“He Was Pissed”: Trump’s Vile New Threat over Tariffs Takes Scary Turn

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After the news broke that Amazon might publicly clarify the costs that President Trump’s tariffs are imposing on its products, Trump instructed his White House press secretary to publicly threaten the company. Trump also called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to express his displeasure, and one adviser told CNN that “he was pissed.” Amazon immediately shelved the plan, and Trump openly gloated about Bezos bending the knee, an unnerving signal of more autocratic bullying ahead. Meanwhile, a new PRRI poll sheds fascinating light on public opinion about Trump’s authoritarianism, with a majority now seeing him as a “dangerous dictator.” We talked to Melissa Deckman, the CEO of PRRI, who explains what the new data really tells us about the public’s revulsion at Trump’s abuses of power—and why episodes like this one are only exacerbating it. Listen to this episode here. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.5	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:33.3	After the news broke on Tuesday that Amazon might be labeling its products with the added costs of President Trump's tariffs,
0:36.4	the White House issued a veiled threat toward Amazon.
0:41.6	After that, Amazon quickly announced that there was no such plan after all.
0:48.7	Then we learned that Trump had called up Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to express his anger over the decision,
0:54.3	and subsequently Trump boasted to reporters that Bezos had listened to him and acted.
1:01.4	This is an absurd abuse of power, and it comes as a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institutes shed some really interesting new light on what Americans think of abuses like these.
1:08.1	Today we're talking about all of this with Melissa Deckman, a political scientist who's also
1:12.0	the CEO of PRRI and knows this data well. Melissa, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me,
1:18.3	Greg. I appreciate you talking about our survey today. So let's start with Trump and Amazon. Trump's
1:24.2	tariffs are going to drive out costs for consumers across the country. There was this report
1:28.9	that Amazon was going to list out the costs imposed by tariffs on its products. Then we heard from
1:34.9	White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, who said this. This is a hostile and political act by
1:42.2	Amazon. Why did Amazon do this when the Biden administration
1:46.3	hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? And I would also add that it's not a surprise
1:52.7	because as Royers recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm.
1:59.3	And then Trump himself said he had personally talked to Bezos.
2:03.4	Jeff Bezos was very nice.
2:05.9	He was terrific.
2:07.2	He solved the problem very quickly.
2:09.9	And he did the right thing.
	...

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