‘This is Socialism!’ Conservative Radio Host Slams Trump Admin For Wanting Stake In Private Company
Veteran conservative radio host Erick Erickson pulled no punches on Wednesday in hammering the Trump administration, particularly Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, for suggesting the government take a large share of chip maker Intel.
Erickson explained Lutnick’s policy and added, “Well, there you have it. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary. He’s the genius behind the aggressive tariffs, also now appears to be the genius behind the socialism that he wants the Trump administration to embrace.”
Erickson, who has been a critic of Trump’s less conservative actions, went on to compare Lutnick to the Democratic Socialist candidate for mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani.
“The commerce secretary said Tuesday Intel must give the United States government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds. “We should get an equity stake for our money. So we’ll deliver the money, which was already committed under the Biden administration, we’ll get equity in return for it.” I’m sorry, but no, this is terrible. This is socialism!” Erickson fumed, adding:
The U.S. government would become the largest shareholder of Intel. This is actual socialism happening by a Republican administration. There’s no national security justification for this. In fact, I had some anonymous account on Twitter say, “Yeah, there is a national security justification for having control of Intel.” Really? We don’t have control of Raytheon. We don’t have government control of Nvidia. We don’t have government control of Apple. We don’t have government control of Boeing. We don’t have government control of Lockheed Martin. We don’t have government control of any major weapons developer or defense contractor.
But you want ten percent control of Intel in exchange for money the government already promised to give them? That’s socialism. You may be comfortable with socialism. You may decide you like socialism because someone from the Trump administration wants socialism, but my God, people, what have we been fighting for for the last decade?
You want smaller government? This expands it. You want the government not to go woke? Well, what happens when the Democrats get in charge and they become the largest shareholder of Intel? Good luck stopping that from happening. You know there’s no such thing as permanence in politics in the United States of America. You’re not gonna stop a Democrat from one day winning reelection or getting into the White House.
Having the government take control of a private corporation in exchange for government funding—first of all, they shouldn’t even get government funding. You should let Intel fall flat on its face for having a bad business decision and let the creative destruction of the marketplace pick them apart. Let other companies buy up their pieces or let them regroup.
A government bailout—you know what this does is it causes a distortion in the marketplace, something called the moral hazard, where more and more companies realize they can take extraordinary risks and fall flat—irresponsible risks, not extraordinary risks, irresponsible risks—and the government will just say, “Well, give me ten percent of your company and I’ll make you right.” This is a horrible precedent. This is socialism. All of you people were freaked out about Mamdani in New York City wanting government-run grocery stores and saying the people need to seize the means of production.
That’s what Howard Lutnick is doing right now, saying that the government must seize the controlling interest in Intel—the means of production—in order to get government money. You can’t just be against socialism when the left does it. If you’re not against socialism overall, guess what? You’re going to get socialism. So if you support socialism, apparently Donald Trump is your guy.
He’s now becoming a socialist administration if Howard Lutnick gets his way. Howard Lutnick wanted the tariffs on everybody. Howard Lutnick wants socialism. Howard Lutnick wants the government to interfere in the private sector economy.
Watch the full clip above.
