Oren Cass, Paul Krugman & Mariana Mazzucato on Trumponomics

Last week, President Trump signed a memorandum calling for reciprocal tariffs on countries that charge fees on US exports and called his 25% tariff order on all steel and aluminum imports “the beginning of making America rich again.” But is it? We turn to three brilliant economists for their takes (and disagreements) on the real impact Trumponomics will have on the U.S. economy. Kara leads a spirited and insightful conversation about industrial policy, the efficacy of Trump’s tariffs, how worried we should really be about the U.S. 's trade deficit, the odds of an AI bubble and bail out, and, of course, DOGE. Featuring:

Oren Cass, the founder and chief economist of American Compass, a conservative think tank, and a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and the New York Times.

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who writes a newsletter on Substack, teaches at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and recently retired his New York Times Opinion column after writing it from 2000 to 2025.

And Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of economics at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose and author of the hugely influential book, The Entrepreneurial State.

This episode was recorded on Monday, February 10.

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