Eugene Robinson finally did what American "journalists" have been unwilling to do!

[senseandsensibility]

According to Mehdi Hasan on bluesky: "It took six months for a Trump official to be politely forced by a journalist to admit live on air what everyone- including every economist- knows to be true (but which Trump keeps lying about): tariffs are paid by the US by US importers."

Eugene Robinson has always been one of my favorite journalists. He's a very skilled interviewer, aggressive in his own way, and seems to be a very good person as well. He got Bessent to admit that tariffs are paid by Americans! (I think it was on Morning Joe this morning, but I have never watched that show).

Now the bad news: WHY DID IT TAKE SIX MONTHS FOR A JOURNALIST TO DO THIS?

[snowybirdie]

1. That was the last question

asked in the 15 minute interview. Joe and Mika asked questions with no follow up or push back. The Secretary lied and spun his propaganda. Finally Robinson got in a few questions and the interview ended right after.

[senseandsensibility]

2. Let a professional take over, right?

He is the professional, and Joe and Mika and the entire WH press corps should be taking notes.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Taking notes ? Well, they are stenographers. nt

[senseandsensibility]

27. But only for cheato

it seems. Remember how they used to scream at Biden and find plenty of their own "spin" on his answers?

[BaronChocula]

3. I first became familiar with him watching Hardball on MSNBC

It seems like Chris Matthews introduced some great journalists on his show.

I remember this moment from one of Robinson's appearances. It may have been in 2014 when WAPO editor Ben Bradlee passed. Robinson recalled being hired at the paper to cover City Hall. Bradlee warned "City Hall is a tough beat. Are you tough?"

Mild-mannered as he is, Robinson is tough.

[senseandsensibility]

4. Exactly.

I've always really liked his combination of toughness and decency. That's so hard to achieve. I have to say that I aspired to it in my teaching career, and just the effort made me a better teacher.

[BaronChocula]

5. My sense and sensibility

suggests you must have been damn good at your job.

[senseandsensibility]

10. I tried!

Thanks, my friend.

[Trueblue Texan]

14. I can't stand Chris Matthews, but...

I've always respected Eugene Robinson. He's a very well-mannered gentleman (unlike Chris Matthews) who seeks and speaks the truth.

[BaronChocula]

22. I can understand

your feelings on Matthews. He was a bit of a polarizing character. Not for everyone. I did grow to like him.

[Trueblue Texan]

35. He interrupted his guests so consistently that I was never able to...

...learn anything but his take on things. Not a very useful analysis.

[Lonestarblue]

18. WaPo lost a lot of expertise and decency when he left.

With Bezos’ blessing, Will Lewis (the Murdoch acolyte) is turning the Post into Fox lite. Most of their experienced reporters and opinion writers have left, though for some reason they keep letting the old troglodyte George Will keep writing his conservative nonsense.

[senseandsensibility]

23. Yes, they lost Jonathan Capeheart too

A great newspaper is now a shell of its former self.

[littlemissmartypants]

6. Journalists have gone the way of the dodo. ...

Most of what we have now are glorified parrots. And their vocabularies are similar to the real parrots but they aren't as smart. 🦜

[irisblue]

7. Ain't that a truth.

[BattleRow]

16. These parrots are really for the birds..

[lonely bird]

33. True

Let’s also not forget that everyone is a “journalist” now due to the interwebs, apps and podcasts.

There are no journalists and everyone is a journalist.

[maxsolomon]

8. Why? One of the reasons is that Bessent avoids the "Liberal" press.

Another is that he, like every member of this Kakistocracy, is a shameless liar who's been trained to duck direct questions.

[senseandsensibility]

11. So he has never appeared in a "neutral" news show before today?

I find that hard to believe. And of course he lies and ducks questions. A real journalist would be prepared for that. That's kind of the point.

[maxsolomon]

17. I have no idea what "neutral" news shows Bessent's been on,

Or if "real journalists" were or weren't prepared to follow up over and over to get a straight answer.

I've heard "neutral" NPR hosts try with Repuke pols, and eventually it becomes obvious they won't respond honestly no matter what, so eventually even a "real journalist" moves on.

The legitimate press is the enemy of Republican bullshit and is treated as such.

[FoxNewsSucks]

9. It was this morning

I tuned out his lies and expected BS, and almost didn't notice when Joe turned him over to Eugene Robinson. It was great to see Robinson keep asking who writes the checks to the US Treasury and not let Bessent weasel out.

Moments like that are the reason I still turn the tv machine on in the morning for background noise. I wish there were more of them.

[PunkinPi]

12. Video clip (from Bluesky)

"So the tariff is paid in this country by the importer, is that right?" -- Eugene Robinson guides Scott Bessent into acknowledging that tariffs are in fact paid in the United States, not by foreign governments

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-07T12:20:02.527Z

[senseandsensibility]

13. Thanks PunkinPi!

Love your username!

[PunkinPi]

30. You're welcome, and thank you!

[live love laugh]

24. "The importer ..." is still not clearly understandable to many people.

The AMERICAN PEOPLE are the importers aren’t we? If so they should say that and stop obfuscating.

[Gimpyknee]

15. The importer pays the tariff and can chose to pass the cost off to the or not. Or not?!!!!

Un effin believable.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Can "Choose" To Pass Them On?

Obviously, Bessent doesn't understand how business works.
They are going to pass them on. To a business, that's the only choice.

[eppur_se_muova]

28. I recently read that the average "pass-through" is around 60%. Sadly, don't have the reference.

Obviously, if you're buying really cheap junk and selling it grossly inflated prices, tariffs won't hurt you much. As a perfect example, during his first term Turnip negotiated a "cutout" on imports from China for "printed religious materials". As a result the "Trump Bible" was printed for somewhere around $3-4, and even a 100% tariff wouldn't much hurt profits since these desecrations were marketed at $60, or even $75 from some distributors.

But if costs are a significant part of the sale price, prices will inevitably rise, causing sales to decrease, and importers will have to add yet more to the retail price to keep their net profits up. So tariffs are a double whammy on many low-priced commodities, such as produce (processed foods probably get hurt less).

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Everyone needs to keep in mind that we always have recessions under Republicans.

Always.

We're less than a year into this administration, and it's already begun. Today the fed vastly downgraded the number of job produced in recent months. And reduced by some 80%. That's a lot of jobs that didn't happen.

[senseandsensibility]

20. Sounds like a campaign slogan for the midterms!

Just sayin.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

31. No. A campaign slogan won't stop this.

Look back at earlier recessions under Republicans. This is no something trivial, or just an anecdote. We ALWAYS have a recession when Rs are in control. Always,.

[senseandsensibility]

40. What I meant by slogan is that Dems should be using this in ads

and talking about it constantly. The average independent or low information voter doesn't know this and the "press" is not going to point it out either. It's up to Dems to scream about this. It's a way of going on offense. Seems very effective to me because it's true and the R's have no defense.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

43. Yes, that would be a start.

[progressoid]

26. So Bessent won't be on MSNBC again.

[senseandsensibility]

29. Probably not.

He must have thought that MJ was some kind of lightweight morning show.

[Rhiannon12866]

32. Here's the video from Morning Joe. It's a long one, Gene Robinson joins at 12:46:

After months of delays and extensions, Donald Trump’s comprehensive and sweeping tariffs slate took effect Thursday just after midnight ET, shifting his global trade reset into high gear. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joins Morning Joe to discuss. - Aired on 08/07/2025.

[Historic NY]

34. They still running with the Trump lie

That billions are flowing in when it American business is paying for the Trump tariffs.

[snot]

37. Many of the best journalists have been pushed out of the MSM

(e.g., Chris Hedges pushed out of the NYT for criticising our invasion of Iraq).

[Martin68]

38. I don't know where you've been, but Robinson is only one of the many journalists writing for the Washington Post that

Last edited Fri Aug 8, 2025, 10:12 PM - Edit history (1)

pointed out that tariffs are a tax on the American people, not on foreign exporters. Condemning journalists because they couldn't force a MAGAt official to admit that fact is absurd. It took six months to do this because everyone in the Trump administration is a liar. Robinson apparently hit a weak link in the chain of stonewalling.

[senseandsensibility]

39. You're certainly entitled to your opinion

but my opinion stands. Most corporate journalists, even the ones on "liberal" outlets sanewash and normalize these liars constantly. When they appear on MTP, the pushback to their lies is completely inadequate. The WH press corps is a joke. There are techniques they could be using and did use with Biden, such as uniting around one topic and not relenting until their question is answered, but they seemed to forget how to utilize them as soon as trump took office. I have a background in journalism, but you don't need that to see what's happening and I am hardly the first to notice it. And of course it has been reported by journalists from many outlets that tariffs are a tax on the American people, but that is completely different than adequately challenging the administration directly. Eugene Robinson did that, and I am willing to give him credit.

[Martin68]

41. "Adequately challenging the administration directly." I have no idea what that means in the context of a journalist's

profession. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you seem to have a rather unrealistic idea of the power of an individual journalist in the context of forcing a confession from WH officials. They have asked the right questions repeatedly, and some of them have paid the price by being excluded from the WH press briefings. Personally, I think our time is better spent criticizing and confronting the administration ourselves than criticizing journalists who are doing an excellent job of investigating and reporting the facts.

[mucholderthandirt]

42. I always read his columns when I was reading our local paper. Made sense, what he'd say.