Title: Monday Morning Politics: Tariffs & Federal Worker Buyouts

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We'll begin this week with USA TODAY White House correspondent Francesca Chambers and your calls on two of the Trump administration's opening actions, the tariffs that he announced over the weekend on Canada, Mexico, and China, and the offer to most of the 2.3 million federal workers to resign and get eight months of salary buyout as they try to shrink the size of the workforce and also increase the percentage of those workers who are remaining who are enthusiastically in line with the new administration's policies.

On the buyout first, if you're a federal worker listening right now, are you going to take the buyout or wait to see if the new government retains you or lays you off? The deadline is Thursday, so if you're undecided, what do you see as the pros and cons for you, and what might make up your mind? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Federal workers, if you're listening right now, any of you, are you going to take the buyout or wait to see what happens? With the deadline Thursday, if you're undecided, what do you see as the pros and cons for you at this moment? 212-433-WNYC, call or text 212-433-9692.

There's an article on The Bulwark, the new site founded by anti-Trump conservatives, an article called Layer Cake that urges federal workers not to resign. The Layer Cake concept is that it's in the national interest to keep layers of the federal workforce there with professionals who are committed to the law and the Constitution rather than simply walk away even if you're disgusted with the new administration and let the whole government become politicized in the interest of whatever the president dictates.

The argument on the other side, of course, is that the new government was elected and campaigned on overhauling how the bureaucracy works, so the government rank and file should mostly help enact their policies. If you don't want to do that, go do something else. If those policies fail to serve the public interest, the party in charge today will lose the next election. That's that argument. Then, of course, there's whatever your personal calculation is, eight months of pay to make a transition, worth it or not worth it in the context of your life.

People who choose to remain are agreeing also to a set of what the memo calls enhanced standards of employee conduct. It doesn't spell out what all of those enhanced standards are. If you're a federal worker and you happen to be listening right now, are you going to take the buyout or wait to see if the new government retains you or lays you off? If you're undecided, what do you see as the pros and cons for you? Per The Bulwark's Layer Cake article, the pros and cons for the country, if you're thinking about it like that.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll take tariffs calls in a little bit for people who work in affected businesses, but for now, let's see if we have federal workers listening on the buyout. Call or text, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Francesca Chambers, USA Today White House correspondent, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Francesca Chambers: Thanks so much, Brian. It's great to be back.

Brian Lehrer: Are there any early results of the buyout offer with three days left for the workforce to take it? Anything that you're seeing or that they're reporting?

Francesca Chambers: I haven't personally seen inside of this, but I did want to note with respect to what you were saying about those enhanced standards that as a part of their memo, the Trump administration also said that they were likely to downsize anyway. One question that is facing federal employees, as you noted, is whether or not they want to stick around and figure out if they're going to end up being laid off anyhow.

Experts have said that one of the difficulties with this is that you could see career federal employees leave the government who have expertise that the government needs. The reason that they're in those positions and they've been in those positions for a long time is because they're the experts on whatever their issue areas.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a text that has come in right away that seems to be in line with the Layer Cake theory. Listener writes, "I'm a Federal Employee of AmeriCorps. I will not be taking this offer. I took an oath to serve and will continue to do as long as it able to," is the way it got written, but you understand the idea there. Francesca, I mentioned The Bulwark article with the Layer Cake pleas to workers to stay. I know there are some federal workers' social media threads on Reddit and elsewhere urging the same thing, "Don't leave voluntarily," under the reasoning that is exactly one of the classic defenses against authoritarianism.

"Don't cooperate with authoritarian consolidation of power voluntarily." Any sense that that movement is taking off or affecting numbers in a big or measurable way?

Francesca Chambers: Notably, it was sent to more than 2 million workers, so it's hard to track. The DOGE folks are estimating that with this move, they could save $100 billion. That's the amount that they're looking for. That does give you some insight into how many more people or salaries they could be looking at if people don't come forward and automatically say that they'd like to leave. Especially if those workers don't want to come into the office.

That's the people that this is targeting, the folks who say that they don't want to return to work or perhaps can't because they don't live in the DC area or anywhere near where their office is anymore following the pandemic.

Brian Lehrer: That's another thing that I imagine it's very hard to measure. I know that that was part of the context for this. All federal workers have to return to the office five days a week if they're working remotely, full or part-time. Do we even have numbers on how many of the 2.3 million federal workers that is or how much that's moving the needle? I imagine that's hard to get.

Francesca Chambers: I personally don't have data to that effect, but our reporters are certainly looking into this and trying to track exactly what you're asking about.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Bob in Queens, a recently retired federal worker who has some thoughts on this. Bob, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling us.

Bob: Thanks, Brian. Longtime listener. After 15 years working for the federal government, I put in my retirement paperwork just prior to the election. My decision had nothing to do with politics. I've been retired since December 31, and looking at what my colleagues are going through right now, it's just hell on earth. Folks with 15 or 20 years in government nowhere near eligibility for retirement are now being asked if they want to resign, which is a very different phenomenon than retiring.

There's no guarantee that if they do resign by February 6th, something will change between now and the end of the fiscal year at the end of September, and they might not even be eligible for retirement or something. There's no guarantees. In fact, the memo that was sent out is called a fork in the road, not even a policy memo.

Brian Lehrer: Based on your experience--

Bob: As far as the expertise in the agency, there's going to be a huge drain because a lot of these federal workers are very uniquely qualified and there isn't a crossover to industry. If there's a big drain, this is going to hurt the nation's business.

Brian Lehrer: As somebody who recently retired and worked in the federal government for a good number of years, do you know what the severance would be under the collective bargaining agreement? Maybe it's different in different agencies, I don't know, for people, depending on how long they worked, how much they would get if they stay but then get laid off. I imagine that's part of the calculation as they look at the eight months of salary offer. Yes?

Bob: Your assumption is correct. The program's known as reduction in force. Your assumption is correct that there are dozens, literally of collective bargaining agreements varying from agency to agency. Many agencies have several different collective bargaining agreements, so that would be impossible to guess from this perspective. However, under reduction in force, there is a unified program to do this. It's just rarely used because the government rarely goes through a reduction in force.

Certainly not a scale of this size. By the way, the people who would administer it would be the human relations folks at each government agency who have historically been woefully understaffed. I don't know how they're going to be able to do it.

Brian Lehrer: Bob, thanks for your insight. We appreciate your call.

Bob: Thanks Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Call us again. Good luck in retirement. You know what you should do from 10:00 to noon on the weekdays. Just kidding. Francesca, here are some texts that have come in. One says, "My brother is a federal worker and is refusing to leave no matter how much pressure they put on him. He's committed to fighting corruption and as Senator Tim Kaine," Democrat from Virginia, "Said, they'll probably get stiffed. Musk never paid out for his Twitter employees and Trump has a whole history of not paying people."

Another text says, "Note from a federal worker friend, they are being told by management not to take it because it is not clear that DOGE has the authority to pay for those months or that getting another job in that time frame is legal. There are very strict rules for what jobs they are getting. This is extremely cruel," this person's opinion, "Especially when you have married couples working for the government." We have even a few more, Francesca, from people who are not necessarily federal workers, but are just skeptical, citing Trump's history that the eight-month buyout will even be paid.

I don't know if reporting can indicate whether that's a real concern or not or just people who have knowledge of what some of Trump's practices were in business thinking it can be applied to the federal government. I'm not sure it's as easy to do.

Francesca Chambers: You touched on some of the legality and how it is that Trump plans to go about this. One of the comments that he made last week that was also very interesting was he claimed that people are getting paychecks, but they're actually working other jobs. What he said was, "They'll have to prove to us that they weren't," in that they weren't working other jobs at the same time as their federal jobs. It isn't clear to me how the White House or the federal government would enforce that.

I've asked the White House about that, how anyone would prove that they didn't have a second job or where they're getting that data from because Trump said they would be required to show that in some way or that he was looking at it. We'll be looking for more on that as well.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call from another federal worker, Pamela, in Westfield, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Pamela, thank you for calling in.

Pamela: Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say this is the world's largest heist that is happening and unfolding in the US. It's ridiculous. I'm not going to leave my position. My coworkers are not going to leave their position, but I can't understand why we are normalizing this. I do not understand why we are not screaming and protesting. Elon Musk is not even an American citizen. We should actually arrest him for what he's doing, but nobody's doing anything. Where is the outcry?

Brian Lehrer: Where is it among the federal workers? It's certainly one of the complaints that some people who would like to see a more active resistance in general to a bunch of the new Trump policies. At the beginning of the first Trump administration, there were a lot of demonstrations in the streets. It's not happening right now. What's your own take on that, Pamela, in terms of, let's say, the federal workforce, all these people who are being targeted?

Pamela: The lawyers should be stepping in. It shouldn't have to take this long for there to be an immediate response. These are people's lives that are in jeopardy right now and nobody's saying anything. The news media is not even talking about it. What are we saying? Is this okay? It's amazing. The Europeans know what this look like, but Americans don't.

Brian Lehrer: Pamela, thank you very much. To the point of the legality, Francesca, is it clear that the president has the sole authority as the executive to even do this, to issue a memo that offers a buyout and sets the terms of a buyout for potentially a couple of million workers without going through Congress in some way or some other process?

Francesca Chambers: It's not entirely clear where DOGE is drawing what it claims to be its legal authority to do several of these actions. Another thing we're tracking this morning is that Elon Musk said overnight, for those who may have missed it, that he was going to be shutting down and dismantling USAID. He said that he had the full backing of President Trump for that, that he had discussed this with him in detail.

I've reached out to the White House as well for comment on that this morning, because you have lawmakers who are saying this morning, including the ranking member, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Gerry Connolly, saying that that requires congressional approval, that Congress hasn't given any such approval, for instance, in this case, because it established USAID. It's not clear for that move either what legal authority that DOGE is citing.

Brian Lehrer: Trump had already cut off most foreign aid for health and development programs that USAID administers. USAID is United States Agency for International Development. They cut off last week, most everything except emergency food aid. I read, Francesca, that thousands of people have been laid off in the private not-for-profits that get government funding to do that work. Now the White House, as you're reporting, says the USAID office in DC will be closed today and the staff there should not report to work.

Musk even called the whole agency a criminal enterprise, USAID a criminal enterprise, in a tweet over the weekend, and Trump apparently backed him up. Folks, we're going to do a separate, longer segment on this topic tomorrow, but Francesca, briefly, do you know why they have it in for the whole agency rather than just wanting to look at the effectiveness of specific foreign aid programs, which is certainly their right?

Francesca Chambers: I just want to respond to something you said about the White House announcing. It actually came from Elon Musk, who is not a government employee. He does lead DOGE, but he is not a government employee. That's a voluntary position for which he doesn't personally take a salary. The White House hasn't announced this, as far as I know, at all, unless something has been announced by President Trump or the White House since we started this conversation, which is always possible. Sorry, you asked me specifically about USAID and foreign assistance.

Brian Lehrer: No, I'm just asking why do they want to shut down the whole agency because that appears to be what they're saying. There's the constitutional question, there's the democracy versus consolidation of power in an authoritarian way. If it goes against what the law says, maybe this is going to wind up in court. Maybe this is another thing that Trump is trying to test in court. He's had a few things reversed by the courts already since the inauguration, but trying to see if he has the power to do this.

Why would he even want to shut down the whole agency rather than just look at each foreign aid program that's being administered and the money that's going to each country?

Francesca Chambers: Going back to the transition when Vivek Ramaswamy was still a part of DOGE, he's no longer part of DOGE, the DOGE folks said that they were going to take a zero-based approach to foreign aid, meaning that they were going to start from zero and then justify which foreign assistance programs that they thought were necessary. I don't think that got a lot of attention at the time when it was said.

Their thinking on this seems to be based on that, that, "We're going to start with the idea that US foreign assistance doesn't necessarily meet the best interest or the national interests of the United States government, and then we're going to only keep the programs that meet our standard." It's in line with the Trump administration's stated foreign policy goals and angles for cutting government assistance, that they only want to give out assistance that they believe meet Donald Trump's direct foreign policy goals.

They don't necessarily believe in this idea, as previous administrations had, that if the US doesn't provide assistance to some places, that maybe they'll go looking for China or they'll go looking for other places to help them. That US foreign assistance is a soft power.

Brian Lehrer: Are the Trump people arguing that that is going to be part of the evaluation process on each of these things? If they're looking for the promotion of US interests around the world and they think that China's going to wind up with more interest if we create a vacuum and more power if we create a vacuum in particular countries that we care about having influence in, then that would be part of the assessment, wouldn't it?

Francesca Chambers: They have said that their foreign policy through either the Peace Through Strength or America First is going to be to pursue things that they believe are in the US national interest. Now, their view on what is in the US National interest, as you're noting, is not necessarily as the same as what Democrats believe is in the US national interest or even some establishment or more traditional Republicans when it comes to foreign assistance.

There's obviously disputes within the Republican Party right now about how much assistance should go to Ukraine, for instance, right now. It's unclear what will happen to future Ukraine assistance under the Trump administration.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, we're going to switch topics and as I said, we're going to do a segment specifically on USAID tomorrow. Right now we're going to switch to the other main topic for us for today with Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for USA Today, and that's the 25% tariffs the president announced on Mexico and Canada on Saturday to take effect tomorrow for economic and border policy reasons, is what they're saying now.

There's a lot of pushback on that from economists of many stripes, The Wall Street Journal editorial page even, which calls them The Dumbest Tariffs in History. That's the headline. What do you really think, Wall Street Journal? On this, our invitation is for anyone who owns or works in a business that the tariffs might affect. What's your business looking at? How might this affect prices or jobs for better or worse? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Again, the invitation on the phones now is for anyone who owns or works in a business that the 25% tariffs on Mexico or Canada will affect. You could also talk about the 10% increase in the tariffs on China, but I think the big focus right now is this really big jump in tariffs for Canada and Mexico that would be so new relative to what we already have for China. What's your business looking at? How might this affect prices or jobs for better or for worse? 212-433-WNYC. Help us report this story at 212-433-9692.

We'll take your calls and talk to Francesca about her reporting on this topic right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Francesca Chambers, USA Today White House correspondent. Your calls now, if you are in a business as an owner or an employee that could be affected by the tariffs on Mexico and Canada if they do take effect as scheduled tonight at midnight. 212-433-9692. Francesca, your article on tariffs is called Donald Trump has a Choice: Revenue or Revenge? Does that mean it looks like these tariffs are motivated by both?

Francesca Chambers: At this point, he has went the latter route and he is focusing specifically, as you noted, on Mexico, China, and Canada, all of whom have trade deficits with the United States. The administration has used both as justification, both the trade deficits that they're trying to close the gap on, as well as fentanyl distribution and production and seizures as well as immigration. You brought up earlier the China ones that people have not focused as much on, focusing more on Canada and Mexico.

I just want to also point out that in addition to the tariffs that Trump has already put on these nations, he's also said that he could put in a universal tariff as well. He explicitly said the other day that he's planning to put forward tariffs on semiconductors as well as pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum. At some point, he's also looking at copper. These won't be the only tariffs that are expected. He also brought up the European Union and said that he also thinks they treat the United States unfairly. Not clear yet how expansive these will be and when they'll go into effect, but the next round we're expecting will be February 18th.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about Mexico in particular. Over the weekend, the White House was saying tariffs on Mexico because of all the fentanyl that comes in from there, which has killed many, many Americans and gotten many, many more addicted, also because of so many people crossing illegally, but on the fentanyl first, is there something specific that would be new that Trump wants Mexico to do about it before midnight tonight?

Francesca Chambers: That's what's not been clear, is he's been saying these things during the transition. He did say during the transition he was going to put this 25% tariff on both Canada and Mexico for that reason, and he's stuck with it for weeks, but even after, for instance, speaking to Justin Trudeau before he didn't move off of this position. He's expected to speak to Trudeau as well as Mexico's President Sheinbaum again today. It's not clear what, if anything, they could do to get out from under these not just today before tomorrow, but afterwards.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call from somebody who says his business might be affected. Charlie in Pine Bush, New York, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charlie. Thank you for calling in.

Charlie: Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for taking my Call. I own a HVAC contracting company. We service the whole area. 80% of my equipment is produced in Mexico, Canada, or China. All the equipment for your furnaces, boilers, HVAC, it all goes up significantly. 20% or 30% on a $10,000 piece of equipment is very significant.

Brian Lehrer: Charlie, one of the theories for raising tariffs is it would incentivize those companies who produce all those products that feed your HVAC business to start making them in the United States because of the competitive advantage that they would then have. There'd be more jobs for Americans and your products would presumably be as affordable as they are today. It would take some time to make that transition, but do you have any thought on--

Charlie: That would be great. That would be a wonderful solution, but there's no preparation. Trump has not put together any policy for that. There's nothing happening in that direction. This is week number two of the administration shooting from the hip, "Let's raise taxes." That's not the beginning of the conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Charlie, thank you and good luck with the business. We'll see what happens. Call and check in with us if this actually goes through. Paul in Baton Rouge, you're on WNYC. Hi, Paul, thank you for calling in.

Paul: Hey, thanks for taking my call. I work for an e-commerce business and we import construction attachments. Not import them, but we sell them online. One of our biggest vendors is Canadian. The first thing I did this morning when I got into work was raise our prices from that vendor by 25% because they are charging us an extra 25% on our cost.

Brian Lehrer: It hasn't gone into effect yet, though. This is an anticipatory price increase.

Paul: The way it works is we put an order in, but it's not going to ship today. It's going to ship out of Canada in two weeks or one week or three weeks. If everything goes into effect tomorrow, all of these orders will be crossing the border after the tariff goes into effect.

Brian Lehrer: Got it. Paul, thank you very much for helping us report this story. One of the industries that gets mentioned frequently as one that would be affected to a large degree is the wine and liquor industry. Will in Steuben County, New York, works in that, I think. Hi, Will, you're on WNYC.

Will: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me on. Just woke up to some interesting news. A lot of us growing here in the Finger Lake had been up to Ottawa and also Toronto, not just two weeks ago trying to get into the market. It's quite ironic that I think this is traditionally pretty conservative in agriculture across the states and also the wine industry, but we seem to have shot ourselves in our foot collectively here.

Brian Lehrer: Will, thank you very much. Francesca, just looking at our caller board and texts coming in, we could go for the rest of the hour. Maybe we could go for the rest of the day just taking calls from people and you hear how disparate these businesses are who feel like their businesses are going to be affected, their costs are going to be affected and they're flipping them right around and getting ready to pass them on to consumers if they haven't even done so already, as at least one of the callers says that he already did. Trump said over the weekend there will be some pain. Does he think this is a political winner?

Francesca Chambers: In terms of the potential for higher prices, experts warned that this could be a cost that was passed down to consumers. Even conservative analysts, center-right-leaning analysts and economists have warned that that could be the case, all while not raising as much revenue as Donald Trump thinks that the tariffs could end up raising because of retaliation from other countries. You mentioned my piece before. I encourage folks to read my piece for more information on that.

I did want to respond to something that your first caller said though, about what the plan is to actually get businesses to relocate back into the United States. He makes a point that while Donald Trump has said that he wants to cut the corporate tax rate from 21% where it is currently down to 15% for businesses that manufacture in America, that's not currently what the law is. That is something that he has proposed to do. That's something that would be passed by Congress and it is unclear if it's going to be part of the first bill.

I'm sure everyone's heard about the two-bills versus one-bill thing going down with Congress. If it's not in the first bill, which focus on national security and border security and it's in a second bill later on, that could be way later on down the year if they don't do it all in one bill. That would be part of his 2017 tax cut expansion and extension and Congress would still have to pass that.

Brian Lehrer: Is the incident with the nation of Colombia an example of how the threat of tariffs can be effective in bringing about policy changes and that's what he's really aiming at with Mexico? Colombia at first, just to remind people, refused to take deportees being sent back there from the United States on US military planes. Trump immediately announced 25% tariffs. The president of Colombia announced the same tariff would be applied back to the US but within hours, the president of Colombia backed down since his country would be hurt so much more than the US.

I've read that in this case, Mexico would be hurt much more by a trade war. Can this work as leverage, and by the end of the day, before the midnight deadline, Mexico will likely announce some new anti-fentanyl steps and also new ways to stop people from crossing illegally into the United States?

Francesca Chambers: It could be, but those two are different because with Colombia, he said he was going to put the tariffs on as a result of them not accepting the migrant flights and then quickly remove them before they were put on. Whereas with Canada and Mexico, he specifically cited the trade deficit. This didn't come about overnight. This was something that he's been saying for quite a long time that he was going to do. Now, could they get out of it with some sort of policy concessions? That's absolutely possible.

Whether that's going to happen before midnight tonight, that part's unclear. As we were talking about before, it's not totally clear what specific steps to address both migrants and fentanyl that he wants Canada and Mexico to take.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another caller with another story to report from his experience on what might happen if these tariffs go into effect. Patrick in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello?

Patrick: Hey, good morning all. I was calling just because I'm retired now, but I did work in the trades for a while as an electrician, and one of the things I noticed a couple of years before the crash, 2008, was that materials started getting way more expensive and as a result, they started getting cheaper. One of the things we noticed directly was with BX cable, the actual lumen around or inside the cable that the wires flow through started getting tighter because people were using less metal.

As a result, it just became harder to strip BX cable, pole wires, and such. Screws started getting made cheaper with these alloys and we started noticing that when we were using our screw guns to screw things in, the screws would just snap on us. Everything had to start getting pre-drilled because the screws were actually made of cheaper material and snapping. One of the things that doesn't get spoken about as much as people not being able to build is people building with cheaper materials and cutting corners because of the prices that go up.

Brian Lehrer: Patrick, thank you. That's such a great call, Francesca. I haven't seen this reported per se, at least in the articles that I've read so far. Another potential impact here is to save money, the businesses that are affected by the tariffs will cut corners and that will reduce quality and maybe put building safety at risk is really what Patrick is saying from his former trade. That's another possible impact.

Francesca Chambers: I think Democratic lawmakers have been focused on in their pushback, at least to Donald Trump's actions, on the prices, how it could affect Americans from everything from tomatoes to orange juice. When we get into China and we start talking about semiconductors, which he didn't put tariffs on yet, but he says he's going to, how that could affect the price of smartphones as well as laptops. There are a bunch of things that Americans use in their daily life.

This isn't just about automobiles, which you might not be purchasing, obviously, on a regular basis. There's a lot of goods that come across every single day. Canada says that it could be looking as well at vegetables, pork, beef, dairy. There's a whole lot more. There's a whole entire list, by the way, for folks who want to know exactly what Canada, for instance, plans to tariff. They've released an entire list of what they'll be putting tariffs on.

Brian Lehrer: What about things that come in from Canada? We've talked mostly about Mexico. Are there certain things you'll be watching? I'll read another text. I don't know if this is Canada-specific, but listener writes that they work in a medical products company in New Jersey. This will absolutely mean that medical procedures will be more expensive as well as more difficult to get. Is healthcare as a sector being mentioned much per your reporting? Then we'll go on to Canada.

Francesca Chambers: Another one that's getting a lot of mention that we haven't talked about yet, I will say is the energy. I think we have to be really specific here and note that that is exempted when it comes to Canada. From that 25%, there's only 10% tariff on energy. That's not just oil. That is specifically energy, electricity, natural gas. That is one area where the White House seems to be very concerned about disruptions in the market. That wasn't originally how this was described by Trump or his advisors to reporters. Then they came back as the time got closer and said 10% on energy. They were very concerned about the cost of home heating oil in particular.

Brian Lehrer: Why even a 10% tariff on energy then? If Trump ran on anything, he ran on lowering energy costs.

Francesca Chambers: This goes back to them also through an executive order on the first day going back to lift that pause on LNG exports. The US wants other countries to take in more energy from the United States. Again, this all comes back down to the revenue question. Yes, of course, there is the revenge as we talked about in my article, but there is also this question of revenue. They are trying to generate revenue for his legislative agenda to figure out how to offset those tax cuts, to figure out how to pay for the border security, to build the wall, all those things that he said he was going to get done. They have to figure out a way to pay for it somehow.

Brian Lehrer: That's the last thing before we run out of time that we should probably note really explicitly at the same time that they're trying to raise revenue in ways that according to just about every economist, are going to be passed on to consumers, and Trump calls this the External Revenue Service. As compared to the Internal Revenue Service, which taxes Americans, this, he says, will tax foreigners, even if in effect the tax gets passed on to America's in the higher cost of goods.

This is getting ready to offset at least in terms of total federal revenue, and that's even if it works, big tax cuts for the wealthy that Trump wants to extend from his first term or even deepen. Right?

Francesca Chambers: There's a little bit more to it. As you noted, we're almost out of time, but it's not just those tax cuts. It's the entire agenda that he wants to fund. They have to find offsets somewhere. It goes to other things he wants to pay for like I was saying, like the border security things as well. It's not just the tax cuts.

Brian Lehrer: Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for USA Today, thank you very much for starting the week with us.

Francesca Chambers: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

 

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