Jennings: ‘You’re Not Willing to Pay a Quarter More for an Avocado to Fix’ the Border?

SELLERS: “Democrats didn’t label it what it was. That’s Trumpflation.”
BARTOS: “Dems have been making this argument for 18 months, which is that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the least bad of the bad world leaders. That was effectively their argument.”
RAMPELL: “Instead of relitigating all of this — and actually, I kind of disagree with everyone here, I think Biden is the bad stuff, but there were also a lot of other things that happened — I would love to talk about what Trump plans to do about this, and how not only will he fail at his promise at bringing grocery prices down, he will probably drive them up higher for a number of reasons. One of which is that he wants to deport most of our farm labor, labor force, not only the the people who are here who are without authorization, people who are undocumented, but actually we have a lot of workers here who are on visas, temporary, basically seasonal agricultural visas, who are here legally, a visa program he wants to end. He wants to deport lots of people from other parts of the food processing system, people who work in meatpacking plants. Again, people who are here legally and who are not here legally. Beyond that, he wants to raise tariffs on the food that we bring in from other countries. We get 90% of our avocados from Mexico and something like two thirds of our fresh tomatoes. These things will drive prices up, you know, so it‘s not only a matter of it‘s hard to get them back down, it’s easy to get them up higher.”
BARTOS: “We had four years of President Trump. We had the best economy in our lifetimes.”
RAMPELL: “That‘s not true.”
BARTOS: “And we had four years of Joe Biden — “
SELLERS: “But that‘s not true.”
BARTOS: “ — who had a terrible economy.”
RAMPELL: “That’s not true.”
SELLERS: “No, because we can go back — look, you can go to George Bush I, left a terrible economy. Bill Clinton fixed it. You can go to George Bush II — what are we laughing about? I mean, everybody knows this is not — you can talk about any economic indicator from job growth to to job creation to wage growth — “
BARTOS: “We‘re going to count the bounce-back jobs?”
PHILLIP: “But, Jeff, I will once again ask you to respond directly to the facts that she put on the table, which is, explain to me how Trump‘s — a key pillar of Trump‘s economic policy are tariffs. Let‘s just start there. Explain to me that how that helps average working people who are going to the grocery store, and they want to know why the price of their avocados is doubling?”
BARTOS: “Well, of course, as we — I mean, the president and his entire team have talked about during the campaign and since the transition started, these are all negotiating postures, right? Tariffs are an opportunity to say to Canada, to say to Mexico, to say to China, to say all our partners in the EU, you can‘t put a 100% tariff on our cars, or we‘re going to start putting a tariff on your cars. Mexico, if you allow Chinese vehicles to come in under the USMCA and you try to do that, we‘re going to put tariffs on your vehicles. Canada, if you don‘t shut your border down, we‘re going to put tariffs. The president will sit and negotiate with all of these as he did during his first term. There‘s a record here.”
PHILLIP: “He’s also promised that the tarrifs are going to be a way to raise money to pay for things. So it cannot be both. He‘s talked about across-the-board tariffs. He said that they would be used to pay for things. So there are going to be tariffs, for sure.”
BARTOS: “Yes, strategically.”
PHILLIP: “It‘s not just going to be a negotiating tactic. There are going to be tariffs.”
JENNINGS: “What‘s it worth to anybody to actually get these other countries, especially Mexico, to get their attention on immigration and drugs and everything else? What‘s it worth? Is it — for you, you‘re not willing to pay a quarter more for an avocado to fix this?”
RAMPELL: “We already have the cooperation of the Mexican government. You refuse to acknowledge after.”
JENNINGS: “After — after — after — after Trump made his threat.”
RAMPELL: “No, a year ago. A year ago, the Mexican government — “
SELLERS: “Acknowledge the fact — I was going to say — “
PHILLIP: “Hold on one second.”
RAMPELL: “A year ago, the Mexican government deployed a lot more resources to their own southern border and have intercepted migrants on their way. Why are you shaking your head? This is the absolute truth. This is why — “
JENNINGS: “It‘s a mess.”
RAMPELL: “That‘s why border crossings are down 75%. They‘re about what they were when Trump was in office.”
JENNINGS: “It‘s a mess.”
RAMPELL: “I don‘t care if you say it‘s a mess.”
JENNINGS: “It’s a mess.”
RAMPELL: “Mexico is cooperating.”
PHILLIP: “Let me just stop here.”
RAMPELL: “Punishing our own consumers is not going to help Mexico — “
JENNINGS: “Avocado toast. It‘s a huge problem. We have to fix this.”