YouSaid · the spoken record

Andrew Ross Sorkin

lines on the record: 62
first: 2025-10-19
most recent: 2025-10-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Think the answer is we will look at what's happening in AI, which by the way I'm super excited about. I think it'll be like the internet. It'll be a massive technological change. But you'll look at the valuations of some of these companies right now and the way they're getting financed and all the debt and leverage in the system. And you'll say this doesn't make sense. Look at companies that don't have enough money, are not making any money. They're making no money today. They're losing money. And yet they're making massive commitments to buy data centers, to buy all sorts of things that they can't afford to buy on a hope and a prayer and a dream that this will be the future. Some of them will be right and they will be the future and there will be Amazon. But a lot won't be. And we will look around and we will say, That was a mistake”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think that they look at all of that and say that's a problem. Having said that, they think he's very charming. They recognize that he is likely to be the mayor. And I think you're starting to see a bunch of them. I don't want to say fall in line, but fall in line. And so you're seeing some people come out with sort of more positive comments. Hoping, knowing that maybe if he's the mayor, that if they're friendly early, that he'll be friendly later. I mean, I think that's, and this is fascinating because it's, by the way, this does happen on both sides of the political aisle, right? It's a very interesting moment.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think they all believe that we need more affordability in terms of New York City, especially when it comes to rents and real estate and the like. And I think they look at what he's, at least the plan to rent stabilization and say to themselves, at least as classic economists, that that is not really the answer. That the answer ultimately is what Ezra Klein would tell you, which is abundance. We need supply. We need more supply.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think that the business leaders dislike him. I mean, they genuinely dislike him. And it's not, by the way, just because they think Forget him about being a Democrat, being a socialist, even raising taxes. I actually don't think that is the thing that has them up in arms. Just to be totally transparent with you, I think that they think there's three things that Are on their minds. I think they are worried about how he's going to approach policing in the city. I think that's for them a big, big issue I think they. There's an anti Semitic question. That is definitely on their minds. And then there is, and this gets to maybe the Democratic Socialist piece of it.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whether every successive presidency, depending on which political party is in place, is going to be sort of using these powers in these different ways. And whether that then either puts a stop to the politicization of all of it or whether this just becomes sort of a spiral out of control. I'm very curious to see, but you're right that nobody in the moment right now, especially in the business community, feels pressure from the quote-unquote other side. So they always, by the way, they always hated Elizabeth Warren making comments about their business, trying to raise taxes on them or, you know, implement wealth taxes or other things, but they never really took it seriously. And so here we are.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That seems to be It'll be very interesting to see if, in fact, Democrats come into power, how they use that power. And by the way, it's going to be very interesting to see now that we're in this moment where the president's going after Comey and he's going after Bolton.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that, I think, is, by the way, I think it would be very valuable for business leaders today to write down on a piece of paper, have a plan. If you think there's going to be a day you're going to raise your hand and say, I don't like this and we've got a problem, write down what are the parameters and the metrics with which you would actually do that. Because what keeps happening is the line that you thought nobody would cross seems to get crossed almost every day. We become to some degree a nerd to what's happening. And so I think that's part of the.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was at a business meeting, I was at a meeting recently with a number of business leaders where... A bunch of people said, you know what? We should write down right now what the red line is so that the line doesn't move.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Terrible place. I don't know the answer. And I think this is what everybody in the business community who does have these worries is grappling with. I think they're sitting there saying, I know there's a red line at some point. I don't know if we've gone over it. I don't know when we're going to get there. And I don't know when we get there, what we're going to do about it.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think that they think about that. I think they think, and maybe they'll be wrong about this, that if in fact there's sort of a red line moment, and the question is, what is that redline moment that there's going to be some button that they're going to push that they would push the button if this sort of red line moment happens? Now, there's obviously a lot of people, I imagine who are listening to us now saying, hasn't the red line moment already happened? Or if you think the red line moment is coming, don't you need to get in front of it before you ever get there? Because by the time you get to that line, you won't be able to have an opportunity to touch the button because you'll be so far away from it. Because somehow you'll be in this sort of...”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I do think that behind the scenes there is consternation and anxiety and all sorts of things about what this administration does. No question. I mean, I think one of the reasons they don't speak out is because they're scared. And privately, they will tell you, I am scared. Again, this goes back to, it almost doesn't matter how much money you have in your bank account or what's on your business card emotionally. You're still in that scared place. And that's terrible. That's the case.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I assume is that you sit there and you say, if I don't do this, or if I raise my hands and say this, is that I'm going to be slaughtered, that we're happening in America. And by the way, it depresses me to say this. That's where we are. It's like a mafiosa thing. It's like, if I raise my hand and say there's a problem, I will be slaughtered. That's what I think is, I mean, hopefully not literally slaughtered, but that's the, I think that is the calculus. And I think the calculus is all these people are thinking, I want to be here, I want the company to be here in not just tomorrow, but in two and three and four and five and ten years from now. And can I just play this out? Can I just stick this out long enough to get to the other side, whatever you think the other side looks like?”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And what's the downside for me to do that? And I think right now in this moment, the upside in truth is probably not a lot. I think that a lot of people at this table and a lot of listeners would applaud those people. But it's unclear to me unless it's done as a collective that it would have any real impact right now, given what's happening in Washington in terms of Republican control of the White House, of Congress, of the Senate, having even the business community come out in any meaningful way and say, excuse me, we don't like it this way, it's unclear that that would have some kind of impact. The downside...”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Trying to lighten it up at the end. What I think is going on here is I think that he is somebody, and as I think most of these CEOs, I think they are playing trade-offs in their mind. This whole thing is a trade-off for them. They're saying themselves, I could raise my hand right now and say, this is all wild and completely nuts, and I disagree with everything that's going on here. And if I do that, what's the upside for me to do that?”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so I am going to, I don't know if I'm going to channel him. So do not blame me. Don't blame the messenger. This is what I think is going on. This is like mind reading inside Tim Cook's head, which is probably unfair to Tim Cook, but I'm going to try.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our tariffs going to help us, right now, the way the tariffs are structured, I think it's going to become very complicated. But I will say I talked to a CEO of a big U.S. car maker, and they're not a lot of them, so you can make your guess about who this is. And they said, look, in 10 years from now, given all of the tariffs and everything else, most Americans are going to spend more for less quality cars than much of the rest of the world is likely to get. And maybe we should be cool with that. Maybe we shouldn't. I don't know, but I think about this stuff.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm just saying, whether you want to listen to Elon Musk or not, he's always said if you did not have these tariffs that the American car market would be in trouble. And I think there's truth to that. There's truth to that. And we actually as a country have to decide, do we want an automobile industry? I mean, I think these are real questions. And then the question is, if you want an automobile industry, how do you get it? Right? I mean”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You go and you look, all of a sudden Germany's back, Japan's back, everybody's now competing against America. And by the way, that competition is forcing the cost of labor down. It's forcing the cost of everything to go down. And that's what, to some degree, I would argue, breaks the unions or at least makes it much harder from, this goes back to capitalism and socialism, but from a capitalistic perspective, to compete when you're effectively competing against competitors that have much lower costs. And by the way, we're seeing this now in terms of why the president wants to implement tariffs because he's looking and saying to himself, look, BYD in China, if we let BYD in China sell cars into America today, we would have no car industry. We just wouldn't because the cars are better made and cost less.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was also a function of the fact that the US was a monopoly power in the world during that period and was able to effectively charge monopoly rents. So effectively, the rest of the world after World War II was out of business. We were not competing with anybody. We were it. We were the entire game. And so we could charge remarkable amounts of money. There was no competition. And so because this sort of Was taking place, you could charge an extraordinary amount of money. You could afford, if you will, to pay labor what I think we all hope that labor deserves. But it was partially because we was not a competitor. In 1980, when you start to see how wages stagnated in America starting in late 70s, early 80s.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have a very unpopular explanation for why that was the case. And Paul Krugman disagrees with me vehemently about this, so just I want to posit that so you can throw your tomatoes if you like. I worry or I'm concerned that the sort of 1950s, to call it 1980 period where we had this sort of utopia that we think about, I don't know if it's really utopia because there was all sorts of civil unrest and other things that took place during that period too.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting because I think the modern conversation about the American dream today often is actually not probably looked back 100 years. It's probably looked back to the 50s. People would call it what I describe as the leave it to be American dream. That was a very white dream, but it meant that you could buy a house, you'd have two kids, a dog, and everything would kind of just work out. And by the way, this was a period where unionization was a huge part of the economy. We were protecting labor in a remarkable way. And I think people look back now at that period fondly. But I also think today, again, in this sort of social media driven universe, Know everybody wants to be Mr. Beast. They all want to be you, John. I mean, they all want to”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About something else. It was about sort of reaching for the stars in this other way. And that was partially by the way, a function of the media. You know, this was the first time big magazines were all of a sudden putting CEOs on the cover of these magazines. They used to have Babe Ruth and Charles Limberg on the cover, and now Charlie Mitchell is on the cover of these magazines. And so I think that we As a culture, almost turn these people into heroes. And here we are close to 100 years later, and you're seeing it almost in the exact same way.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, first of all, Andrew Mellon was a capitalist with a capital C in just every way. You know, if you had great success, God bless you. If you had great failure, God bless you. He wasn't there to pick up the pieces in any way, shape, or form. I would argue, by the way, that the American dream shifted in the 1920s. I actually think that the dream that shifted in the 1920s, for better or worse, is the dream that exists today in America here today, and I would argue on TikTok and everywhere else, which is, I think prior to 1920, it really was more of a Horatio Alger kind of story that people were pursuing. And I think in the 20s, in part because of the stock market and everything else and the industrialization and going to big cities and everything else with the sort of elites that they saw, it became about the lottery ticket. It became about, I don't know about a get-rich, quick scheme, but it became about getting rich, getting super, it wasn't just, it wasn't just about having a better life than your parents.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wanted to break up Citigroup but also, more importantly, wanted to break up JPMorgan and that the Rockefeller family had it out for JPMorgan. And as a result, they went to Roosevelt, who by the way wasn't so excited originally about passing this bill. This bill had been sitting around for a while, and he was slow walking cart of glass in so many different ways. By the way, interestingly, Roosevelt was not really for the FDIC, which was also a piece of this bill, effectively ensuring bank deposits. Roosevelt originally wasn't even for that either, but there was a whole bunch of sort of efforts afoot to put all of these pieces in place to the point where I found a letter that Carter Glass had written that actually walked through the whole thing, where he was basically complaining that the bill wasn't really his and it'd been effectively taken over by the bankers.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Vanilla Savings was over here. Correct. You were dividing the casino from the actual bank. But the truth was that this entire process had been corrupted. And the only reason I would argue this bill even came about was because the Rockefeller family, which effectively owned a big chunk of chase, which was a major competitor to Citigroup.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that was, by the way, one of the great surprises for me as I was going through the letters and archives of this period, which was I think we all have this impression that this great Bill Glass-Steagall, which broke up the banks, was sort of driven by Carter Glass and this idea that the bank should be broken up. And this was to make the system safer.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the jury comes back And finds him not guilty. And this goes to exactly maybe what people thought about after the financial crisis of 2008. Nobody really went to jail. And when people discuss this with the jurors, when you read all of the sort of articles and opinion pieces about this at the time, the view was that he did basically what everybody else just would have done. And they did not consider that to be criminal. Interestingly, he had done it with the blessing of his lawyer, which was also sort of from a legal perspective, a very sort of interesting defense, which was that he went to the lawyer, got the lawyer to bless it, and there it is.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To trial and you won't believe what happens. Yeah. I don't think of it. I mean, I guess. You can't really spoil history. So Charles Mitchell effectively gets indicted for tax evasion. By the way, that case brought against him by Roosevelt effectively, signed off by Roosevelt Who had a chip on his shoulder about Mitchell, and that was part of the politics too. So this gets back to the strange parallels in life, Democrats and Republicans, for better or worse. And he goes to trial. Everybody expects that he's going to be convicted. Everybody thinks he's going to be convicted. He had, by the way, engaged in what was demonstrably a sham tax transaction with his wife And you get into it, I mean, you really get to see what was going on in the moment when he's literally in the room with his wife planning this whole tax strategy out.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think he thinks to himself, I now have a chess piece. I'm collecting money from them one way. At some point, if I need them in some other way, maybe I can lower the tariff. By the way, maybe I can raise the tariff on them. And the whole thing is just a sort of grand. Leverage negotiation”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I would also say they can become I'm not arguing that this is a good strategy. No, I know I don't think anyone thinks too long. Just to be clear, they become this whole thing becomes a chess piece. They're all chess pieces on a board.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Towards control, leverage. And look, look at what's going on with the universities in America. Look what's going on with the law firms going on in America. Look what's happening with the companies. Leverage over somebody else, power over them so that when you need to Ask for something, there the answer is yes. That is basically what I think is going on here.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We will see whether we really have leverage or not. And I think that is the ultimate question. And I do not think we know. And I will say when it comes to China, I think ultimately it's going to be very hard for us to have demonstrable leverage with them given their size and their scale and the fact that I think President Xi is just watching this whole thing and I imagine laughing to some degree because he sees the president come out and decide announce some crazy tariff number and then the market goes crazy and what happens? He steps down.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The through line in my reporting about Trump is simply leverage. It's how can he get leverage over somebody else? It's not about, and the relationship is always going to be transactional. He would argue to you, I think, if we were sitting at this table with the president, that all of these quote-unquote relationships, these friendships, these special relationships we've had with European countries was never really a relationship at all. He would say we were actually paying them all off to be our friends, frankly, and that that was our leverage if we had any leverage with them. And I think now he's saying we have leverage in a different way, which is that we're basically going to tariff them. My only point is that I think what he is looking at are the numbers, not that anybody's doing anything in a Kumbaya way for the United States, nor that the United States should be doing Kumbayahwe things for them.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ultimately, I think he's trying to push it as far as he can push it. But the truth, and maybe it's the only governor thus far, actually, on this presidency, has actually been the markets weirdly enough, right? So when he announced the tariffs back in April, the sort of big Shoot in the Moon plan, the bond market went crazy and he softened his stance. Here we are again. He's trying to figure out what to do with China. He softens his stance. And they're the only people he seems to be willing to listen to.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Always this predisposition towards there's going to be some semblance of rationality to what will ultimately happen. And so you have President Trump out there making some grand claim about the tariffs. The market freaks out because they're like, should I believe him? Am I supposed to actually listen to his words? Am I not? I mean, but this happens every day. Then you have this sort of back and forth with China. I'm of the view that ultimately, I don't know if it's the taco trade or whatever they call it these days, which is Trump always chickens out. Yeah.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm no longer surprised because one of the things that I've decided I've learned is that the investor class, whatever that even means anymore, is a group of people who are effectively professional optimists. And the truth is that actually, if you look over time, Being a professional optimist or being predisposed to being optimistic has actually been the right choice. So I remember years ago you'd hear about a war breaking out in the Middle East or something. The market would falter and go fall to pieces. And the truth was that if you had bought when that happened, you would have made a small fortune. And I think over time, people have seen that most of the time it works out. The problem is some of the time it doesn't. And so, but as a result, I think there's”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hopefully inside this narrative and just listening or reading this almost tale of what happened. But as you're doing that, and I'm not trying to lead you to a place, but I imagine that there are readers who are going to go, oh, well, that's like this, and that's like this, and that's like this. And that guy's like Elizabeth Warren, and that guy is like a little bit like Elon Musk. And so, yes.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very obvious, and I'm so glad that you made the parallels. You know, it's funny when I was writing the book, I used to have these big debates with my editor about whether we should actually make the connection for the reader. So when you read the book,”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If they actually did some real polls, I've seen only a couple polls on this where people really talk about how they feel about the economy today. And for reasons that I think are inexplicable. So I look at the economic data and what's going on with inflation, and I would say there's some underlying weakness, at least for large pockets of the country. And you would think that they would be on TikTok screaming the way they were screaming a couple years ago in the last administration. And I think there's some screaming going on, but I don't think there's nearly the same kind of screaming. And I wonder why that is.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even now, actually. So, you know, we had a whole period of time in our country where there was remarkable inflation going on. And President Biden used to tell everybody, like, there isn't inflation. It's fine. I mean, Biden tried to do a little bit of what Hoover was doing. And the people were on TikTok saying that's not true. Have you seen the price of eggs? I don't understand what you're trying to tell me. By the way, I would say the same thing is happening now with Trump, which is Trump is out there saying the economy is great. And yet if you look at some of the polls and you definitely look at some of the economic data, there's weakness there. That's real.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll take the second part first. He was a terrible orator. I mean, ultimately, that's the truth. He just wasn't, he didn't, whatever you think the it factor is in politics, he did not have it. In that regard, it's sort of surprising that he won the election at all. I think his ability to stir the public the way some of the great presidential presidents who have been great orators have was just not a talent that was in his talent drawer. Like he just didn't It was not something he had. So I think his ability to but the other sort of psychological piece of this, and you can even think about it in the most recent decade.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is not emotional armor. It just isn't, and I think that the public, including myself, so often think, well, they've got so much money, what do they have to worry about? You know, someone writes a nasty article about them or the president goes after them on television. What do they care? They can just go back to their yacht and they don't have to worry. I think there's truth to it in the sort of financial sense, right? It's not that they have to, they're losing their home and are now out on the streets. But it's almost like anti-armor because I don't know if you read us magazine occasionally, but there's the page This is us. They're just like us. Like emotionally, they're just like us.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A somewhat, it seemed like friendly relationship with the leaders of these institutions. I will say one thing, though, about all of these bankers and wealthy individuals in the 20s and even now. And by the way, back in the 20s, not inflation adjusted for real. There were two billionaires. And people were making tens of millions of dollars. There was a magazine article called Our Second Billionaire, which was Henry Ford in 1929. One of the great lessons, at least for me, that I've learned just I think in reporting all of these years and even just reporting on the current milieu of billionaires in America, it doesn't matter how much money you have in your bank account or what title you have on your business card.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was the other thing that I found fascinating about Roosevelt, also Hoover to some degree, but given Roosevelt's public commentary about bankers and about wealth, and he doesn't get really into a sort of larger question about capitalism, I think, the way we are discussing those questions today. But he did have a relationship with all of these business leaders. I mean, these business leaders almost Trumpian way were making these pilgrimages to the White House to sit in the Oval Office.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On the powers that he ultimately took, but they look fondly upon them, I think, because they worked. There was an effectiveness about him. And I would also argue that it didn't seem, now at the time, if you go back, some people thought it was a power grab, but it didn't seem like it was a capricious power grab for the purposes of their own power. However, it was communicated to the public, it was communicated in a way that I think that the public did believe that he was doing this at their behest for them, not for him. It's an interesting sort of... Distinction to make, and maybe it's a distinction without a difference. I don't know. I'm curious what you think.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I don't know if there was ever like a project 1932 or 1933, but yes, I think there might have been some kind of project behind the scenes, if you will, to think through what were the levers that a president could pull that maybe hadn't been pulled before. And you're right. History has looked quite fondly.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Roosevelt about the banks, he would have to capitulate, he would have to almost admit He didn't do the right things before. And so he was trying to put it on Roosevelt, and Roosevelt was trying to put it on him.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Put tariffs on the smooth hally tariffs in 1930. He had pledged to do that during his presidential campaign in 1928, trying to get farmers to vote for him. And he said, my goodness, I need to make good on my pledge. Meanwhile, every economist in America is writing him open letters, by the way, the same way they're writing letters to Trump saying, I beg you, I beg you, don't do this. The CEOs were going down into the Oval Office, getting on their knees saying, please don't do this. And of course, he does it. And what happens 12 months later, global trade is down by 60%. By the way, in the meantime, you have the Federal Reserve sitting on their hands the entire time. They're not flooding the system with money because they are worried about the politics of the moment too, which I think also, by the way, interestingly relates to now, and we talk about the independence of the Fed and all of these things. So there was sort of this series of dominoes, and I think at the point that we're now talking about where Hoover is talking to Rose.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Believe that because they could see what they could see. And I think he didn't want to give in to the fact that he had that his biggest mistake was not taking this on in a more meaningful way earlier. You know, there was just so many, there was a series of mistakes that were made after the crash that really led to the Great Depression. I think of the crash as almost just the first domino in a whole bunch of things that he did. You know, one of the things he tried to do was raise taxes at a time when the economy was flailing. That was a wild idea. The other thing that he did was he decides, by the way, like now to, you know,”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think in part because he had made a pivotal mistake, which is he had told the country over and over and over again that this was somehow some kind of psychological problem, that this was not actually an economic problem, that this was like a problem in your mind that somehow what you were seeing was not what you were seeing. And by the way, people didn't.”
2025-10-19 · Pod Save America · Why is Big Business Caving to Trump? (with Andrew Ross Sorkin) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source