MSNBC panelists describe how Project 2025 intends to raise middle-class taxes in a second Trump administration
MSNBC analyst: “Donald Trump is coming for the people who are already struggling in this country ... to give the wealthiest of the wealthiest a tax cut”
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From the July 23, 2024, edition of MSNBC's The 11th Hour
STEPHANIE RUHLE (HOST): We've been talking about Project 2025 on this show for months, but tonight we need to discuss what it means for your taxes. The far-right plan calls for a two-tier tax system, 15% for low earners and 30% for higher ones. The cutoff is around $168,000 a year. Well, an analysis from Morning Joe contributor and former treasury official Steve Rattner shows that it would actually be a tax hike for the lower and middle classes and gives the rich, guess what, a big tax cut, tens of thousands of dollars a year.
Back with us to discuss this and more, Juanita Tolliver, MSNBC political analyst and host of the What A Day podcast. And Stuart Stevens is here, a veteran of the Mitt Romney and George W. Bush presidential campaigns. He's now with the Lincoln Project. Juanita, we've talked a lot about the threat from Project 2025 on things like democracy, women's health, LGBTQ rights. Do voters understand what it could mean for their wallets?
JUANITA TOLLIVER: I mean, if you keep showing the graphs like that and explaining it plainly, they will. Because, what that shows is Donald Trump is coming for the people who are already struggling in this country, at the — to create the opportunity to give the wealthiest of the wealthiest a tax cut. Steph, this is his M.O. He did this in 2017 with his tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and corporations because that's who he cares about. He does not care about anyone else in this process.
And, I appreciate also how that graph shows a difference in what the Biden-Harris administration has tried to do for people who are struggling, for people who are living with low incomes — whether that's the extended Child Tax Credit that we saw lift millions of children out of poverty, or their efforts related to student loan debt where they're relieving debt for millions of borrowers across the country.
And so it seems like a two-pronged effort for Donald Trump to implement harmful Project 2025 policies with the intent of being petty in trying to undo all of the good work of the Biden-Harris administration.
RUHLE: Stuart, Juanita did it perfectly. How do Democrats, how does this campaign need to explain Project 2025 to voters so it really lands?
STUART STEVENS: Well, I mean, I think there's different areas. If you wanna talk about the economic one, it's really pretty simple. He wants to cut taxes on billionaires. He wants to raise your taxes to make up the difference. That's not a very complicated, analysis. I think people grasp that.
People are never really willing to believe that someone will cut their taxes. They are always much more willing to believe their taxes will go up. And we saw this in all these Republican campaigns I did. We made all these ads about tax cuts. They never really worked that well. But the idea that you would stop taxes from going up was something that people would vote for.
You have these cuts in Medicaid. This stuff is tremendously popular in America. There's a reason that Donald Trump doesn't want to talk about Project 2025 — because if you test that stuff, it tests about 20-80 to the bad. And if you test what the 100 Day agenda was that [President Joe Biden] laid out in Michigan and now will become [Vice President Kamala Harris'] agenda, that's about 80-20 to the good.
So, I mean, it's not very complicated. You take the 80-20 and run it against the 20-80, and I think you're gonna have a good day.