the way the founders thought senators should had be elected. the state legislature chose and voted for reed smoot to go to the united states senate to represent the state of utah. in his 30-year career as a senator, reed smoot rose to the most powerful chairmanship in the senate, chairman of the senate finance committee with jurisdiction over the federal government's two ways of raising revenue, bringing money into the treasury, taxation and tariffs. with the stock ■çmarket crashin in 1929 and the country entering the great depression reed smoot had the worst idea any chairman of the senate finance committee ever had. it was an idea that would end his career in the senate. the house ways and means committee had the same jurisdiction in the house that the finance committee has in the senate, taxation and tariffs. the chairman of the house ways and means committee, willis hawley, loved reed smoot's very bad idea. that idea also ended chairman hawley's career in the house of representatives. in 1930 with the country sinking deeper into an economic depression chairman smoot and chairman hawley dthe tariff act of 1930 through their committees and then they both got it passed in the house of representatives and in the senate. by the time it reached the president's desk for signature it had come to be known as the smoot-hawley tariff act. it raised tariffs astronomically higher than ever before on thousands of goods. it was exactly what donald trump is now proposing as a presidential candidate. economics was a much less complex field of scholarship in 1930 than it is today. the analytical tools available to economists were far fewer and very unsophisticated compared to today, but even ■ç then the smoot-hawley tariffs were something economists could agree on. over 1,000 economists signed a petition to president herbert hoover asking him to veto the smoot-hawley tariffs. america's most famous industrialist at the time, henry ford, knew it would be a disaster for business and the economy. he went to the white house to try to convince the republican president herbert hoover to veto the tariff bill written by republican senator reid smoot and republican congressman willis hawley and passed with overwhelming republican support in the house and the senate. henry ford called the smoot- hawley tariffs "an economic stupidity." j.p. mozg@n's chief executive said, "i almost went down on my knees to beg herbert hoover to veto the asinine smoot-hawley tariff." herbert hoover, successful businessman in his own right, thought he knew better and he signed the smoot-hawley tariffs into law and in the next election herbert hoover lost his reelection campaign for the presidency to the governor of new york, franklin deleanor roosevelt. in that same election in 1932 when voters were living with the disaster of reed smoot's bright idea and willis hawley's eager support of that idea, senator smoot and congressman hawley lost their reelection campaigns. there is universal agreement i rpt+háariffs made the great depression even worse. those tariffs did not protect american jobs. they killed american jobs. it meant that the portrait of willis hawley hanging in the offices of the house ways and means committee along with the portraits of all the other chairmen of that committee and the portrait of reed smoot hanging in the office of the senate finance committee with the other chairmen of that committee, it meant that those portraits hang forever in disgrace and infamy. smoot and hawley hurt america more than any other chairmen of the senate finance committee and the house ways and means committee ■çin history. they destroyed lives. people lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost their hope because of what senator smoot and congressman hawley did when they did not have any idea what they were doing just like donald trump. so when you hear economists now saying donald trump's idea about tariffs is even worse than smoot and hawley, you have to know something about smoot and hawley to really understand just how bad donald trump's idea is. henry ford would have to reach for a new rhetorical extreme to describe it because henry ford's phrase an economic stupidity would feel inadequate. last week donald trump said he wants to ■çeliminate the tax code, eliminate the personal income tax and corporate income tax and replace the income tax with nothing but tariffs. donald trump wants to eliminate the income tax, replace the revenue to the government with nothing but tariffs, the biggest tariffs in american history. cnbc reports donald trump on thursday brought up the idea of imposing an all tariff policy that would ultimately enable the u.s. to get rid of the income tax sources in a private meeting with the republican presidential candidate told cnbc. every trump supporter who attends trump's rallies believes donald trump's big lie when he says this. >> nobody ever ■çtook money out of china. i took hundreds of billions of dollars out in the form of tariffs and taxes. >> nope. he didn't take a penny from china. it's reasonable to assume most trump voters believe that china pays the tariffs imposed by donald trump because donald trump says china pays the tariffs, but in high school they should have learned and maybe before high school they should have learned tariffs are paid by the people in the country that imposes the tariffs. that's how tariffs work. you don't have to take advanced placement american history in high school to learn about tariffs, including the smoot- hawley tariffs. donald trump knows china does not pay the tariffs ■çthat he imposed. he knows that american consumers pay those tariffs. they function as sales taxes on american consumers. donald trump is consciously lying when he says that to his audience about china paying the tariffs. because american consumers pay the mx(:tz donald trump would inflict with this idea which harvard economist lawrence summers who was the first to raise concerns about possible inflation during the covid-19 pandemic says is the worst economic policy proposal in u.s. history, in u.s. history. larry summers knows economic u.s. history and that means that donald trump's idea is worse than smooth-hawley, much worse. >> replacing the income tax with revenue with tariff would be the worst ■çmacroeconomic policy proposal in u.s. history. it, of course, burdens the middle class and the poor who purchase goods that exist on international markets. so it's regressive as many economic commentators have suggested, but that is actually the least of it. think about it this way. the smoot-hawley tariffs which did enormous damage, some people would say made the depression great, were 0.6 of 1% of gdp. if you replaced half of income tax revenues, not all like he talked about, if you replaced half of ■çincome tax revenues with tariffs, those would be tariffs six times smoot-hawley levels. that's got the potential to do enormous damage to the competitiveness of every u.s. exporter, to do huge damage to all kinds of workers who use imported goods in what their businesses produce, to create a downward spiral as much higher prices for everything we import means consumers have less to spend on everything else, create worldwide economic warfare as the ■çrest of the world responds. this is a prescription for on the mother of all stagflations. >> stagflation is stagnant economic growth, no economic growth, combined with high inflation and high unemployment all at the same time. we have not seen stagflation in this country in the 21st century, but donald trump is now running to make stagflation great again. robert rush served as secretary of labor under president bill clinton, professor of public policy at uc berkeley and co- founder of inequality media. professor rush, thank you very much for joining us. i know you ■çhave much to say about trump economic policies, but i want to do a quick back of the envelope sketch here because i know for some people out there they're hearing what, get rid of the income tax? i'd be better off. let's say you're making $100,000, in the 22% income tax bracket. you'll have sales taxes on a lot of things that would be up, sales taxes through tariffs in effect, that could approach 20% or above. you could have interest rates on home mortgages that go way up into the double digits and all sorts of other ways in which you are economically much worse off under this sales tax tariff regime than under an income tax regime and, oh, by the way, when you lose your job because of all of this, your ■ç tax bracket actually goes to zero. >> lawrence, we have come to have such low expectations in terms of the coherence and rationality of donald trump that these kinds of proposals can very easily get under the radar. people say well, he's just mouthing off again. the fact of the matter is this is serious. he doesn't put forth many serious proposals. this one seems to be serious because he does say it in a way that makes you think well, the income tax, getting rid of the income tax, might be a pretty good idea until you actually think about the consequences. in order to have enough revenue from ■çtariffs to match what yo would lose by getting rid of the income tax, you would have to have a tariff that was at least in the range of 130 to 140%. this is way beyond smoot- hawley. this takes us onto another planet because with that kind of a tariff, that's like the largest sales tax you could conceive of. that would bring the economy to not only stagflation, but probably much worse. >> yeah. that $30,000 car you have your eye on becomes a $60,000 car and there's nothing about having your income tax reduced that makes that more affordable for you. professor rush, there's more. even before he got to ■çthis utter madness of let's just finance the government through tariffs, there's so much more about what he's been saying about economic policy that you have been taking apart in your way. take us through some of that. >> well, i mean he's talked about exerting control over the federal reserve board which would basically eliminate the credibility of the fed in terms of the fed setting interest rates. he's talked about rounding up 11 or 15 million people who are in the united states who are undocumented which would have drastic effects on our labor market, not in a positive way because we need those people if you look at what they do and "b$ow much revenue they actuall bring in. he is talking about reducing taxes on the highest income earners and we're talking about all sorts of taxes and what's the effect there? remember in his term of office as president, he told us that he would cut the taxes on the refuse and on big corporations and we would all, all of us, get a $4,000 bonus as it trickled down to everybody else. well, did you get a bonus? did anybody you know get a bonus? we could go on and on. this is the most ridiculous -- to call it a plan dignifies it. >> then there's the other elements which are economic elements, for example, just getting rid ■çof obamacare. that's an incredible economic hit. never mind the health conditions that could be affected by it, but the actual economic life of people who depend on obamacare who cannot possibly afford health insurance without it. >> the interesting thing, lawrence, is we are having a substantive discussion now talking about real people, real policies, real laws, real economics and donald trump doesn't live in this realm. he throws things out there and says yes, i'm going to get rid of the affordable care act, yes, i'm going to give the oil and gas industry free rein to do whatever they want to as long as they give me $1 billion to my campaign, i'm going to basically wreck the economy with the smoot-hawley ■çkind of the most egregious form of smoot-hawley on steroids you could imagine and people on are not putting this together. they're not seeing the disaster for what this actually is. i mean yes, all the things he said about the democracy about our democracy are bad enough, but taking a wrecking ball to our economy and really imposing extraordinary costs and hardship on so many working class, middle class, and poor people, well, it's hard to find the words, quite frankly. >> henry ford's word for it was an economic stupidity. professor robert rush, thank you very much for starting off our discussions. >> thanks. coming up, you might notice that this program is concentrating as much ■çon sena elections as the presidential election. we will be joined later by someone who knows more about the united states senate than i ever will. irish shapiro has worked in the senate and written about the senate for 50 years and will explain the importance once again of the senate no matter who is president. next we will be joined by te the democratic senate candidate in texas running against republican senator d cruz, congressman colin allred joining us next. gr s of protein. 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the senate judiciary committee. lauren miller is one of the 30 million texans who republican senator rafael edward cruz is supposed to represent. >> ■çsenator cruz, who is on th subcommittee, couldn't even be bothered to show up. he either simply was too much of a coward to face the situation that he had forced me into or he just didn't care. >> texas congressman colin allred who is running for senate against senator cruz met with lauren miller before that hearing and he heard what senator cruz did not want to hear. lauren miller traveled over 700 miles to colorado to get the life saving medical treatment that she was denied by the republican government of texas. there are several texas cities now trying to pass abortion travel bans that make it illegal to use local roads and highways to help a person access an ■;p!ortion outside of texas. congressman allred heard all of that today from the amarillo reproductive freedom alliance. the group successfully defeated a petition in the city of amarillo that would have adopted an abortion travel ban there. here's what congressman allred had to say. >> we don't have to be embarrassed by our senator. we can get a new one. that's what this is all about. that's what this is all about. it's about the women in the panhandle standing up to billionaires who want to ban travel on local roads to access an abortion. they're winning, by the way, and it's about the mother of two who has a much wanted and much prayed for third ■çpregnan and gets the news we hope we all won't get. the pregnancy's not viable. the baby's not going to make it and she has to make one of the most heartbreaking decisions any person will ever be faced with and because of extremists like ted cruz she can't get the care she needs close to home. so she has to flee our state under threat of criminal prosecution. that's not my texas. in my texas we believe in freedom. we believe in the freedom to make your own healthcare decisions, including access to an abortion. >> joining us now, democratic congressman from texas, colin allred, a democratic nominee running for the united states senate in texas against senator cruz. thank you very much for joining us tonight. you are part of our campaign here to convince viewers and voters to understcn importance of the senate in our election no matter who wins the presidency. it's incredibly important either way. what we're also seeing here is that for the people of texas, ted cruz does not seem to believe that he represents all of them. he certainly doesn't represent women who come to testify to him about the struggles he has imposed on them. >> that's right. thank you for having me on. happy juneteenth. it was a texas holiday. now it's a federal holiday. listen, lauren miller is an eighth generation texan and she lives in my district not far from where i'm sitting now. she came to the senate to tell her story. just like what amanda zurowski who we talked about a few months back, ted cruz is on that committee, çrefused to hea her out, wouldn't even show her the basic respect of just sitting in the seat and hearing her tell her story because as you said, i don't think ted cruz does see himself as representing all 30 million of us as texans and he certainly does not want to take responsibility for the fact his extreme policies, this is the endpoint of it. this is what it looks like when you pass an extreme abortion ban and you also have municipalities trying to say folks can't travel through that municipality. this is what it looks like. it's a mother who gets the news we all hope we don't get when she's hoping to welcome twins, that one of those babies is not going to make it and it's killing her and the other one. instead of getting a 15 minute procedure close to home, she has to go to colorado, an eighth generation texan. that's not who we are as texans and that's why on0çnovember 5th we're going to get rid of ted cruz. >> the last travel ban in this country was on the