Thomas Friedman Slams Trump Tariffs as ‘Right Wing Woke Bulls–‘: ‘Hire Clowns, Expect a Circus’ | Video

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman lost his cool a little while discussing Donald Trump’s economic policies on his NYT colleague Ezra Klein’s podcast, denouncing the president’s tariffs against China, specifically related to electric vehicles, as “right wing woke bulls—.”

“Hire clowns, expect a circus,” the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner said.

The comment came in the latest episode of “The Ezra Klein Show,” when Klein brought up the baffling, sky high tariffs against China and said to Friedman, “What Trump and his team are trying to do is take manufacturing back from China. Do you think their theory makes sense?”

“Hire clowns, expect a circus. Okay?” Friedman declared. “If that is your theory. Okay… then go ahead, put all the tariffs, 1,000% on China. That’s day one. But these guys are entirely first order thinkers. Day Two has to be a strategy for what you do the morning after.”

“How do you then build the industrial base that you want to take advantage of the time you’re buying with your tariffs?” Friedman continued. “So what are these guys doing? Trump put up a wall, okay, against China, and then they went out and shot the American car companies.”

Friedman then noted how Ford was among the American auto manufacturers downgraded today by S&P because of how badly Trump’s tariffs are hitting them, something Friedman attributed to Trump’s opposition to electric vehicles in particular.

“Why is that? Because Ford did everything that Biden asked it to do, that a rational country would ask it to do, that we would want it to do,” he explained, referring obliquely to Biden’s successful economic policies emphasizing electric vehicles. “And then what does Donald Trump do? He comes in with his right wing woke bulls— and says ‘we don’t do EVs here. EVs are for girly men. We only do manly industries.’ Well, f— that.”

Friedman then responded to the notion Trump supporters advance about bringing factory jobs to America.

“I don’t want to have my kids screwing in parts, okay, into into cars. I want them designing, okay, investing in and inventing the next generation of EVs,” he said. But let’s go back to that ecosystem I talked about, Ezra, EVs, robots, autonomous cars, batteries, clean energy. If you say, Oh, we’re not to do the EV part. Before I came over here, I read Trump wants to reopen coal plants, and he loves ‘drill, baby, drill.’ Okay, so it doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re building a wall against China? Great. I’m all for it. But what are you doing behind the wall? So we catch up. You’re taking your own companies out and shooting them in the back, if they’re not ‘right wing woke.’ What’s the project? What’s the Trump administration’s focus on?” Friedman continued. His answer: Gutting American colleges.

“How many billions can we take away from American universities of their research funds to punish them for DEI strategies?” Friedman continued. “Now I’m here not to advocate DEI, but if I had a limited time in the world right now, I sure wouldn’t be focused on that. I’d be focused on doubling down on the research capacity of these universities. I’d be doubling down on NIH, what are they doing they’re cutting the budgets of our crown gem research facilities. So it’s all just bullshit. They’re not serious people. They’re clowns.”

Watch the whole clip below:

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