‘No pain, no gain’: GOP tells Americans to suck it up as economy worsens
Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions.
As President Donald Trump's pointless trade wars and devastating cuts to federal agencies raise fears of a painful recession, GOP lawmakers took to cable news this week to tell Americans that they need to accept a little hardship to let Trump get his way.
Republicans have finally given up on lying to Americans about who pays the price for tariffs and have changed their approach by telling Americans to just accept higher prices for a bit while Trump’s trade war plays out.
"No pain, no gain. That's what we used to tell our football players. There's gonna be some pain with tariffs. But tariffs got us back as a strongest economy in the world when President Trump was in the first time. He knows what he's doing. Democrats get out of the way. Shut up,” Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said on Fox Business.
Similarly, when presented with statements from companies saying their increased prices are due to Trump's tariffs, GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York lied, saying that Trump's tariffs aren't actually in effect.
In reality, his additional 10% tariff on China is in place, as is the 25% tariff Trump put on all steel and aluminum imports from Canada.
"The tariffs haven't even gone into effect. They've been postponed," Malliotakis said on CNN.
And Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma made an incoherent argument about why it’s okay that tariffs will cost consumers more.
"Tariffs is a tax. And it will be passed on to consumers. But it also allows us to have open markets,” Mullin said in an appearance on CNN.
Meanwhile, other Republicans downplayed the stock market’s steep decline from Trump's tariff policy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down more than 7% over the last month, while the S&P 500 is now in correction, which happens when a stock market falls 10% or more.
MarketWatch reported that the stock markets "logged their weakest first 50 days of a presidency since 2009—when President Barack Obama assumed the mantle in the midst of the global financial crisis."
"We were probably over-bloated with the stock market here for a while. We went up quite a bit," Tuberville said during another appearance on Fox Business.
Freshman GOP Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana said it's fine that the stock market is tumbling because it was too high when Joe Biden was in office—a new and novel excuse.
"First of all, the stock market has been on a sugar high a long time. We all love a good stock market, but the reality is that stock market imbalance did not necessarily benefit the smaller, mid-sized companies and average shareholders across the country, and it didn't necessarily benefit main street that much. So I think we are gonna see a correction there. But the reality is the stock market is not the economy, the economy is not the stock market, it's not uncommon for uncertainty to cause disruptions to that,” Sheehy said on CNN.
And he made the same argument on Fox Business.
"Our economy has been on a sugar high for a long time. What we're seeing here from this administration and what you're gonna see from this Congress is re-disciplining to ensure that our economy is based on private investment and free-market growth,” he said.
Other GOP lawmakers said they think it’s fine that Trump crashed the stock market because it would have been worse under former Vice President Kamala Harris.
"We have to remember that if Kamala Harris had won on November 5, the stock market would be down 50%. This country would be on a path to ruin. What President Trump inherited is a disaster from Biden,” Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio said—without evidence.
Others claim that Americans won't feel the benefits of Trump's economy for some time because Biden left it in a mess. But of course, Biden left Trump with a strong economy with low unemployment and steady growth.
"He's got a big mess to clean up from the previous administration, and he's only been in office a little more than 50 days," Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan said on CNN.
But Trump's tariffs and government cuts have left economists predicting that growth may stagnate or even go negative in the first quarter of the year, effectively ruining the strong economy that Biden left behind.
Meanwhile, the GOP’s defense of Trump's economic policies is not likely to appease Americans.
Polling shows that a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. A Quinnipiac University survey released Thursday found that just 41% of voters approve of Trump's handling of the economy—the issue that largely got him elected in November.
In fact, an Axios focus group of Michigan Trump voters showed signs of buyer’s remorse.
“[Trump] campaigned on lowering prices and making things more affordable for working-class people. He's moving in the opposite direction,” a 43-year-old Michigan voter said.
And another 31-year-old voter expressed that "I was voting for him based off of the economy the first time around, and I'm seeing a significant decline.”
Americans are certainly feeling the pain. So where’s the gain?