Is Trump going back on his economic promises?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why President Donald Trump’s messaging has shifted from economic prosperity to austerity.
Will voters tolerate economic pain from Trump’s tariffs?
Senior politics reporter Aaron Blake talks with The Post’s senior political correspondent Naftali Bendavid and White House correspondent Michael Birnbaum about Trump’s inconsistent messaging on the economy and foreign policy this week. Beyond tariffs, they discuss how foreign leaders are responding to Trump on Ukraine and immigration.
Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy. It was edited by Lucy Perkins and Sean Sullivan and mixed by Sam Bair.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So I was wondering if you guys have been following the conclave at all. |
| 0:05.0 | I mean, I watched the movie, but I was referring to a different conclave. |
| 0:10.0 | This one does not involve Stanley Tucci. |
| 0:12.0 | Aren't the Cardinals watching the conclave to figure out what they need to do? |
| 0:16.0 | Like the movie, you think? |
| 0:17.0 | Yeah, like the movie. |
| 0:18.0 | As a political nerd and somebody who loves elections, I would really like to have a window |
| 0:23.6 | into what happens in that room. |
| 0:24.6 | I don't need, like, a video camera in the Sistine Chapel for this. |
| 0:29.6 | What I do need is just like a tally of the votes and how they progress over time, and I want |
| 0:34.6 | to see the factions and how they shift. |
| 0:36.6 | So if you're listening, Catholic Church, I want to see the factions and how they shift. So if you're |
| 0:37.5 | listening, Catholic Church, I want to see the vote tallies. |
| 0:45.1 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. I'm Aaron Blake, senior |
| 0:49.9 | politics reporter and host of the Post Reports Weekly Politics roundtable. It's Thursday, May 8th. |
| 0:56.6 | I'm joined this week by senior political correspondent Neftali, Ben David. Hey, Neftali. |
| 1:00.9 | Hey, thanks for having me. And we're also here with Michael Bernbaum, White House correspondent covering |
| 1:05.3 | Trump and Foreign Policy here at The Post. Hey, Michael. Hey, Aaron. |
| 1:15.5 | So today we're going to be exploring some big news from the week through the lens of President Trump's, let's say, inconsistent messaging. |
| 1:19.0 | First, about tariffs and the economy and later in the show on foreign policy. |
| 1:23.7 | A lot of what the administration is saying today is quite different from what it said on the 2024 campaign trail and even just a few weeks ago. |
| 1:32.7 | So, Neftali, you wrote a piece about this this week, kind of broadly laying out how the Trump administration's economic messaging has shifted from one of promising prosperity, a new golden age, to now one that's more |
... |
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