Mitch McConnell Suggests Trump Could Drive America Into Second Great Depression

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell warned in a recent interview that there are far too many similarities between America today and America in the 1930’s. McConnell’s concerns are about both economics and global stability, as he believes that the isolationist, “America-first” policies of the Trump administration are allowing our enemies to grow stronger. But it was the economic policies that really worried him, as he brought up what Republicans did with tariffs to stop the Great Depression but ended up making it so much worse. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

In an interview published last week in the uh uh Lexington Herald Leader in the state of Kentucky, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell talked about the really not good similarities between America today and America in the 1930s.

you know, when we were in the Great Depression and of course the leadup to World War II, basically one of the worst periods of history here in the United States. Um, in the last hundred years, I would say probably the worst period of United States history in the last hundred years. Yeah, we still had segregation at the time. Basically, everything in the country was horrible in the 1930s. And Mitch McConnell, who looks like he probably lived through the 30s, says, "We're kind of repeating everything we did, both regarding foreign policy and of course with Donald Trump's tariffs. But first, let's start with the foreign policy aspect of it." Here is what McConnell said about that. He said, quote, "Those who were totally anxious to stay out of all of what was going on in Europe were called America first." Sound familiar? So, what do we have today? North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, and Iran's proxies. They're very different kinds of countries, but they have one thing in common. They hate us. So, when you talk about preparedness, we're not prepared like we should be. Now, okay. I I I think the whole like they hate us thing is overblown. Like Russia hates everybody, we get that. That's definitely accurate. Uh to say that China hates us, I think that's a bit overblown. Um Iran and their proxies hate us. Yes, certain Middle Eastern countries do hate us. and with cause. By the way, I I I don't know if Mitch McConnell's familiar with what the United States have been doing over the Middle East for the last 50 years, but if they hate us, um, kind of understandable considering what we've done to all of them. But just because they may not like us does not mean they pose a threat to us. We could repair that image. We just choose not to because we're a stupid country. But saying these people hate us, you know, that's a bit extreme. But we do in fact have, you know, this new axis power emerging. The day this interview was published was, you know, the day of the start of that summit over in China where China hosted in 19 other countries including uh North Korea uh uh uh Russia. They all attended and they discussed becoming this new powerful block both economically and even though it wasn't necessarily reported this way were assuming militarily kind of like we had in the 30s. But it wasn't just on the issue of foreign policy. We also, as McConnell pointed out, have the issue of tariffs. In the 1930s, and McConnell brought this up in his uh interview, Republicans in the Republican controlled Congress passed the Smoot Holly Tariff Act because they thought, "Okay, we're in a depression. It's it's pretty great." So, I mean, great as in scale, not great as in awesomeness. So they said, "Let's put tariffs on the goods coming into America and that'll make up some shortfalls and it'll drag the economy out of this depression." It did the exact opposite. It sent us deeper into the uh depression and of course helped the depression spread globally. So this one act by again Republicans in Congress basically destroyed the global economy. And McConnell's like, you kind of you kind of see that that's happening right now, too. Gee, it's almost like Mitch McConnell is telling us that Republicans can't be trusted on economic issues. And for at least a hundred years, Republicans have not been trustworthy on economic issues.