What Trump’s tariff whiplash unleashed
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
Unpacking the political fallout from President Donald Trump’s pause on tariffs.
Tariffs are on. Tariffs are paused. Tariffs are making stock markets go wild. Where do we go from here?
Senior political reporter Aaron Blake talks with The Post’s global economics correspondent, David Lynch, and White House reporter Cat Zakrzewski about Trump’s mixed messaging on tariffs, whether the administration’s tariff pause is strategic, and where the policy whiplash leaves Wall Street and American small-business owners.
Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy, with help from Ted Muldoon. It was edited by Reena Flores, Lucy Perkins with help from Annah Aschbrenner and mixed by Sean Carter.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So you guys might or might not have seen, but there was a surprise guest in the Ophol office on Wednesday. |
| 0:08.8 | It was Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who you might know as a Democrat. The appearance did not |
| 0:15.5 | turn out so well for her. It turned out she was standing there as Trump was not only talking about rigged elections, but was also signing executive orders that were targeting his political opponents. |
| 0:28.5 | Guys, I wondered, have you seen the photo of Whitmer standing in the Oval Office looking, I think it's fair to say, not terribly comfortable? |
| 0:36.8 | I can. It looks like she's regretting some life choices. |
| 0:41.5 | That's exactly the way I thought about it. |
| 0:43.9 | It kind of reminds me of that meme of Homer Simpson shrinking into the shrubs. |
| 0:49.6 | That is the real-life version of that. |
| 0:56.2 | I should emphasize that a spokesperson for Whitmer said that she was, quote, surprised that she was brought into the Oval Office during the press conference, and that, quote, her presence is not an endorsement of the actions or statements made at the event. |
| 1:12.6 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. |
| 1:16.9 | I'm Aaron Blake, senior politics reporter and host of the Post Report's weekly |
| 1:20.8 | politics roundtable. It's Thursday, April 10th. |
| 1:25.1 | I'm joined this week by Global Economics Correspondent David Lynch. Hey, David. |
| 1:29.7 | Hi, Aaron. We're also here with Katzikreski, a White House reporter for The Post who focuses on a very |
| 1:35.3 | relevant issue this week, which is how tech billionaires are shaping the second Trump administration. |
| 1:41.0 | Hey, Kat. Hey, thanks for having me on the show. |
| 1:47.0 | So today we're going to be digging into the major story this week, which is, of course, |
| 1:51.1 | the tariffs. They're on, they're paused, they're making the markets go wild, and we don't |
| 1:56.9 | really know what happens from here. Later in the show, we're also going to be talking about a key ruling from the U.S. Supreme |
| 2:02.6 | Court and early signs of just how willing it is to check Donald Trump's power grabs. |
| 2:07.8 | So, guys, let's start with the big news Wednesday, and that was that Donald Trump suddenly, early Wednesday afternoon, decided to water down the big tariffs that he announced just a week before. |
| 2:19.4 | David, can you just set the parameters here? What did Trump initially announce and what was the new announcement on Wednesday? |
... |
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