Interviewing Trump On His Plans For The US Economy

Trump has an aggressive plan for the US economy and American companies that includes radically higher tariffs, a lower corporate tax rate and mass deportations of immigrants that could further constrict an already tight labor supply. Without this, he says, “you can fold up , because I don’t think it’s gonna be worth a damn. I think the whole country will go down the tubes.”

Most economists disagree. In June, 16 Nobel Prize winners published an open letter arguing that Trump’s agenda would reignite inflation and balloon the federal debt. A recent report from the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics said Trump’s proposed tariffs would cost a typical household $1,700 a year “while inflicting significant collateral damage on the US economy.”

But there’s vocal support for Trump in some surprising quarters. Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, are two recent converts who have endorsed Trump. In early June, prominent venture capitalists contributed more than $12 million to his campaign at a fundraiser in San Francisco. Among the co-hosts was Shervin Pishevar, a backer of Uber Technologies, Airbnb and Slack, who once proudly hung photographs of himself with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the walls of his home. Now he posts photos with Trump to social media and rails against Biden’s appointees at the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, who have worked to restrain tech giants and cryptocurrency.

The Biden administration “has gone after the crypto world, they have gone after the business world, they are trying to regulate by executive policy with a much more liberal, far-left view of capitalism and corporations,” Pishevar says. “The Republican Party is much more open to new ideas and big ideas from our world.”

On the other side of innumerable social media battles about the election is LinkedIn Corp. Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman, who sent an email to his followers after the debate calling Biden a “resolute fighter” and saying that attempts to replace him were misguided. Hoffman argues that European policy shows unequivocally that high tariffs impede growth and raise prices, and that the unavoidable central feature of Trump’s style is his tendency to govern as if he’s still starring in a reality-TV show. “Investors need a sense that they are investing in a stable future,” he says. But he says he gets why some business leaders may be drawn to the former president: “Trump has a better understanding than the Biden administration that regulation can be a business impediment.”

There’s also nervous silence from many others in the business community. In 2021 former American Express Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ken Chenault helped organize dozens of prominent Black business leaders to oppose restrictive voting rights bills in Republican-led states. There’s been no such groundswell now, despite similar perceived stakes for the future of democracy and fair elections. Chenault attributes this to Trump’s record of vindictiveness toward his enemies. But he says he hopes others will join the fray soon. “I would not criticize a CEO for not speaking out because of the threat to their company,” Chenault says. “What I would hope is that a few CEOs, and I don’t think it’s going to be large number, are able to act on their conscience.”

In the interview with Businessweek, Trump was personable, as vainglorious as ever in attempting to prosecute his case for another term, and characteristically boastful, bragging about everything from first-term accomplishments to the vaulted ceilings at Mar-a-Lago. (Considering his penchant for making false claims, we’re publishing the entire transcript of the interview on Bloomberg.com, annotated with fact checks.) It was clear that Trump is feeling exceptionally confident—even for him—about his prospects in November. Surviving the assassination attempt, and having criminal charges over his handling of classified documents thrown out of court, has only strengthened Trump’s improbable momentum. But four months is a lot of time, and as recent events have shown, a campaign can change overnight.

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