Hi, I’m George Gerbo. Welcome to Washington Times Weekly, where we get a chance to sit down with our reporters and dig into their coverage of the latest news and events.
I am joined by our esteemed White House correspondent, Jeff Mordock.
[GERBO] You are entrenched pretty much at the White House these days, whether it’s in the briefing room or following the president around the country. The biggest thing that everybody is talking about, including a lot of your reporting as of late, is these terrorist situations and your reporting has found that the president is going to insert himself directly in some of these talks. We’ve heard about Howard Lutnick and other people involved in these negotiation processes, but very specifically with Japan, President Trump wants to be a direct part of these talks.
[MORDOCK] That’s right. And he’s sitting in these talks because it’s going to underscore how important it is for him to get a trade deal. He’s been pushing. He’s put these tariffs on hold while he tries to negotiate trade deals with all these countries. And Japan came in yesterday. He personally sat down in the meeting to try to hammer out a deal because that’s where we import most of our automobiles from. Any trade war with Japan is going to raise the price of automobiles. And him sitting in there trying to come up with some kind of deal with Japan, it’s absolutely critical. It’s one of the most critical countries we need to strike a deal with. And I think that he understands that, and that’s underscored by him sitting in at that meeting.
[GERBO] And as it relates to cars, Jeff, that’s where a lot of people are up in limbo in a lot of ways. Should I buy a car now? If you’ve got a used car and you’re looking to trade it in, is the value going to go up? If the cost of new cars is going to increase based on these tariffs, that could make cars, including from Japan, Germany, and elsewhere, more expensive potentially in the coming days, weeks, and months?
[MORDOCK] Well, that’s right. And it’s not even just that the price of the cars themselves, looking at all the material, steel and aluminum are probably going to be more expensive if these tariffs go through, as promised. Some of the stuff we use to build the cars and the computer chips. We’re gonna see all that stuff go up sooner or later. We might see a run on people purchasing cars now, and then it’s probably gonna drop off if these prices go up to the level we think they will.
[GERBO] President Trump has been involved in Social Security, any potential Social Security reform that may come down the road. Democrats, of course, generally get up in arms when those entitlement cuts and reforms come into play or get even talked about. And they brought out none other than former President Biden who’s given his first speech since leaving the White House, talking to a group in Chicago about the need to protect and defend Social Security. Why now of all topics, Social Security, for the former president to come out and speak on?
[MORDOCK] Well, I think it’s a safe topic for him. It’s a topic that he worked, that he has given a lot of speeches about during his presidency. It wasn’t cut during his presidency. It’s a way for him to sort of wade back in, which he clearly wants to do, wade back in and be a help to the Democrats. Democrats are struggling to find their voice right now. They’re looking for somebody to step up and criticize. Joe Biden left under a very dark cloud. He left with Republicans disliking his administration. He left with Democrats holding him responsible for Trump’s victory. And it’s a safe topic with a friendly crowd to sort of get him back into the swing of things, to try to be a voice. Democrats don’t have a voice right now. They don’t have a leader right now. And this is a way for Biden to try to ingratiate himself back into the party slowly, but slowly.
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