investigation into insider trading. Trump's surprise turn on Wednesday appeared to be news to the administration's own trade representative, who was in the middle of testifying to a House committee, deflecting allegations that the president purposefully manipulated the markets. 'If you came here knowing that … these tariffs were going to be turned off, why didn't you include that in your opening statement? Why didn't you reference that in your testimony?' asked a furious Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford. 'I don't disclose my conversations with the president, sir,' trade representative Jamieson Greer replied. 'These were specific questions. We asked you all along, 'What's the strategy?'' Horsford said. 'This is amateur hour and it needs to stop … How are you in charge of negotiating if the president is tweeting about this from wherever the hell he is? … Did you know that this was happening? … Is this market manipulation?' 'No,' Greer replied. 'Why not? If it was a plan, if it was always the plan, how is it not market manipulation?' Horsford said. 'It's not market manipulation, sir,' Greer said. 'We're trying to reset the global trade system that has offshored all our factories.' 'How have you achieved any of that?' said Horsford, cutting Greer off. 'Who's benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?' Horsford noted there were no House Republicans left in the hearing. House Speaker Mike Johnson was 'rushing to the floor to screw America with the biggest tax cut in history, on the backs of the American people.' 'WTF! Who's in charge?' Horsford said. 'Because it sure doesn't look like it's the trade representative. You just got the rug pulled out from under you. I wish I could feel some empathy. But the empathy I have is for the American people, whose very wellbeing and livelihoods are being affected. This is not a game. This is real life.' On X, the Trump campaign's War Room account asked: 'Did the Panicans listen to @POTUS's advice this morning?' The post – referencing Trump's made-up word for 'stupid' and 'weak' people who don't support his tariff plan — included a screenshot of the president writing 'THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY' on his Truth Social account. In a statement, Schiff said Trump 'is creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs.' 'These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading,' he warned. 'Who in the administration knew about Trump's latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public's expense? I'm writing to the White House — the public has a right to know.' The California senator is calling on the White House to answer 'who is cashing in,' he told reporters Wednesday. 'There is all too much opportunity for people in the White House and administration to be into insider trading,' he said. 'They won't be able to hide it for good.' Trump, meanwhile, appeared outside the White House with a group of car racing champions, celebrating their 'endurance' and gesturing at a bright red and yellow race car parked near the South Lawn. 'I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,' Trump said when asked why he reversed course and paused tariffs for 90 days. 'They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,' he said. 'It's working out maybe faster than I thought.' Asked whether people unloading Treasury bonds persuaded him, he said: 'No, I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it, but if you look at it now, it's — it's beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful. But, yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.' 'The big move wasn't what I did today,' he added. 'The big move was what I did on Liberation Day.'
The Independent
09-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Trump administration accused of ‘market manipulation' with tariff reversal: ‘WTF! Who's in charge?'
Donald Trump told the world to 'be cool' as his sweeping import taxes took hold, tanking global markets and sending shockwaves through the U.S. economy. Then, minutes after the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange, Trump announced: 'THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!' Four hours later, the president reversed course. He paused and lowered tariffs on goods from most nations for 90 days while raising tariffs on imports from China to 125 percent. Markets soared. White House officials — who just one day earlier said Trump would never back off — said 'this was his strategy all along' and 'the art of the deal' at work. Social media erupted with accusations that the president played a reverse 'pump and dump' scheme with the American economy: driving stock prices down only to buy them up before prices drop again. Democratic Senator Adam Schiff is calling for an investigation into insider trading. Trump's surprise turn on Wednesday appeared to be news to the administration's own trade representative, who was in the middle of testifying to a House committee, deflecting allegations that the president purposefully manipulated the markets. 'If you came here knowing that … these tariffs were going to be turned off, why didn't you include that in your opening statement? Why didn't you reference that in your testimony?' asked a furious Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford. 'I don't disclose my conversations with the president, sir,' trade representative Jamieson Greer replied. 'These were specific questions. We asked you all along, 'What's the strategy?'' Horsford said. 'This is amateur hour and it needs to stop … How are you in charge of negotiating if the president is tweeting about this from wherever the hell he is? … Did you know that this was happening? … Is this market manipulation?' 'No,' Greer replied. 'Why not? If it was a plan, if it was always the plan, how is it not market manipulation?' Horsford said. 'It's not market manipulation, sir,' Greer said. 'We're trying to reset the global trade system that has offshored all our factories.' 'How have you achieved any of that?' said Horsford, cutting Greer off. 'Who's benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?' Horsford noted there were no House Republicans left in the hearing. House Speaker Mike Johnson was 'rushing to the floor to screw America with the biggest tax cut in history, on the backs of the American people.' 'WTF! Who's in charge?' Horsford said. 'Because it sure doesn't look like it's the trade representative. You just got the rug pulled out from under you. I wish I could feel some empathy. But the empathy I have is for the American people, whose very wellbeing and livelihoods are being affected. This is not a game. This is real life.' On X, the Trump campaign's War Room account asked: 'Did the Panicans listen to @POTUS's advice this morning?' The post – referencing Trump's made-up word for 'stupid' and 'weak' people who don't support his tariff plan — included a screenshot of the president writing 'THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY' on his Truth Social account. In a statement, Schiff said Trump 'is creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs.' 'These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading,' he warned. 'Who in the administration knew about Trump's latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public's expense? I'm writing to the White House — the public has a right to know.' The California senator is calling on the White House to answer 'who is cashing in,' he told reporters Wednesday. 'There is all too much opportunity for people in the White House and administration to be into insider trading,' he said. 'They won't be able to hide it for good.' Trump, meanwhile, appeared outside the White House with a group of car racing champions, celebrating their 'endurance' and gesturing at a bright red and yellow race car parked near the South Lawn. 'I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,' Trump said when asked why he reversed course and paused tariffs for 90 days. 'They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,' he said. 'It's working out maybe faster than I thought.' Asked whether people unloading Treasury bonds persuaded him, he said: 'No, I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it, but if you look at it now, it's — it's beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful. But, yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.' 'The big move wasn't what I did today,' he added. 'The big move was what I did on Liberation Day.'
Atlantic
09-04-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
Why Trump Paused the Tariffs
Only yesterday, President Donald Trump was mocking Republicans nervous about his global trade war as 'Panicans.' In a defiant speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee, he insisted, 'This time I'm doing what I want to do with respect to the tariffs,' and that only he had the courage to defy 'the globalists.' But the globalists turn out to have had enough power to bring Trump to heel after all. This afternoon, the president announced a 90-day pause on what he has called his 'reciprocal tariffs' against every country other than China. According to Charlie Gasparino of Fox News, Trump retreated in the face of troubling developments in the bond market. Asked by reporters, Trump didn't deny this, noting that, even with a 'beautiful' bond market, 'I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.' This was a completely new layer of danger that appeared overnight. Before Tuesday evening, the interest rate on Treasury bonds had fallen slightly, a sign of increased demand as nervous investors retreated to the historically safe strategy of lending their savings to the U.S. government. Then, suddenly, investors began pulling money out, sensing that the U.S. government was no longer safe, a prospect that created the risk of everything from higher interest payments on the debt to a full-scale financial crisis. All this is to suggest that if a stock-market swoon, or even a recession, does not frighten Trump, the prospect of a 2008-style meltdown apparently still does. And so the gargantuan trade war is back off, for now. Where does this leave the economy? The new 10 percent tariff on almost every good imported from every country not controlled by Vladimir Putin remains in place. This global flat tax on imports, it must be said, is much closer the policy he campaigned on in 2024 than the confusing sampler platter of tariffs unveiled on Liberation Day. Jonathan Chait: Trump has already botched his own bad tariff plan That policy is, to be clear, quite harmful. Despite Trump's rhetoric about reindustrialization, the universal tariff applies indiscriminately to almost every country and product. Some of those products, like coffee and bananas, cannot be practically grown in the United States, and will just get more expensive. Others, like metals and other industrial inputs, will make American manufacturing less competitive, not more. The stock market surged after Trump's 'pause' announcement, but once the relief wears off, reality is likely to dull investors' enthusiasm. Goldman Sachs, absorbing the news, has returned to its previous economic forecast, which calls for meager 0.5 percent economic growth this year and a 45 percent chance of recession. That is not the blinking-light disaster that the economy was facing before the pause, but it is still terrible, and much worse than the situation Trump inherited when he took office. That's one view, anyway. Within the MAGAverse, Trump's latest pivot has been hailed as a masterstroke of economic statecraft. 'Scott Bessent and I sat with the President while he wrote one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency,' gushed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on X. (This is plausible, to be fair; 'one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency' is not exactly the highest bar.) The financier Bill Ackman, who had spent much of the past few days posting (and occasionally deleting) careful critiques of Trump's tariffs, posted, 'This was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.' What deal? Nobody has made a new trade agreement with Trump. To the contrary, other countries have found the administration unable to even articulate its goals or objectives, since Trump's 'reciprocal' tariffs are the product of a nonsensical formula putatively serving a grab-bag of mutually exclusive goals. Rogé Karma: Trump's tariffs are designed to backfire To the extent that the reciprocal tariffs created any leverage, it rests on the side of Trump's counterparties, who now know that he may be a madman, but is not mad enough to risk a full-blown global economic meltdown. The gun on the table is pointed at Trump's own foot. Trump could very well restore the gigantic tariffs, especially if he feels humiliated by today's events. The likelier outcome is that he will muddle through with policies that push prices up and growth down, but don't directly precipitate an economic collapse. Trump's allies will tolerate an enormous amount of damage to the country, especially damage that takes place over an extended period of time or primarily hurts people who aren't rich. Immediate, massive harm to his wealthiest supporters appears to be one of the few red lines that Trump still won't cross.
