FBN, MORNINGS WITH MARIA INTERVIEW SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA)

TRANSCRIPTApril 03, 2025NEWS PROGRAMSEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA)FBN, MORNINGS WITH MARIA INTERVIEW SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA)VIQ Media Transcription, Inc.20 East Thomas Road, Suite 2200Phoenix, AZ [email protected] 2025. Provided under license from VIQ Media Transcription, Inc.All materials herein are protected by United States copyright lawand/or license from VIQ Media Transcription, Inc., and may not bereproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published orbroadcast without the prior written permission ofVIQ Media Transcription, Inc.You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or othernotice from copies of the content.FBN, MORNINGS WITH MARIA INTERVIEW SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA)APRIL 3, 2025SPEAKERS:SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA)MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN ANCHOR MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK ANCHOR: Joining me now with reaction is former Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey. Senator, it's great to see you this morning. Welcome back to the program. SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA): Thanks for having me, Maria. BARTIROMO: So do you agree with all of that? What is your reaction to what has taken place with that resolution in the Senate? TOOMEY: I wish it were a unanimous vote. I mean, the Republican value has long been for low taxes and a market economy. What President Trump has proposed is actually, if it's carried out, will be probably the largest tax increase on American consumers in the history of the country. And there's no good reason to be putting taxes on products coming from Canada. So I strongly disagree with this trade war that has been launched, and I'm hoping Congress will start to put up some resistance. BARTIROMO: Well, of course, Canada and Mexico are exempt from the retaliatory tariffs, but they already faced a 25 percent tariff due to the fentanyl trade. TOOMEY: Yes. BARTIROMO: What do you want to say to the president, who says the U.S. has been getting ripped off — TOOMEY: Yeah. BARTIROMO: — and that there are, you know, hundreds of percent plus tariffs coming from some of our friends and foe alike. TOOMEY: There's a lot to say. So first of all, on a trade weighted basis, if you look at the volume of transactions that actually — actually take place, the U.S. has about the same level of tariffs as the European Union. We have trade surplus with the UK and Australia. The President is chosen — choosing, choosing to put tariffs on them anyway. And for all this discussion about how badly we've been abused and ripped off and how terrible it's been, well, we're the world's biggest economy with 4 percent of the world's population, we have 25 percent of the world's economic output. We are the biggest agricultural exporter in the world. We — our manufacturing, domestic manufacturing is at an all-time high. We're doing it with fewer workers, mostly because automation has allowed us to do it much more productively. But I think taxing American consumers when they buy imports is — is going to do much more harm than good. BARTIROMO: And of course, Wall Street agrees with you. We're seeing a sell-off in stocks today, and have been seeing an uneasy market from the beginning of the year on this. Do you believe that the other parts of the agenda offset this? I mean, you're talking about tax cuts to come — TOOMEY: Yeah. BARTIROMO: — as well as deregulation, Senator. TOOMEY: So that's my hope. I certainly hope so, Maria. BARTIROMO: OK. TOOMEY: The deregulation is very, very good for the economy. Expanding energy production is terrific for the economy. It's very important that Congress extend, I would prefer them to make permanent the 2017 tax reform — BARTIROMO: ThataEURO(TM)s right. TOOMEY: — that was very, very pro-growth. All of those things are necessary. They're more necessary now than they were before, because of the headwinds we'll find from the tariffs. BARTIROMO: Really, really important comments that you make, we'll be watching that. I want to get your take on debanking, another issue that you've been thinking about. TOOMEY: Yeah. BARTIROMO: I've spoken with both Melania Trump, our First Lady, and Eric Trump, President's son, who both have told me they faced debanking. Why? Because of their politics. Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF UNITED STATES: When we left the White House, when I established my own business, as you said, the bank suddenly informed me they will not be able to do business with me anymore. They didn't want to do business with me because of political affiliation, my political beliefs. ERIC TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S SON: I never thought I'd fall into the world of crypto, until every bank started canceling us for absolutely no reason whatsoever. BARTIROMO: Which banks canceled you? What happened? E. TRUMP: Oh God, everybody. Capital One being the largest. I've sued them recently. BARTIROMO: Capital One and I know — E. TRUMP: Chase canceled us. It was legal lawfare. It was political lawfare. Bank of America did the same thing. TD did the same thing. First Republic did the same thing to us. The weaponization is real, and it has to stop. You can't have banks pick who and shoot. We were targeted, and we're going to hold those banks accountable. But it's what made me find crypto, and it's what made me find it so alluring. There's nothing that crypto can't do better. (END VIDEO CLIP) BARTIROMO: I just want to point out that JPMorgan, as well as Bank of America as well as Capital One Financials say that they do not debank anybody on political reasons. And Pat you write for Fox news.com. You write this, the real debanking problem has been the excessive powers concentrated among unaccountable bureaucrats. So you don't believe that there's debanking underway. Tell us how you see it. TOOMEY: No, no, no, no, I think there absolutely is debanking. It has been very real. It's a very serious problem. I don't think the banks (inaudible) would rather not do business with more customers. Banks know they need more customers, not fewer customers. The problem driving this is really two categories. One is excessively broad, vague regulations that put the banks in an untenable position, sometimes really forcing them to debank people, and often forbidding the banks from even explaining why. But then there's another whole category, which is really active malfeasance by regulators. I'm thinking of under President Obama, Operation Choke Point, where they intentionally instructed banking regulators to make sure that banks were not lending money and were not participating in financing of disfavored industries. Certain gun makers, for instance, or small dollar lenders. And then, under President Biden, we had Operation Choke Point 2.0 where the regulators got together and decided that they without any congressional authority, they would choose not to provide banking services for the crypto space. That's outrageous. That's a complete abuse of power, and that's what was driving the debanking. Now fortunately, we have administrators. This administration has appointed, people throughout the financial regulatory regime that understand that that's an outrageous abuse of power. They're not doing it, but Congress needs to pass legislation to make sure that the next liberal administration doesn't try it again. To their credit, Senate Republicans have passed a bill in committee that would really curtail the regulators discretion to kind of impose this kind of these, these kind of mandates. That would be the kind of progress that we need. We shouldn't make the mistake of going overboard on this and imposing mandates on banks that they must be forced to do business with everybody and every company. That's not the government's role, and that would lead to bad outcomes. BARTIROMO: I think this is such an important point that you make, and it's a question that I asked Eric Trump yesterday. Were these banks being directed by the Biden administration to actually, just like they were directing social media to cancel people online during COVID and nobody wants to see politics in banking. TOOMEY: Exactly right. And I think banks would be quite happy to say it must be forbidden to discriminate against people based on their political affiliation. Banks don't want to do that. BARTIROMO: Of course. TOOMEY: They want to turn away half of America. BARTIROMO: Right. Pat Toomey, great to talk with you this morning. Thanks so much. TOOMEY: Great to be with you, Maria. Thank you. END