Krugman: Trump’s Trade Adviser Just Exposed the Scam at MAGA’s Core

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, just offered an extraordinary statement on Fox News. He admitted that we should lower our expectations for job creation because of Trump’s success in removing immigrants from the country. In essence, Navarro suggested it was a good thing to have lower jobs numbers provided the (supposed) cause is higher deportations, and confirmed that removing immigrants isn’t creating jobs for Americans. We think this provides an opening to explore what MAGA economics is really trying to accomplish. So we talked to economist Paul Krugman, author of an illuminating piece on his excellent Substack that takes apart Trump’s immigration agenda. He explains how Navarro wrecked a core scam that Trump has long peddled about immigrants, how this undermines the most basic story MAGA tells about the economy, and how Democrats can seize on the failure of that story to tell a better one of their own. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:09.5	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
1:15.3	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
1:21.2	Donald Trump's administration blames everything it possibly can on immigrants, whether it's crime or welfare fraud or even high housing costs.
1:34.5	But this week, Trump's top trade advisor blamed yet another thing on immigrants, bad jobs numbers.
1:41.6	Peter Navarro said openly that we should revise our expectations for job creation
1:46.1	downward because there are fewer immigrants in the country, and he presented that as almost an
1:51.4	achievement. We think this provides an opening to look at what MAGA ideology and MAGA economics
1:57.1	is really trying to accomplish, and we're fortunate to be doing this today with
2:01.1	the economist Paul Krugman, whose substack is an absolute must read. Paul, nice to have you on.
2:07.2	Good to be on. So Peter Navarro was discussing this week's jobs numbers, and he seemed to say
2:13.6	directly that we should expect lower numbers because Trump has deported so many immigrants.
2:18.3	Listen to this. We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job
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