Medved: It should be a ‘You pick, I pick, we all pick’ economy

Conservative Michael Medved predicts a solid victory for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in November. He told “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio that Donald Trump’s economic plan is anti-capitalist and that the U.S. needs a “You pick, I pick, we all pick” economy.

Trump said this week that “tariff was a beautiful word.” He said, “everybody likes it.”

Medved disagreed.

“A tariff is, in effect, an added sales tax,” he explained. “It’s going to make everything more expensive. We’re in a situation where we have just made real progress on inflation and, and here you’re doing the most inflationary thing you can, which is to not only threaten tariffs, but to threaten them in a punitive way, which is a huge expansion of government power. Conservatives do not believe the government should pick winners and losers in the economy. That’s what’s the great thing about a capitalist economy, you pick, I pick, we all pick by what we choose to purchase.”

Road closures: WSDOT shutting down 4 freeways this weekend

Despite this, recent polls show voters believe Trump has an advantage in handling the economy.

“Donald Trump presents the idea (of tariffs) that John Deere is building a new factory in Mexico to try to punish them for that is,” Medved said. “That’s the kind of intrusion in the economy that any real Reaganite conservative, anyone who believes in limited government and doesn’t want government making all the key decisions about our lives, has to oppose.”

Medved believes it’s impossible to pay attention to what Trump has been saying and doing in the last two weeks and not to see that he is somebody who is deteriorating.

“People tend to think that Trump would do a better job handling the economy and immigration, but they agree more with Kamala Harris in terms of character issues,” Medved said.

The link to the stink: What’s up with the odor in SW Washington?

He was asked what Harris needs to do to solidify a victory.

“Do more interviews, more local interviews, more interviews across the board,” Medved said. “She should go on FOX. She should go everywhere, and in those interviews, she should develop the ability to give crisp, direct answers. She has a problem with some of her answers, which are never dumb, but they’re often sort of wandering around and sort of like a bee buzzing around before it finally lands on a flower. She has to cut down some of that buzz, some of what people call word salad.”

The next big scheduled campaign event that could have an impact on the outcome of the race is the vice presidential debate. It will be Tim Walz (D) vs. JD Vance (R).

“Interesting about JD Vance, which I think strikes people as reminiscent of Ted Cruz,” Medved said. “There are a lot of people who have said it. Ted Cruz has just something about him. You want to punch him. You don’t like him. He seems slimy and inauthentic. And by the way, he’s having a very tough race in Texas right now for reelection.”

Medved predicts character issues will, in the end, bolster a Harris win.

“I think that things are leaning not toward a landslide, but toward more than a just a whisker victory for vice president Harris,” he said.

He also believes that Deomcrat Bob Ferguson will beat Republican Dave Reichert in November’s gubernatorial race.

Listen to Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin weekday mornings from 9 a.m.- noon on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here.