JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We've never seen a week like this one, whipsawing markets, punitive tariffs imposed and then paused at angry China, fears of recession.

President Trump, the man holding the steering wheel, is sending all sorts of conflicting messages, but he did say one thing clearly.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President: No other president would've done what I did.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Tonight, we'll try to make sense of Trump's trade war, the global economic uncertainty is unleashed as well as a brewing constitutional crisis over deportations, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

Like all of you, I'm trying to figure out if there's a method to the seeming madness we've all experienced this past week.

This is the kind of week in which you shouldn't, among other things, look at your 401(k) too closely.

I did, mistake.

Donald Trump, a famously transactional president, apparently believes quite deeply in something few economists believe that high tariffs are the key to strengthening the American economy and American society.

Joining me tonight to discuss this belief and its consequences are Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, Jonathan Karl is the chief Washington correspondent at ABC News, Ashley Parker is my colleague and a White House correspondent for The Atlantic, and Tarini Parti is a White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

So, if you guys are out here, who's at the White House?

I don't even get this.

Welcome all of you.

Jon, chief, I'm going to call you chief.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Chief, let me start with you.

Just can you walk us through this week?

Jamie Dimon referred to the considerable turbulence that we're experiencing, and he says it doesn't seem to be going away.

How did we get here?

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, it's considerable.

It was one week ago today that Donald Trump declared my policies will never change.

He did this after liberation day tariffs last week, had resulted in a cratering of the stock market.

We came into this week with not just a cratering of the stock market but also a brewing crisis in the bond market.

Interest rates going up, signs that those policies that Trump said would never change, were actually threatening us with not just a bad stock market but with a potential economic meltdown, the dollar going down, interest rates going up.

And, you know, Trump said point blank, I know what the hell I am doing.

But by Wednesday, you had this abrupt reversal that he and his top people said wasn't going to happen, a 90-day pause, not in everything, but in most of his reciprocal tariffs, all of those not tied to China, except there's a 10 percent tariff on the rest of the world.

So, look, bottom line, at the end of the week, where are we?

We are at -- gold is at a record high, consumer confidence is very close to a record low, stock market is down.

It came up a little bit, but it still lost more than $2 trillion in value since liberation day.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You keep saying liberation day like it's an actual holiday or something.

JONATHAN KARL: That's the way it was treated.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I know, I know, liberation day and the Gulf of America.

Tarini, did Trump blink?

TARINI PARTI, White House Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: It does seems that he blinked on the reciprocal tariffs.

I mean, we keep sort of forgetting that the 10 percent across the board tariffs that John just mentioned, there's still a thing, you know, tariffs on China, the U.S. economy is so intertwined with China, that the 145 percent tariffs that we're now facing is also a huge deal.

But on those reciprocal tariffs, he did blink.

There's a 90-day pause.

There are negotiations going on.

The White House claims there are over 70 countries that want to make a deal.

So, we'll have to see what happens.

But a lot of trade deals take time.

So it's unclear how they're going to get this done.

But at the end of the day, the president does believe in tariffs.

There is going to be some -- you know, it is going to be a key part of his economic agenda.

It is going to be something that he keeps, he's not going to blink entirely.

But for now, on one specific part of his trade policy he has planned.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I want to come in a second with Ashley to this question of this deep belief in tariffs.

But, Zolan, let me ask you first.

Well, you're all in the White House all the time.

You're covering the White House closely.

You're talking to people in the White House.

Is there any plan?

I mean, actually, you know what I want you to watch Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, and Karoline Leavitt, explain to us the deep strategy here.

Let's watch this.

SCOTT BESSENT, Treasury Secretary: This was his strategy all along and that, you know, you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, White House Press Secretary: Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal.

You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Zolan, did you miss the art of the deal?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, White House Correspondent, The New York Times: No, I didn't.

It would be accurate to call that a spin.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You're under oath, by the way.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: And I'll say it again.

It would be accurate to call that a spin.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: We can cut through that.

The White House after this saga has said that this was all part of the plan, this is all part of President Trump's deal-making.

What this episode showed us is that in a time where it's been hard to find guardrails against this president, we found one, and that was the bond market.

Some of his officials went to him this week and pretty much showed him how this was impacting U.S. treasuries, and that's where he backed off here.

It was not all part of one orchestrated plan.

And that's also evident by the mixed messaging we saw from the president and his aide, some of which were saying he's going to dig his heels in and keep all these tariffs in place, others saying that this was a negotiation tactic.

It was all mixed message.

And at the end of the day, he saw the bond market (INAUDIBLE).

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I want to come to that question, but stay on this issue of the aides.

Because, you know, one of the things about Trumpology or criminology here is everybody's always trying to figure out who he is listening to, who he is not listening to, does he listen to anyone?

Is there a planning mechanism here?

There are two different White Houses, the official White House and the White House that operates improvisationally in Trump's hands.

Who is influencing this seemingly chaotic process right now?

Any insight?

JONATHAN KARLE: Well, he did say people were getting a little bit yippy, as he brought it down.

And I think the people that were getting yippy were not necessarily his aides in the White House.

It was what he was hearing from his newfound friends on Wall Street, CEOs.

He was hearing from -- Jamie Dimon went on, you know, Fox Business to basically send a message directly to Trump through the best way to send it to him, it's on television, to warn that this was risking a recession, that this was going to be something that was going to be a recession caused by one thing, his actions.

And that's what caused him to come back.

This was -- and Bessent certainly was the, a vehicle of that within the administration.

ASHLEY PARKER, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: But also when Trump's -- I was going to say when Trump says and this is classic Trump, he says the quiet part out loud.

He sends his aides out to claim -- defying credulity, that this is all part of the plan.

And then he goes out several moments later and reveals them to be liars when he says, well, people got yippy, people got queasy, so I changed my mind.

He doesn't say this was all part of the plan.

He basically makes clear that on Wednesday morning, based on other signals, he aborted whatever ostensible plan there was to totally reverse course.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

So, to stay on this White House subject for, who is the most influential person in this other than Trump himself right now, TARINI PARTI: We have seen that shift.

So, you know, for weeks, it was Lutnick, the commerce secretary, it was Peter Navarro.

They had the president's -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Peter Navarro is the famously hawkish trade adviser.

TARINI PARTI: They had the president's ear.

But we've seen in the last few days the source center of gravity here shifting toward Scott Bessent, who's the treasury secretary.

He's someone who the White House believes can calm the mar markets.

He knows Wall Street.

He can sort of send that message out a little bit better than sort of the mixed message that we've been hearing from.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Go a little deeper on that.

The Scott Bessent, before he became treasury Secretary, had a fixation on the importance of tariffs.

TARINI PARTI: He did not, like the others, the others in the administration, did, which is why on Sunday, he was the one who went to Mar-a-Lago and talked to the president.

What he did in those conversations is he focused on the number of countries that are willing to negotiate with the president.

He sort of tried to make the art of the deal president talk about deal-making and shift his focus from, you know, tariff this country, tariff that country, into sort of making deals.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Ashley, come to this question of tariffs, this is a very transactional president, as we all know.

It's hard to identify an ideological or idealistic belief system.

Tariffs are something that this man has thought about for decades.

ASHLEY PARKER: Yes, that's true.

He's not particularly ideological, but there are a few areas immigration is one, trade in tariffs or the other, where you can go back and look at things he said before he even considered himself a possible political contender that he wrote in his books, and tariffs are one of them.

Because it goes to his core belief of never wanting to -- on the one hand, he always paints himself as a victim, but he also never wants to be a victim.

He never wants to having the wolf -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: He fears being a victim.

ASHLEY PARKER: He fears being a victim, right?

And so he hates the idea that anyone is taking advantage of him or taking advantage now of his country, of the United States.

So, tariffs also go back to that deal-making of he does not want America, in his eyes, to be getting a, quote/unquote, bad deal.

And he -- despite not having a --lear, particularly clear ideology on a number of things, he fundamentally believes that trade imbalances mean that America, you know, is getting ripped off, is getting ripped off, yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Jon, explain that.

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, first of all, I would say that trade is more -- protectionism is more core to him than immigration.

I mean, this is the thing.

His worldview, so much of it is set in the 1980s, in early 1990s, and in this case, it was the Japanese and Japanese cars and Japanese motorcycles, and the Japanese were buying Rockefeller Center.

They bought Pebble Beach.

And this, you know, America was getting ripped off and the Japanese were ripping us off, well, then, you know, I mean, the Japanese economy didn't grow and ours did grow.

He's onto China.

But it's always the notion that America's getting ripped off.

So, yes, you know, if we're buying coffee beans from Colombia, you know, you might argue that's because we don't have coffee beans in America.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

But we give money and then they give us coffee and we're all happy.

JONATHAN KARL: So, we're not really getting ripped off.

We -- you know, we got -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We're buying stuff.

JONATHAN KARL: We got coffee beans.

ASHLEY PARKER: And even immigration briefly at its core comes back to that idea of getting ripped off and getting a bad deal when he talks about it, right?

So, these people are coming, they're taking your jobs, they're taking your Social Security, which is not true.

You know, they're paying into a system where they're not really getting back.

But, again, it's that you, the American, are getting a bad deal from another country or from a person from another country.

That is the through line, the getting ripped off.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Just stay on this for one second.

It's an open parenthetical sort of question, but does he have beliefs -- all of his beliefs, or these core beliefs, all date back 40-plus years.

Does he have new beliefs?

Do these beliefs change over the decades.

I mean, you've written books about them.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

Well, I guess his belief in the 2020 election being stolen was a -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: No.

He knew that it was stolen in 1990.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

No, but so much of his worldview has truly -- was truly set in the 1980s when -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: 1980s New York City real estate.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes, 100 percent.

That's why you go back and you look at old Trump interviews, and they're so revelatory about where he is now.

I mean, the world has changed in countless ways.

His views have fundamentally not changed on these core issues.

And I think there is no more core issue to him than this notion of trade and the need for protectionism and America's getting ripped off.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

TARINI PARTI: And we saw that in the 2024 campaign when his advisers wanted him to talk about, you know, groceries, the grocery store prices, egg prices, but he was so focused on trade and immigration.

Those were two -- tariffs and immigration.

Those are two things he loved talking about.

Obviously, you know, he liked to meander into other topics, but those were the two issues he remained focused even though his advisers wanted him to go specifically on grocery prices over and over again.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Zolan, what do we know about what his base thinks about trade and tariffs right now?

How long are they going to go for this ride?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: Well, you did have, you know, some -- we recently did a story where we went back to some of his voters.

My colleague called some of them.

And I think there's an attachment and still an energy around the messaging around America getting ripped off and around tariffs.

However, people don't want consumer prices to go up.

People don't also like where their 401(k) goes as well when you have a period like we just saw in the last two weeks.

And when some of my colleagues went back to some of his supporters and asked, what are you thinking about all of this as you watch your 401(k) and what have you, some people were saying, this isn't what I asked for, not this level of tariffs.

I'm okay with him putting America first, but not if it impacts my retirement savings account.

JONATHAN KARL: And maybe his grand scheme over the course of several years would work and somehow, you know, American manufacturing would come back.

If that's true, it's going to take a long time.

The thing that will happen pretty close to immediately is prices going up.

And that's going to be a big challenge.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: And remember, he said during the campaign, I'm bringing prices down on day one.

That was the promise to his base.

So, now, if you have this gamble where you say, look, I'm implementing all these tariffs, you just go through some, in their words, short-term economic frustration and American manufacturing will be back.

Well, for one, it's unclear just how short-term that will be, and that's also not what was said during the campaign.

ASHLEY PARKER: And his advisers are acutely aware of those promises.

Every single one who I've talked to says that the midterms will be an absolute disaster unless he is able to fulfill his promises.

And when you ask them what promises, first and foremost are those economic promises.

It's those grocery prices.

It's no tax on tips.

They understand that that is key to his political success.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: These factories that make iPhones are not going to be built between now and the midterm election.

I mean, it's going to take a lot.

Even if we didn't have an unstable situation, a lot of manufacturers are going to be like, the tariffs come in, the tariffs go away.

We don't know what's going to happen in the future.

We're not going to spend ten years investing in manufacturing where we could do it cheaper somewhere else.

I mean, it just doesn't -- ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: I do think though, it's hard to kind of say just how much this will sway his base until we do see consumer prices go up for a long period of time.

As of this point, like this has still been a back and forth and just how much it'll actually move his base, I think.

JONATHAN KARL: And also there's going to be scapegoating.

I mean, you know, it's not going to be Trump's fault if the tariff -- if prices -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Whose fault is it going to be?

JONATHAN KARL: Well, it's obviously going to be Biden's fault and it's going to be, you know, a bunch of other people.

It's not going to be Trump's fault.

And his core supporters, you know, are going to think that he's trying to fix the mess that he inherited.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: you know the supporters as, as well as anyone.

How long can you blame Biden before it sounds like -- ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: I mean, he's trying.

I mean, he's not relenting on that defense.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We're going to find out.

I want you to listen to something that President Trump said about China and about this coming -- possible coming conflagration, economic conflagration with China.

DONALD TRUMP: China wants to make a deal.

They just don't know how quite to go about it.

You know, it's one of those things they don't know quite.

They're proud people and President Xi's a proud man.

I know him very well.

And they don't know quite how to go about it, but they'll figure it out.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Ashley, Jon, is this becoming a battle of wills between Trump and Xi?

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, first of all, I think it's interesting that there were a number of times this week where he seemed to be basically pleading with the Chinese to give him a call.

President Xi's a friend of mine, he is a really smart guy.

I know they want a deal.

The Chinese are not calling, they're not picking up the phone.

And I thought also interesting to hear him talk about how the Chinese are proud people.

And at the same time this week we saw J.D.

Vance refer to the Chinese as peasants.

You know, we're buying things that Chinese peasants are making so that they can buy our treasuries.

I don't know how that squares with talking to proud people.

But I think it's -- you know, he desperately wants a deal with China.

And right now, China doesn't, is not interested in a deal.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: China's continued to retaliate too.

I mean, they've said over and over again don't retaliate from the U.S. side, and China has.

Also, it's an interesting negotiation tactic from the U.S. as well as China accounts.

There's little evidence that there were actually any calls, steps to meaningfully negotiate before these tariffs went into place.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: What you're suggesting is that he's been waiting forever to impose tariffs on China, and regardless of conditions imposed tariffs on China?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: I think that might be more than suggesting, but -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

No, it's -- but so, again, go to this question of blinking, who do you think blinks first?

TARINI PARTI: I have no idea.

I mean, I don't think Trump knows.

I don't think China knows.

I think they're both -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Xi is not facing midterm elections in 2026 because he is never facing elections.

TARINI PARTI: I mean, I think Trump is going to try to keep on, try to withstand this for as long as he can.

But there is going to be a lot of pressure, especially with consumer prices, as Zolan mentioned.

You know, the two economies are interconnected and there are going to be major repercussions in the coming weeks.

JONATHAN KARL: And this is going to hurt the Chinese.

I mean, this is going to hurt the Chinese economy, but, I mean, arguably more than it's going to hurt our economy.

But, again, you refer to the fact Xi does not need to worry about midterm elections or his own reelection or his own, I mean -- you know, they -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The Chinese had been through worse periods of economic, the hard times.

ASHLEY PARKER: And this is also why the markets didn't suddenly, completely settle after Trump backtracked on Wednesday because the markets are sort of saying, we don't necessarily think anyone is going to blink sufficiently quickly.

JONATHAN KARL: And it's important to say he backtracked.

It was a total reversal, for sure, but he still leaves in place the largest -- one of the largest tax increases that we have ever seen, the largest tariffs on China in more than a hundred years.

I mean, we're still in a place with 10 percent on every nation around the world and, you know, 145 percent tariffs on China.

This is not a full backtrack.

TARINI PARTI: And the big question of uncertainty, it still leaves in place too.

Because we saw in the campaign, he talked about across the board tariffs, and then it went from across the board to reciprocal and then some combination of the two.

And now they're making deals with countries that we don't know how it's going to turn out.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Look, I was planning on doing another two hours on Smoot-Hawley, but I got to pivot to a couple other subjects.

I'm sure we'll be coming back to this.

Two important things, possibly incipient constitutional crisis over whether a particular deportee to El Salvador is going to be returned.

Can you give us the state of play right now Zolan?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: The Supreme Court basically came down and directed the administration to take steps to return the specific deportee, a Maryland man who just, it's worth reminding folks, was deported and the U.S. had found that he had some legal status.

The administration admitted in a court order that it was an administrative error to remove that man as well.

So, the courts have said that they want the administration to take steps to return him.

That deadline, the administration, was directed today to outline what those steps would be to return that person.

And they said essentially that they want more time.

They want to report back until next week.

So, you still have this fight ongoing that has had legal experts worried that we could be getting closer to a constitutional crisis.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Ashley, Trumpologist, is he -- that's your new title.

ASHLEY PARKER: I'm hoping for your PhD in Trumpopology.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: PhD in Trumpology, senior Trumpologist.

Do you think he would ever openly defy the Supreme Court?

ASHLEY PARKER: I think -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Are we heading there?

ASHLEY PARKER: I think we're certainly heading there.

If you look at his comments and you look at the comments of his vice president, the Overton window has shifted and there is talk about impeaching or floating the idea of impeaching judges if you don't like their rulings.

His administration, in many ways, has already started to defy judges.

It is worth noting he still speaks with a lot of respect for the Supreme Court.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: Just a couple minutes ago, too.

He actually got off Air Force One and said, if the Supreme Court were to tell me to return somebody, I would.

ASHLEY PARKER: But he also believes the Supreme Court are my justices, his justices.

So, who knows how he'll speak of his justices if they repeatedly defy him.

JONATHAN KARL: I don't think he would, but I know there are people around him that would encourage him to.

And also, I mean, frankly, look at the reaction to this ruling.

You know, Stephen Miller was basically acting like it said something different.

I mean, this was clearly a defeat for the administration.

He said it was a victory for the administration.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Jon, let me go to one more subject.

It's a subject that makes me feel a little yippy.

It's these executive orders that are targeting individuals who have been critical, individuals and law firms, obviously, that have been critical of President Trump.

This week, Miles Taylor, former Homeland Security, Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, were targeted very personally for investigation and the implication of prosecution.

And this is what -- I mean, this is the most remarkable part of the Chris Krebs executive order to me.

It stated Krebs, through CISA, the cybersecurity agency, falsely and basely denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.

He is -- this executive order is saying Chris Krebs should be investigated because he says that I lost the 2020 election.

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

JONATHAN KARL: Chris Krebs did something very important after the election.

He said clearly this was a secure election.

The election was not stolen.

And now he finds himself in executive order from the president of the United States directing the Justice Department to investigate him.

That and of itself, no matter what the issue would be, is an extraordinary moment.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Tarini.

I'll end with you.

I mean, give us -- frame this out a little bit.

I mean, this seems like we've entered a new phase where he's going to potentially prosecute former officials of his administration for saying that he lost in 2020.

That's -- we're heading into Orwellian territory.

TARINI PARTI: That is definitely a step farther than we've seen him go with, you know, law firms that he's also been, you know, waging a retribution campaign against.

So, this is definitely a step further.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I'm sure we're going to come back to that subject next week, but we're going to have to leave it there.

I want to thank our guests for joining me.

And thank you at home for watching us.

To read David Brooks' article on how ideological conservatives lost control of the Republican Party to the reactionary right, please visit the atlantic.com.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.

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