The GOP Is About To Drop The Debt Bomb

Plus: The Worst People in the World (Tuesday edition).

At least for today, let’s not be distracted by the shiny objects and outrages of the moment. Trump’s tariffs — and his massive debt bomb — are rattling the markets. And attention needs to be paid to these headlines:

• Trump tariffs: Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says markets are too complacent

• 30-year Treasury yield tops 5% briefly after Moody's downgrades U.S. credit rating

• Ray Dalio says risk to U.S. Treasurys greater than what Moody's says.

• Citi CEO: Something 'deeper' is going on in financial markets right now
  Most Americans fear recession, survey reveals

• Carlyle’s Rubenstein Sees US Deficit as Bigger Issue Than Trade - Bloomberg

• ‘Sell America’ is back on after a massive debt warning | CNN Business

• Mortgage rates jump above 7% after Moody’s downgrade of U.S. credit - MarketWatch

• Target worker exposes MASSIVE tariff price hike for popular items: 'Kinda scared' | Daily Mail Online

Happy Tuesday.

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The GOP abandons free markets (and fiscal responsibility)

Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned.

On today’s “To the Contrary” podcast, I’m joined by Jessica Riedl —a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, focusing on budget, tax, and economic policy —who has spent years warning policymakers about the dangers of the national debt. Washingtonian Magazine named Riedl one of the 500 most influential policy professionals in Washington D.C.—including one of the 26 most influential within economic policy—in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Unlike other conservatives, Riedl refuses to drink the MAGA Kool-Aid. Here’s some of her recent work:

• The Actual Math Behind DOGE’s Cuts

  As an effort to meaningfully reduce federal spending, however, DOGE remains wholly unserious.

  Musk initially promised that he would eliminate $2 trillion of the $7 trillion federal budget, before scaling back his ambitions to $1 trillion, and then $150 billion. Even that revised target is highly improbable….

  None of this is to say that DOGE has failed. Musk might not have followed through on his unfocused and evolving promises to eliminate payment errors, balance the entire budget, and implement regulatory reform. But he has successfully given the White House cover to purge and intimidate the civil service, helped Congress justify exorbitant tax cuts, rewarded MAGA voters with revenge against their perceived enemies, and granted himself the ability to access sensitive government data and possibly ensure his companies’ continued government contracts. Sure, annual budget deficits remain on track to double over the next decade. But if you thought DOGE was really about cutting costs, you were never in on the joke.

• Despite Faux Fanfare and Outrage, Doge Hasn’t Even Scratched the Federal Budget Monster

• I’m a Conservative Economist. Here Are 6 Reasons Trump’s Plans Won’t Work.

• Congressional Republicans Might Set Off the Debt Bomb

• Trump’s Tariffs Are Incoherent and Destructive

• The 10 Worst Republican Budget Gimmicks

**

Now Riedl is warning about the impact of Trump’s tariffs… and the staggering cost of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. How big is it? And what will it do to the deficit and the debt?

Her answer? WOW.

Riedl: The cost of this bill is enormous. If you take away the fake expiration dates in the bill, and we know they're fake, because they're currently canceling the expiration dates for this December right now.

So if you take away the fake expiration dates, the tax cuts are $6.2 trillion over 10 years.

To put that in context, that is bigger than the 2017 tax cuts, the 2020 CARES Act pandemic, Biden's 2021 American Rescue Plan stimulus, and the Inflation Reduction Act combined. It's bigger than all four of those combined.

This would be the most expensive piece of legislation since the 1960s.

And we're doing it at a time where the deficit's already $1.8 trillion.

If they pass this, I think the deficit probably exceeds $4 trillion a decade from now, even under Peace and Prosperity.

And I had mentioned earlier that the bond market and interest rates are the canary in the coal mine. That's where we're going to see a debt crisis begin. And we're seeing the bond market already starting to panic.

The 10-year is at 4.5%. The 30-year is over 5%. Again, anything over 4%, you're looking at eventually a debt spiral.

Listen/watch here:

You can watch or listen to the whole thing right here or (later) on YouTube / Listen (and subscribe) on Apple/ Spotify / iHeart / RSS Feed.

The World’s Worst People (Tuesday Edition)

The competition is always fierce, but at least for today, we have three clear front-runners.

We can start with Don Jr. who, of course, is an Evergreen Deplorable:

**

Quasi-journalist/influencer Taylor Lorenz is also in line for a Lifetime Worst Person designation, but is definitely distinguishing herself today: “Taylor Lorenz Openly Celebrates Joe Biden's Cancer Diagnosis”

“Hopefully he rots in hell and rests in piss,” wrote Lorenz in a post that also included a screenshot of a facetious 2019 Vice article misconstruing a Biden campaign ad with the headline: “Joe Biden: It Would Be an Insult to My Dead Son for Everyone to Have Healthcare.”

FFS.

**

But we reserve special mention for Quisling Media Mogul Shari Redstone, who is aggressively enshittifying CBS News in her eagerness to [redacted] Donald Trump’s [redacted]. Oliver Darcy writes:

What’s become unmistakably clear is that Redstone has chosen to play ball with Trump. Rather than defend the newsroom her family once prided itself on owning—from Edward R. Murrow to Walter Cronkite to “60 Minutes”—Redstone has treated CBS News as a pawn in a larger corporate transaction.

The reporting that drew Trump’s ire is widely viewed as legitimate and unimpeachable. Yet, to win regulatory approval, Redstone has undermined it. It’s a naked calculation: Preserving her deal with Skydance is more important than preserving the integrity of CBS News.

Of course, in bending to Trump, Redstone isn’t just undermining “60 Minutes”—she’s sending a message to every journalist under the CBS News banner that editorial independence ends where business inconvenience begins….

Nota Bene

Greg Schultz, who managed Joe Biden’s 2020 primary campaign has some bracing analysis and advice for struggling Democrats: “The Democratic Party’s siren call to defeat.”

Democrats face a painful truth: their infrastructure is not primarily built to win elections. Instead, it serves entrenched interests that pull the party away from broad-based strategies and toward ideological extremes and overarching focus on identity.

These structural misalignments lead candidates, elected officials, and organizational leaders to prioritize niche debates and narrow ideological framing over practical governance. The result is a weakened party brand, reduced electoral competitiveness, and diminished governing capacity.

To understand the forces undermining Democratic success, it’s helpful to think of elected officials in three broad groups:

1. The Far Left: Safe blue-district progressives (the Squad, et al) who face no real general election threat.

2. The (Mostly) Safe Middle: Center-left officials in relatively secure seats, but vulnerable in wave years.

3. The Majority-Makers: Moderates in swing districts who must appeal to a broad electorate to win year in and year out.

While the far left often grabs headlines, the real damage to the party’s brand increasingly comes from the Mostly Safe Middle. Rather than acting as a ballast against ideological excess, the safe middle often amplifies it, creating a perception that the Democratic Party is more extreme than the electorate it needs to win. Equally as troubling, the Mostly Safe Middle remains silent when Majority-Makers and their allies could use support when attacked by the Party’s extremes. Crucially, the Mostly Safe Middle incentives are shaped less by voters and more by the ecosystem itself; the donors, organizations and activist groups, and party influencers who are unrepresentative of the broader electorate.

This misalignment and the incentives it drives are what truly needs to change if Democrats want to build enduring majorities.

Tuesday dogs

“Residents of the small city of Angouleme in France are both terrified and moved by the sighting of a giant American Shepherd seen looming over their streets”. #Sykesdogsineurope

Ok, Eli is big. But not this big. My daughter is photoshopping our boys’ (completely fictional) tour of Europe. So stay tuned.