WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Representative Mark Pocan (WI-02) joined MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss his line of questioning of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a House Appropriations Committee hearing and the Secretary’s inability to craft a coherent response when asked a simple question: “Who pays tariffs?”
Click here to watch the full interview, and find excerpts of Rep. Pocan’s remarks below.
Rep. Pocan on Sec. Bessent’s inability to answer, “Who pays tariffs?”
It was a simple question. I had a whole lot more. I wanted to go into a number of the businesses in Wisconsin that are negatively affected. I didn’t think this was going to be the stumper.. But it was such a simple question that he couldn’t give an answer. It really shows that Trump’s tariffs are ultimately attacks on the average person in Wisconsin and across the country, and they just don’t want to admit it.
Rep. Pocan on the negative impact of Trump’s tariffs
Donald Trump just lies and lies about [the impacts of tariffs]. At the end of the day, Donald Trump won because of the economy. He promised to reduce costs on day one. We’re not winning on that front. In fact, things are more expensive now because of tariffs, and we’re going to see them get more and more expensive. People are buying their Christmas inventory. So it is a good reason for Donald Trump to talk about it, but you may not experience that for another five or six months down the road. Right now, they’re trying to get all this money, and part of it is artificial revenue from tariffs, to fund their now [seven] trillion dollar tax cut for Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the wealthiest in this country. So never forget, their holy grail is this tax cut for the richest. Part of it is to fund it with artificial revenue from some of the tariffs. That’s part of why this is in the mix. At the end of the day, working people, middle class people, and people aspiring to be in the middle class are going to pay for those tax cuts through tariffs in other ways. At the end of the day, Donald Trump and Elon Musk will be better off.
