Bad Math And Fascism On The Sunday Shows
We watch so you never have to.
While everyone was out celebrating Mother’s Day, your dutiful Wonkette was viewing lying and stupidity from motherfuckers on the Sunday shows.
So let’s dive right in!
The Math Isn’t Mathing
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made dual appearances on CNN’s “State Of The Union” and “Fox News Sunday” to remind us that “with great sycophancy, comes no responsibility.”
On CNN, Lutnick once again tried to spin a backwards look at how tariffs work.
BASH: You mentioned the UK agreement. You were the lead negotiator there, […] you mentioned some of the aspects of it. But one other aspect is that it keeps in place a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on goods imported to the US from the UK. As you know, the cost of tariffs are paid by American consumers. We have been talking about this. So should Americans be prepared?
LUTNICK: Well, I disagree with that, you know.
BASH: Well, OK. But many — most economists, I would say, disagree with you on that. And we have seen it being passed off time and time again to the American consumer. […] Is the 10 percent tariff that we're seeing in the framework for the UK going to be in place for the foreseeable future?
LUTNICK: So, we do expect a 10 percent baseline tariff to be in place for the foreseeable future. But don't buy the silly arguments that the US consumer pays. Businesses, their job is to try to sell to the American consumer. And domestically produced products are not going to have that tariff. […]BASH: So, who's going to eat the tariffs?
LUTNICK: They're going to have to compete. What happens is, the businesses and the countries primarily eat the tariff.
That’s not how tariffs have ever worked. Reminder that THIS Scene was from a Reagan-era movie, starring a former Nixon speechwriter, explaining how tariffs work (and fail) when historically implemented.
Lutnick, after Trump teased what would later be revealed as a pause on the tariffs on China, tried to spin it as some magnificent deal. Which again reminds us to share this handy graph on how Trumpian policies work.
Lutnick then took this show on to Fox News, where he had some encouraging words for blue-collar dockworkers who are out of work due to Trump’s trade policies.
LUTNICK: The president said last night he was very positive and optimistic. So you should be very optimistic and positive, because the president “truthed” it out, and I rely on the president.
You can’t pay your bills or feed your family on hopes and wishes or unicorn kisses, Howard.
Please Tread On Me
After Santa Monica fascist Stephen Miller said out loud on camera that the Trump administration has been looking to suspend habeas corpus, there’s been no shortage of two types of responses from the “don’t tread on me” flag-wavers and the “we need guns against all the tyranny” party: Silence and Bootlicking.
There’s Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
KRISTEN WELKER: Would you vote to suspend habeas corpus if this were brought before Congress? Ultimately, this power lies with Congress.
BARRASSO: The president said he is going to follow the law.[…]. And I expect that the president will.
WELKER: Can you just give me a yes or no, what you would do, though? Would you support suspending habeas corpus?
BARRASSO: I don't believe this is going to come to Congress. What I believe is the president is going to follow the law. He has said it repeatedly.
Refusing to answer a yes/no question and invoking Trump’s adherence to following the law is not instilling much confidence. If you believe this, I’ve got a Qatari plane you can have as a gift, no strings attached.
Then there’s Rep. Mike McCaul on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” Rather than invoke some virtue that Trump has yet to possess as his argument, McCaul tried to invoke national security to mixed results.
ED O'KEEFE: You're an attorney, you're someone who deals with Homeland Security issues and immigration being there from the Lone Star State. Is suspending habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants a good idea?
MCCAUL: […] Any person in the United States under the Constitution has due process rights. So, I think the courts are going to decide this one, as to whether this invasion, in fact, constitutes what would be a state of war. Some would say it would. People in my state of Texas see an invasion and the drug cartels and the danger that they bring into my state in this country. I think that will be a very interesting legal argument before the court.
O'KEEFE: Well, curious to call it an invasion, especially when the administration likes to remind us that border crossings are, of course, at a historic low. So that'll be part of the legal debate. I suppose, Congressman …
That’s the true Catch-22 for Trump. You can’t use an “immigration invasion” as the reasoning to try to get more authoritarian powers while wanting credit for “how fast” or “how good” he fixed immigration, WITHOUT those powers.
We’ve learned three things this week:
Trump’s narcissism always has been and always will be his greatest weakness.
Fascist policies are always “solutions” in search of made-up problems.
Boot leather is a more powerful aphrodisiac than oysters sprinkled with Viagra pill dust for conservatives.
Have a week.
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I always enjoy when people say that companies will eat the cost.
Really? And they'll pay for that with money from where exactly???
WHERE DOES THEIR REVENUE COME FROM NUTLICK?!? IS IT FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS!??! IS ALL MONEY FUNGIBLE?!?
ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION NUTLICK!!!
Josh Hawley thinks cutting Medicaid is a bad idea(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/opinion/josh-hawley-dont-cut-medicaid.html). "If Republicans want to be a working-class party — if we want to be a majority party — we must ignore calls to cut Medicaid and start delivering on America’s promise for America’s working people." LoL, since when were they a working-class party, except for the purpose of delivering lip service, of which this is an example? Still, stopped clock and all that. It is true that more than one Republican is looking at the prospect of cutting billions out of Medicaid and the possible political costs of that. But they've been boxed in: the Orange One wants his tax cuts, and they can't make even a token effort at offsetting those tax cuts without those cuts in benefits.