Transcript of Governor Lamont Responds to Trump’s Attack on Economy

As Americans are paying more than ever for energy in their home, as Americans are paying more than ever for groceries, as Americans across the country were promised by Donald Trump that things would be made more affordable, they're less affordable, people living paycheck to Paycheck. Donald Trump, though, is continuing his right-wing media tour saying that we have no inflation. It's gone, he said. He did it. We're in a golden age. Prices are down, he says, on every single thing and way down on energy, he says. Not matching reality, but that seems to be a theme with Donald Trump. Here, play this clip.

We have no inflation. Prices are down on just about everything. Prices are way down on energy, but prices are down for people.

And then he doesn't miss a beat to attack drivers in the economy and things that actually help. Like, he attacks wind energy, he attacks solar energy, he attacks the The jobs that are being created by wind and solar, not to mention the fact that it reduces the energy prices, especially now as we have AI and all of the crypto mining and all that. That is using a ton of energy. And we He needs these energy sources now. But he doesn't miss a beat. He'll turn any topic that he's speaking about as a way to attack wind. And just so you all remember, one of the reasons he hates wind, the reason, is that when he was building his golf course in Aberdeen Scotland, they had wind energy, and he hated the way it looked. So he's brought that into everything here in the United States as the rest of the world is like, All right, well, if the US is going to fall back and not be a leader in wind and solar, China is going to be, and other countries are going to be. Here's what he says when he was talking outside of the White House recently.

Let's play it.

Back into the grid. So all of these big factories that are being built are building their own electric plants fired by oil and gas. They're not fired by wind, by the way, because wind doesn't work, but we won't say that. It destroys everything. It looks terrible. It's a very expensive form of energy. And we're not doing the wind. We're going back to fossil fuel. I hope not too many of you people are going to be upset, but We have to go back to what works. We can't be foolish.

While actually being foolish right there. And then you have the US Department of Energy posting things like this, Wind and solar energy infrastructure is essentially Is it really worthless when it's dark outside and the wind is not blowing, there had to be a community note that batteries, something called Batteries, Donald, allow electricity to be stored and used at different times than when it is generated. And again, this is causing tons of jobs to be lost. As CNN recently reported, Canceled Wind Project puts thousands of jobs at risk across the country. I want to bring in a very pragmatic Eric, common sense governor, Governor Ned LeMont of Connecticut. And governor, you're an actual dealmaker, unlike Trump. You're someone who tries to not approach these things through partisan goggles, But just this is helpful. This creates jobs. This doesn't create jobs. How do you respond when you have the Department of Energy not knowing the way batteries work?

Ben, nice to see you. Look, we have something called Revolution Wind. It's an 80 % complete. It's going to power probably 300, 400,000 homes this time next year. It will dramatically bring down pricing because it reduces those peak pricing times during very hot days in August. A very cold days in January. It represented hundreds of jobs. We were almost done. At the very last moment, week ago, Friday, Donald Trump pulled the plug on it. Happy Labor Day. Five hundred of you are laid off. Absolutely the opposite of they had assured us up until then.

What do you do in the face of that that's arbitrary, capricious, and frankly, malicious? You can't speak logically to them and say what you just said to me. So what do you do and what do the people think right now in Connecticut and elsewhere on the East Coast?

So here's what you do. You respond multifaceted. I've got the attorney generals of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Orsted, who's the wind developer. They've all brought soup. This is a breach of contract way outside the norms. I'm trying to continue to have conversations with the Secretary of Interior, Secretary of Energy, saying this is the opposite of everything you would have shared us. Let's get this back on track. Maybe you don't want to do any going forward, but you don't pull the plug in mid contract. I've got business leaders, including folks in the nuclear industry and the pipeline industry, saying, I'm not sure the federal government's a good counterparty. I don't know if I can trust them to make an agreement going forward because you can't have a contract and break it. A deal is a deal. I know Trump wrote The Art of the Deal. He also should have had a chapter called A Deal is a deal.

You have this in all sectors, right? I mean, this is energy. We could spend a lot more time talking about how Donald Trump's personal views about wind, and he doesn't like wind, and he always goes, Wind, that's not like a logical conversation, but they bring that into other areas. I mean, the health care they bring it into with all of the anti-vax conspiracies. I'm not sure if you caught RFK Junior's speaking before the Senate. It was one of the most horrifying things I've seen. I would say the more horrifying thing is that they fired all the people at the CDC and on the vaccine advisory panels, and they're getting rid of all of the experts, and they're replacing it with quacks who are like, the vaccine for polio and measles and mums, that's like slavery. I'm like, What? What are you talking about?

Look, we just got our way through COVID, better than almost any other state because we had so many of our people were vaccinated against the COVID. And now this misinformation coming out of CDC, coming out of Health and Human Services. Right at the time, our kids are going back to school, making sure they have the proper vaccination so they keep themselves safe, their neighbors safe, the teachers safe. This misinformation and this confusion is hell. So I get together with New York and the Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Our public health departments get together. We'll speak with one voice. We'll say these vaccinations are safe and effective, and it's really important to keep your kid in school safely, make sure they get the necessary vaccinations.

When you and I last spoke, it was right around the time Trump announced the Tariffs Against the World. It was right around what he called Liberation Day, and I was calling it Liquidation Day. And so now we are several months later. We're into September from when it was first announced in April. He delayed certain tariffs, pulled them back, pulled them forward, pulled them back. Truthfully, there's so much confusion right now that I think a lot of people are still unclear what all of the terms are or what deals exist or don't exist. I mean, there's no actual agreement with signatures with any country at all, which is typically what a deal is, especially of something of any bit of magnitude. You have a signed deal. They don't do those things. But how is it impacting Connecticut? What are you seeing? What are you hearing from the business community?

First of all, this confusion just stops the economy, and nobody's going to build a factory based upon a tariff proposition that could change again tomorrow. That's the problem with this administration. They're jerky jerky. They stop and start. That's a good way to hit pause or add 15% contingency to everything you do because you don't know what tomorrow will bring. Look, tariffs are slowly bringing up prices. We have a great company here in Connecticut called Stanley Black & Decker. They make a tools. They've eaten about $800 million in tariff costs over the first half of this year. They can't do it the second half of the year. You're going to see things reflected in pricing. I think you'll see that across the economy. It's very It's just beginning to creep in now.

I mean, as a business leader, which is your background before being a governor, I mean, just the very concept, though, that there are not signed deals. I mean, to me, it's like a crazy concept. And then they have these oral understandings with the few countries that are never in line with what the country actually says. And it's just sometimes talked about this is normal behavior that, oh, this is what a trade deal looks like. I'm like, these are not trade deals. He's talking about some top-line tariff number in exchange for which country is going to make up the biggest fake number promise. Like, I'm going to invest 700 billion. I'm going to invest 600. But it's not actually binding. If anything, they're high interest loans that are And then Trump pretends that he's investing 17 trillion dollars into the... He goes out and says, I'm currently investing 17 trillion. And then our business media, they don't act like this is crazy. And I'm like, This is crazy. He's making up a number 17 trillion dollars. It would be great if he had $17 trillion dollars invested in our company. He's making up the numbers. What do you think?

Ben, you know what's even worse? Let's say he had a signed agreement. I I don't think it'd be worth the paper it was written on. Nobody trusts it. You don't have a credible counterparty there. You're right, all these terrorist things, there's a lot of hot air, there are a lot of promises, nothing's in writing. Our wing deal, that was in writing. That was done under the first Trump administration, right through the Biden administration, went through all the necessary permitting, went through all the necessary licensing, signed, sealed, and delivered. Then they pulled the plug at the last moment right on the 10-yard line. It's just shocking. You got to somebody you can trust in order to do business. The Trump administration is losing the trust of the business community.

Let's talk about just going forward in Connecticut. What other issues are you hearing from people that may not be being talked about enough on the media? I'm often told some of the most important issues are those issues that are not being discussed out there. When you're out of town, when you're at the diner, when you're shaking hands, what are people frequently... In addition to what we've talked about, is there any other issue you're hearing frequently on people's minds?

Yeah, you had the big beautiful bill or the big bankruptcy bill. Call it what you will. Nobody knows what the federal budget is going to be. They passed this bill. Now it's going through an appropriation process. We could have a shutdown of the federal government on October 1. I'm a governor. I put together a budget. It has to be a balanced budget, by the way. We're in balance except for the fact we have no idea what the federal government is going to do, and they have no idea how to balance the budget. Budget. So I hear that a lot. What's it going to mean in terms of my Medicaid? What's that going to mean in terms of my food support that I maybe need? What's that going to mean in terms of housing? What's that going to mean in terms of energy, like wind power we've talked about? All that ambiguity and confusion out there, Kasa, Paul, gives you a sense of fear and pause.

Before we go, any final message you want to get out to the 6 million Midas-Midi subscribers out there, governor?

Hey, Keep speaking out and talk to your friends in red states, not just in blue states. There's a lot of folks that I talk to, governors on both sides of the aisle, senators on both sides of the aisle. The red state guys are terrified to speak publicly, but if you talk to them, let them know how important this is. Maybe don't get in the Trump every day, but say, Medicaid is going to squash your rural hospitals in Arkansas even more than it happens in Connecticut. Maybe we can start moving the ball just a little bit. It's scary out there right now.

Governor Ned Lamont, governor of Connecticut. Thanks so much for joining us.

Nice to see you, Ben.

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