Trump vs. the U.S. Economy | The Ezra Klein Show

What is going on with the economy right now?

There are a lot of mixed signals. President Trump slashed taxes, but he’s also bringing in a lot of money through tariffs. Inflation is creeping up, but the stock market keeps rising. Eye-wateringly large investments are flowing to A.I., which could lead to an explosion of productivity but also mass job loss. And then Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a disappointing jobs report, raising concerns that the government’s data on the economy might get shakier.

Natasha Sarin is the president and a founder of the Budget Lab at Yale. She has been tracking these trends and modeling the potential economic effects of many of Trump’s policies. I invited her on the show to walk through what she is thinking about the economy.

0:00 Intro
2:17 The state of the economy after Trump's trade war
26:29 What about A.I.?
43:00 Jobs report / Bureau of Labor Statistics shake-up
1:04:35 Stagflation?
1:09:44 Potential tariff revenue
1:22:16 Book Recommendations

Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-natasha-sarin.html

Watch more on @EzraKleinShow

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html