Chris Hayes Says Trump’s Tariffs ‘Waterboarded’ America ‘for No Reason’: ‘I Have Never Seen Anything Like This | Video

Following Donald Trump’s announcement of massive tariffs — and the precipitous stock market drop directly caused by said announcement — MSNBC’s Chris Hayes weighed in, saying in the opening segment of Wednesday’s “All In” that he was “struggling to communicate just how nuts this all is” and likened it to the president having “waterboarded the economy.”

“Donald Trump is single handedly, unilaterally and for no reason, plunging America into economic crisis,” Hayes declared. “I have never seen anything like this at all in the decades I’ve covered politics.”

Hayes reminded viewers that Trump “promised to do this on the campaign trail, time and time and time again, and despite the many hopes and prayers and justifications among Wall Street traders and CEOs that it was all just campaign talk, guess what, Trump today announced he was imposing tariffs, national sales tax on imports, on everything the United States imports, plus additional taxes of double digits on everything coming to the US from dozens of others of countries.”

“This was essentially the worst case scenario,” Hayes added.

He then noted that if these tariffs actually go into effect, “prices of everything, and I mean smartphones, computers, cars, clothes, shoes, avocados, it’s all about to go up on everybody now,” before explaining how Trump waited until after the stock market closed for the day before announcing the tariffs in “an incoherent and genuinely worrying performance,” which “imposed a $6 trillion tax hike on Americans, something that I pretty sure has never been done in American history.”

Hayes then summed up the misleading claims Trump used to justify the tariffs, particularly the claim that the European Union already has a 39% tariff against the U.S.”

“It’s utter nonsense,” Hayes explained. “The European Union charges the US a 39% tariff. That’s obviously preposterous. It’s totally invented. We don’t even know where that number comes from.”

He added, “aside from the fact they made up all the numbers and completely fabricated this retaliation, economists are saying this will absolutely kill American growth. It’s going to lead to price inflation, a possible recession, possibly a combination of both the much feared stagflation.”

“In fact, before Trump’s announcement, lots of folks were trying to run the numbers, and the worst case scenario outlined by the credit rating agency Moody’s, which was a 20% blanket tariff on all imports, estimated up to 5.5 million job losses, which would send the unemployment rate up to 7%, the worst since Great Recession, and cause the country’s GDP to sink by 1.7%,” Hayes said.

“But today’s announcement appears to be in excess of that, the worst since COVID,” Hayes continued. “I should say again, I’m struggling to communicate just how nuts this all is. It’s really hard to get a sense of what this all adds up to.”

Y0u can watch the clip below:

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