Fox News host Greg Gutfeld defended President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war on Wednesday by insisting “a tariff is not a tax if you don’t buy the goods” before pointing to the right’s favorite bogeyman as the real culprit behind the nation’s stubborn inflation.
“I blame DEI,” the network’s resident “comedian” declared.
With economists growing increasingly worried about a recession and the stock market continuing to tank, the Trump administration and its allies in right-wing media have attempted to give a positive spin to the economic chaos unleashed by the president’s trade policies and DOGE cuts.
“Just ignore the sky-is-falling reports and the regime press. Tune out the breathless reporting about market jirations because even the most dedicated globalists, they know Trump is good for business,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said on Wednesday evening. “So perhaps stocks need to take a nosedive so the working man can get a little relief from all of this inflation,” Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt proclaimed the night before.
During Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News’ most-watched show The Five, Gutfeld and the program’s other MAGA-boosting panelists rallied around Trump and his tariff policy while finding the silver lining in recent economic data.
“Gas prices have dropped for the third consecutive week, the price of eggs is down. Better than expected inflation report today indicates that economists likely overestimated the effect of the threat of tariffs,” Judge Jeanine Pirro boasted, referencing a recent report that inflation eased more than expected in February, though it was still up 2.8 percent from a year earlier. And while egg prices finally dropped in the first month of March, they are expected to spike again.
Turning to Gutfeld, Pirro went on to claim that because of Trump’s trade policies, car companies are closing up factories in Mexico and coming back to the United States. “Isn’t the tariff story a positive one?” Pirro wondered aloud.
“You know, it almost doesn't matter where they are at this point because you don't have to buy them, right? A tariff is not a tax if you don't buy the goods,” Gutfeld replied. “And I'm tired of the media calling the tariff a tax. It’s the opposite!”
After complaining that he pays a “small fortune in taxes” but doesn’t see the benefit because he still has “psychopaths living on my street,” the conservative pundit then asserted that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives were the true anchor on the American economy.
“I’m going to make Jesse so happy right now,” Gutfeld declared, referencing fellow The Five host Jesse Watters before turning to the panel’s lone liberal Harold Ford Jr. “You know what causes inflation? And I'm glaring at Harold. DEI!”
After Ford quipped that he “knew this was coming, Gutfeld continued to rant about how companies and government agencies enacting diversity hiring policies caused prices to soar.
“Spend a trillion dollars on — let your government explode to the size of God knows what. That leads to inflation. It ain't tariffs,” the talk show host exclaimed. “You could call tariffs a consumption tax, if you want. But fine. You pay, you buy, you pay, that's cool, that's why we had zero inflation back in the good old days. Which the acronym is GOD, Harold, so you should be for it.”
Gutfeld continued: “Once we shifted to the income tax, what happened? Government grew, started spending, suddenly the only solution to maintain its size was to print more money. And what happens when you do that? Money loses value, and you get higher prices, inflation, and you get expensive eggs. Thank you, DEI. I blame DEI!”
Towards the end of the segment, Watters blasted Japan for its tariffs on American products, insisting that it was morally wrong.
"Japan has a 100 percent tariff on American rice,” Watters declared. “Remember Pearl Harbor?! How the hell is Japan tariffing any products that America sells? Imagine if we, American farmers, could sell rice to Japan. Imagine how rich the farmers would be; they have rice on everything!”
While the Trump administration devotes much of its energy to wiping out all DEI initiatives within the federal government and threatening private companies that practice diversity hiring policies, conservative media and MAGA politicians have put together a laundry list of things to blame on DEI.
With the right-wing media ecosystem raging that diversity, equity and inclusion led to the wildfires in Los Angeles, terrorist attacks, bridge collapses and deadly airline crashes, Fox News host Will Cain went so far as to worry that the nation was literally dying under DEI.
“I do not think you can overstate the importance of Donald Trump killing DEI. Because I truly believe that DEI could have killed America,” he said in January. “It could end America. This kind of language is the type of thing that is a cancer.”
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