Norris on Tariffs: Everything Is Going to Go Up, They Don’t Understand That Many Americans ‘Live on the Margins’

RUSH EXCERPT:
NORRIS: "And, you know, there’s. Someone I check. With regularly who runs a diner. And I checked, they explained to me that the price of eggs, normally a lot of 15 eggs, would cost $35. It’s now up to around 150. So the price of eggs is still high. But I like the examples that you gave at the beginning of this when you were talking about equipment that people use who work with their hands, sports equipment, if your kids are, you know, are playing sports, if you’re shopping at shein or temu, maybe those are impulse purchases. You might not need that cute lavender cardigan that you have your eyes on, but you know, so many other things are going to go up that you do need paper products, cleaning products. You know, if you want to go on a picnic, the paper products that you use for that are going to go up. Everything is going to go up. And what they don’t understand is that so many Americans live on the margins, live on the margins. And so if everything is going up by 20%, every single category is going up by 20%. this is pushing people closer and closer to the edge. And we’re talking about the consumer goods that are going to be more expensive. You know, we haven’t talked about the manufacturing chain. So many of the things that actually are manufactured here in the us require on parts and equipment, gidgets and gadgets that are sourced from overseas. And so when we get into the second and the third quarter, and David certainly knows probably much more about this than I do, but we’re going to be probably be looking at manufacturing slowdowns. And so that means layoffs. That means people if they’re not laid off, they’re they’re not pulling that extra shift. They’re just, you know, scaling down their manufacturing. So people are going to start to feel this in all kinds of ways. And on top of all that, then we start to get something called malaise in the economy. And people just don’t have the kind of confidence that you would expect with the economy that Donald Trump inherited. And it’s worth repeating that he inherited a very strong economy. And even though people were concerned about the price of eggs and the price of rent and the price of cars and the price of gas and everything else, the fundamentals of the economy were essentially pretty strong. And people don’t feel that way right now. And so even if he were to reverse the tariffs, even if we could get boats on the water and get equipment over here and get goods and goods over here much more quickly, much more quickly, the malaise that has settled in around the chaos and the uncertainty in the economy is going to linger like a hangover, like a bad hangover for a very long time."