brendan greely back with me to discuss. gary cohn also said that trade deficits don t matter. that a global economy and global trade is good for us. so help me with these two things. the president, sarah sanders, they re saying the economy is the greatest ever. if it s the greatest ever, then interest rates should rise. the only reason they ve been held so low for so long is because we were coming out of a financial collapse. not only that, on tough what you re saying, the fed said we still think it s accommodative. we think we re helping the economy. it s not just that we re rising as fast as we should. why is it that we need this if this is greatest, strongest? the same thing has been happening. the fed has been studying what unemployment really means. it turns out it s not just the top-line unemployment rate, right? what people want is to have full-time jobs when they only have part-time jobs.
and producers and workers of america. all right, joining our panel now, matt welch, editor at large at reason magazine. i want to start with a sound bite from wilbur ross this morning on meet the press and then we ll talk. i think what he s talking about is we have a big trade deficit with the rest of the world. our cumulative deficit equals the cumulative surplus of the rest of the world. they, therefore, have much more at risk in a trade war than we do. that s what i believe he was meaning to say. all right, i m going to start with you on this. give me your reaction to wilbur ross. that s what i believe he was meaning to say. this is how we talk about trump now. my reaction is, this is a remarkable transformation that the republican party has gone through. they used to be the party that said trade deficits don t matter, but government deficits do matter. they have no switch. we re going to get a trillion