Automotive industry legend Lee Iacocca died on July 2, 2019 at the age of 94. That means it’s been nearly six years since he passed, and as tends to happen when people die, it’s also been nearly six years since he had a conversation with anyone. So when social media posts arose claiming President Trump said he spoke with Lee Iacocca about his plan to institute massive tariffs, it was too funny not to write about.
Unfortunately for all of us, as you’ll hear if you listen to the video below, starting at about the 46-minute mark — since it’s a live speech, I sadly can’t timestamp it for you — while Trump did mention Iacocca’s name, he didn’t actually claim to have communed with the spirit of the long-dead Lee Iacocca.
The tariffs are still very real, though
Skipping ahead to the relevant part of the speech, Trump says, “He’s an older guy. Real pro. Really top guy with Lee Iacocca.” When it’s laid out like that, it seems pretty clear that Trump meant the guy who spoke to him once worked with Iacocca, presumably in some sort of management or executive position. The long pause between “top guy” and “with Lee Iacocca” definitely made it sound like they were two separate statements, but listening back, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
So sadly, I’m going to have to pack the Ouija board jokes up and save them for later. Instead, we’re left with the reality that Republicans have now hit everyone in the U.S. with a massive tax increase in the form of tariffs. Everything we buy is about to get more expensive, we’ve embarrassed ourselves on the world stage, and it’s hard to see how these tariffs won’t crash the economy. It’s not like the Smoot-Hawley tariffs worked nearly 100 years ago. Every single person whose brain isn’t mush and at least one person whose brain definitely is mush (me) can see this will only end badly.
Wonderful.
