Peter Navarro is the uncharismatic star of the new Liar Liar remake.

Trump’s Economist Accidentally Praises “Downward Pressure on Wages”

Isn’t it the worst when you get paid to be a big liar and then you tell the truth by mistake?

President Trump’s economics adviser, Peter Navarro, made a huge mistake in a recent appearance on CNBC—he accidentally spoke the truth. You might not recognize Navarro’s name, but he’s a big deal in the Trump Administration—he’s the guy who’s encouraging our president’s self-destructive trade war against China.

As far as I could tell, Navarro was on CNBC this week to do what every Trump flack has to do from time to time: hyperbolically suck up to the president on national TV. Navarro whined that poor, beleaguered Trump wasn’t getting the love and affection that he deserves for making the economy so big and strong.

Navarro’s full performance is an astounding thing to see. He backed up President Trump’s unhinged take on Amazon and the United States Postal Service, he furthered his own reckless take on China and trade, and he generally acquitted himself with all the dignity you’d expect of a close aide to Donald Trump.

And then Navarro went and ruined it: he accidentally said something true. Here’s the video:

…and here’s the transcript:

I don’t see any inflation to speak of in the economy and a lot of the reason is things like the president’s tax cuts, which are gonna stimulate a lot of investment, productivity growth, downward pressure on wages.

To his credit, Navarro successfully jogged two-thirds of the way through this lie before he tripped over his own smug self-regard. President Trump’s tax cuts haven’t actually created investment or productivity. In fact, as CNN reported, American workers have only seen $6 billion in windfall from the buybacks, while $171 billion has gone to shareholders and the top one percent in the form of stock buybacks. That’s not money you or I will see again in the form of new small businesses and better jobs; that’s money that will languish in offshore accounts and in second or third vacation homes in remote locations.

But once he got two blatant lies out of his mouth, Navarro couldn’t keep up the pretense. He admitted the truth: the tax cuts “stimulate…downward pressure on wages.” In other words: rich people and corporations are getting theirs, while everyone else gets screwed.

It’s honestly a little shocking that for one second in a long, bullshitty segment, Navarro’s honesty shined through. If you want an economy that prizes investment and productivity, you don’t keep wages low: you raise wages. If ordinary Americans have more money to spend, the whole economy—from top to bottom—would grow. Trickle-downers like Navarro understand that tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation doesn’t achieve that kind of growth, so that’s why they lie. And like most bad liars, Navarro eventually screwed up and let the truth slip up.

Remember, too, that Navarro went on TV to convince America that the American economy is doing fine. The truth is, you can tell that something’s wrong. You can see the huge IPOs and the giant profit margins announced on quarterly stock calls, and you can tell just from glancing at your bank account that that money hasn’t trickled down to you. And you haven’t seen any of that money because of the downward pressure that trickle-downers like Trump have put on your wages. At least Navarro admitted it—at least for a second, he was honest about their goals.