Stephanie Ruhle, NBC News senior business analyst host Elon Thour
joins me now.
Stephanie, can I just say that was a great interview
and I thought you pressed her on really important stuff.
It was, it was also, I just thought it was
the whole thing was refreshingly substantive.
This was a, you know, you can say I don't
like that policy or I do like that policy, but
it really was about like here the earth we live
in, the kinds of decisions you're going to make.
And it wasn't pie in the sky stuff.
So very, very well done job.
Let me just start by saying that, OK, well, I'm
just going to sit here and soak in those compliments
so we don't have to talk about anything else.
But I think what you're actually complimenting is that it
was a normal interview, Chris, that that's actually what it
was.
It was a normal interview.
It was a person running to be the president of
the United States and for 25 minutes we talked about
their vision and we talked about policy.
And I think you just said it right there.
At the end of the day, it's a OK if
you don't like her policies, right?
She made it very clear if you makeover 400 grand
a year next year when the pert, when the when
the individual tax cuts expire, she's going to raise your
taxes.
So if you are someone who just votes on that,
well, then you know what you're doing.
You don't want to vote for her.
And, and I, I, I think that it's just that
we're so desensitized in that so many interviews that that
we do, we're forced to cover so much lunacy or
so much crazy or so much fat checking or get
get distracted by so many issues that aren't poor policies
that serve the American people.
What you saw right there was just a, a sort
of a classic interview with somebody running for president.
I, I thought the point that there's a number of
really interesting exchanges.
I thought the exchanges on terrorists was really interesting.
Particularly she said, look, which is true.
You know, I think people, people think we live in
this free trade era, which we do compared to previous.
But there's also lots of tariffs on lots of stuff.
Presidents have unbelievable unilateral authority to apply them.
I remember George W Bush doing this on aluminum and
steel.
I remember obviously Trump did it.
Joe Biden, as you noted, he basically said, look, where
are you?
And what she, I, I thought her answer was interesting,
which is basically like, well, it kind of depends, right?
But we're not going to throw up a 20% tariff
around the whole country, which is not a serious idea.
But, but I think that's the important part, sort of
the nuance.
Because I'm going to be honest, President Biden has tariffs
in place.
He's held a lot of Donald Trump's tariffs in place.
And the White House doesn't like to talk about it.
They don't like it when you ask them about it
because everybody has gotten in this zone of like Trump's
the tariff guy.
We're not the tariff people.
We're here on the other side.
And what she did right there is kind of explain
then it's complicated, right?
We're a country of 330 million people.
Our economy is complicated, right?
In the same way.
Is the economy good or bad?
It totally depends.
So tariffs, if used in the right places, can work.
And one could watch that and say, well, she didn't
give a clear, direct answer.
That's OK, because we are not talking about clear or
direct issues.
The, the, the, the question about inflation and prices, This
to me is one of the, it's sort of one
of the most frustrating aspects of this campaign.
The thing that people are 100% correctly, rationally and understandably
reacting to is two or three years of the highest
rate of inflation we've had in a generation, which was,
it has been incredibly unpleasant.
It's spiked the prices of things.
Things got more expensive.
The issue, of course, is that that.
Was basically born of the end of the pandemic in
a supply crunch.
And a combination of that and monetary policy has brought
it down.
So now you've got this weird situation where both major
party candidates kind of got to say what they're going
to do to bring prices down, even though what everyone's
reacting to is an issue that is not.
That is a little bit in the past.
You see what I'm saying?
Like, so she's got the price gouging thing, which I
thought was a good answer, But in some ways, no
one's really talking about the real thing.
It is a little bit in the past.
And listen, everybody is a lots of people are angry
that grocery stores have made so much money and they
shouldn't.
And I'm not defending grocery stores, but we should remember
when we're like, we need to put price controls on
things.
There are tons of businesses that are not high margin
businesses and there are lots of years when those industries
are not making a ton of money.
But what I find interesting when she talks about looking
into price gouging, people freak out and they're like, look,
she's a socialist.
I knew she was going to be a socialist.
This woman is not a capitalist and they bug out
Donald Trump this week was like, when I become president,
look at the interest rates you're paying on credit cards.
I'm going to cap that.
There's no way they can do that.
Like he's going full on a unilateral announcement of a
10% cap on credit card.
Free markets guys, correct.
You know, when I call like ride or die capitalist
about this, they're like, oh, it's nonsense.
He's just talk and talk.
But when she says anything that even sniffs like it,
they're like, see, she's a socialist nut ball.
So, so so it's completely crazy.
But you've got candidates that are trying to address an
issue that has the American people angry and the American
people aren't addressing aren't, aren't thinking about what you just
mentioned, which is remember where we came from a pandemic.
Finally, let me just ask you this.
I, I'm editorializing here, but I feel like the times
that I've seen the vice president on her feet, which
would be since she became the nominee, which would be,
you know, the interview she did at CNN, some of
the local interviews she's done that things she did with
Oprah, the debate, the interview with you.
Like she's obviously quite adept.
She's quite adept.
She's quite fluid.
It does seem to me like it would benefit them
and benefit the public just at a deep, substantive level
to talk more about this stuff.
Like, I feel like I learned something.
OK?
I think that 100%.
Because what's crazy is that Donald Trump gets so much
credit and has for the last nine years of the
fact that, you know, people have access to him and
he says what he thinks and he just lets it
RIP.
But much of what he says either doesn't make sense
or it's not true.
She actually was perfectly reasonable.
And listen, there's some things she's not giving you a
direct answer on because she's a politician.
But I agree with you that getting a chance to
speak to her, getting to the American people to hear
from her more, what do you do with the fact
if you're her campaign when people hear over and over,
I don't really know what her policies are.
And they can say, well, look, we have this book
and it has 82 pages.
I guarantee there are people who watched tonight who went,
oh, taxes only increase if you make over 400 grand
because there's all sorts of people like, well, my tax
cuts going to run out.
Maybe my taxes are going to go up next year.
They're not really reading the 82 page plan.
And so I think the more and she doesn't necessarily
to do with us, the more she sits down.
I mean, she's a great interview.
I sat down with her for 25 minutes.
Yeah, go talk.
You might not have liked all of her answers, but
she but but she had one for every single question.
Well, that was great.
I learned a lot.
Excellent job, My friend Stephanie Ruhle.
Thank you.