"'You’d think it would take like a grand plan and some big brains to figure out how to destroy the economy of the richest nation on Earth, but that's not how it's working out,' the primetime host told viewers during her show’s opening monologue. 'Turns out, it doesn't take a big idea or a lot of big brains working together.'
"Maddow noted that Trump tasked son-in-law Jared Kushner with finding him an economic adviser, a search that led Kushner to Amazon, where he landed on one of Navarro’s books. That’s when Maddow noted that Trump tasked son-in-law Jared Kushner with finding him an economic adviser, a search that led Kushner to Amazon, where he landed on one of Navarro’s books. That’s when things took a turn for Maddow, who said Friday that Navarro wasn’t the only figure who helped craft Trump’s tariff policy.
“'The problem is, Ron Vara doesn't exist, he never has,' Maddow said. 'The economics expert that Peter Navarro has long cited to explain why he's so gung-ho on tariffs, this person, Ron Vara, is a made-up person. He is a fictional person. Peter Navarro invented Ron Vara as his expert source, so he could quote this expert source over and over and over again in his crackpot books.'”
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“In all of his books, Peter Navarro has cited an economics expert to justify his views, and the economics expert he cites is somebody named Ron Vara, who, Maddow added, sent out a memo around Washington at the start of Trump’s first administration touting the benefits of a tariff policy.
“'The problem is, Ron Vara doesn't exist, he never has,' Maddow said. 'The economics expert that Peter Navarro has long cited to explain why he's so gung-ho on tariffs, this person, Ron Vara, is a made-up person. He is a fictional person. Peter Navarro invented Ron Vara as his expert source, so he could quote this expert source over and over and over again in his crackpot books.'”
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