Rep. Simpson talks tariffs, Ukraine, DOGE and Trump’s second term so far

IDAHO FALLS — When President Donald Trump took office two months ago, it set off a whirlwind of activity in Washington, D.C., and we asked U.S. Congressman Mike Simpson, a Republican serving Idaho’s 2nd District, about tariffs, inflation, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and a variety of other issues.

Here is a lightly edited transcript of his 15-minute interview with reporter Nate Eaton. Watch the entire conversation in the video player above.

Click here for our recent interview with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

Nate Eaton: How would you say the first two months of the Trump administration are going?

Rep. Mike Simpson: They have been both exciting and sometimes worrisome. But I tell people – don’t set your hair on fire yet. The administration is going through the budget and how we spend our money. I think that’s what people wanted us to do is to go look and see where the waste and fraud and abuse are and limit the size of government.

Anybody that thought we were going to turn around our fiscal order or fiscal house and start getting toward a balanced budget and start paying off our debt instead of adding to it – anybody thought we were going to do that and it wasn’t going to involve some pain was living in a fantasy world. So there’s going to be some things in there that they recommend.

There will be things I agree with. There will probably be some things I disagree with, but I’m glad they’re doing what they’re doing.

Eaton: Did they come in too quickly with a chainsaw rather than the scalpel, as President Trump tweeted a week or two ago?

Simpson: Well, you know, I would have done it differently than they did, but I understand why they did it. And they might be right. This might be the only way you could do it. I mean, this is such a huge bureaucracy that runs the federal government. It might be the only way you could do it was to go in with his metaphorical chainsaw and eliminate things.

As an example, when they decided they were going to fire the probationary employees, most of the time, you think that’s just someone who is has been there for a year or less, or something like that.

But probationary employees also include employees that may have worked for, say, the Forest Service for 20 years. They got a promotion and then they’re probationary in that new position. So all of a sudden, are they probationary and subject to firing? Those kind of things weren’t made clear when it first started, and Elon has actually said, ‘Listen, we’re going to make some mistakes. We want you to tell us where they are and when they are and that kind of stuff, and we’ll correct them.’ He knows that everything is not going to be perfect, but it may well be that this is the only way you could do it.

Eaton: We get calls, probably daily, from people concerned about veteran issues in east Idaho – that DOGE is going affect that – and INL. Should veterans and people working at INL be worried?

Simpson: First of all, with veterans, we made sure we took care of those. In the continuing resolution that just passed, we put like $6 billion more into the VA to make sure that we were making up for any potential losses. Should (DOGE) examine the VA? You bet. Some places are not run very well.

You get to the Boise Center and Boise Veterans Home and Hospital – they’ve been operating great. I’ve never had any complaints against them. But there are others where it’s not running so well. So let’s take a look at it and see if we can do a better

With the INL, I would be reluctant to say it won’t affect them, but I’m not worried about it primarily because Secretary Burgum and Secretary Wright of Energy and Interior have been put in charge of this committee created to make America energy independent again. I’ve spoken with Secretary Burgum, and he realizes the importance of nuclear power and that if you’re ever going to get totally energy independent, you’ve got to have nuclear power.

They’re very supportive of that and of course, Idaho National Lab being the lead nuclear lab – that’s big for them. But they also do a lot of other things out there. They do things that are important in terms of cybersecurity and that type of thing. I think the administration will focus on that.

What’s going to be important is what the president’s budget says when it comes out, probably in a month to six weeks. We’ll get his recommendations and then we’ll see what they’ve incorporated into it or not.

Eaton: So you’re saying people working at INL shouldn’t be worried either?

Simpson: I don’t think so.

Eaton: Let’s talk about tariffs. In 2018, retaliatory tariffs cost Idaho, mainly farmers, $15.4 million in potato exports, $14.4 million in cheese and whey, and $1.1 million export revenue from pork and ham. Canada is our top export partner. Will Trump’s tariff proposals hurt Idahoans?

Simpson: First of all, I don’t know why we’re in a fight with Canada. I really don’t. They’re our neighbors. They’ve been our friends. They’ve been by our side all the time. But for some reason, we picked a fight with Canada where they’re booing our National Anthem at hockey games.

That shouldn’t be. We should still remain friends, and I hope this doesn’t turn into a trade war between us and Canada. But in terms of tariffs, I basically don’t like tariffs at all. Tariffs are a hidden tax on people that consumers pay because if the company being tariffed doesn’t raise their prices because of that tariff, eventually they’ll go out of business.

It means consumers ultimately pay those tariffs, so I’ve always been opposed to tariffs. But what they’re saying is we’re going to have reciprocal tariffs, which is a distinction. If you charge us 50% tariff on a product coming into your country, then we’re going to charge you 50% on those same things coming into our country. That seems to me to be fair.

I think in the long run, what will happen worldwide, you will see tariffs go down because some countries exporting to the United States, the biggest market in the world, it’s important to them. So I think you’ll see countries lower their tariffs in the long run in order to make sure the United States doesn’t retaliate with retaliatory tariffs.

Is it painful for a while? Probably so. When they did this before, Congress actually stepped in and did an emergency supplemental for agriculture because of the impact it was having on the agricultural industry. I wouldn’t be surprised, depending on how this turns out, if something like that happens again.

Eaton: Let’s talk about inflation. What more can be done to bring down inflation?

Simpson: First of all, it’s coming down, but you’d never know that by listening to some people. The inflation rate is going down but what you’ve got to do is, I think, make it cheaper to buy energy. Everything you use has energy involved in its production and the price of energy in the United States has been going higher than it should be.

We can bring those costs down by making the country energy-independent again and using the assets we have to do that. I think that’s one of the biggest things that you could do to to help reduce the inflation cost because that’s going to reduce the input costs for everything from fertilizers to farmers used to heat processing and other things so I think that’s one of the biggest things we can do.

Eaton: Wildland firefighters are about to get a raise across the country. You’re the chairman of a subcommittee that deals with this. Tell me about that.

Simpson: Well, for the last three years, I think it is, we’ve given them a raise but it’s been a one-year thing. It depends on the next Congress to maintain that raise so we tried to make it permanent, which we did in the continuing resolution and I’ve been the author of that for a long time.

It will help with the retention of our firefighters and the recruitment of new firefighters. We’ve 11,000 wildland firefighters out there that protect us and, man, the job they do, they were getting about $11 an hour. You can make more money than that flipping burgers, and that’s just not right. I think this is one of the important things that got through in the continuing resolution. I was very glad it did.

Eaton: Let’s talk about Ukraine and Russia. Should the United States continue to support Ukraine?

Simpson: I want to see how these talks go between Ukraine and Russia. The one thing I don’t think we should do, in the end, is that Russia believes that it was worth their time, effort, blood, toil, whatever, to invade Ukraine so that gives them the incentive to try to do that maybe to the Baltic states or something like that.

That’s a concern to everyone. They can’t be viewed as having won this. I’m a little kind of nervous about where these talks lead and if it ends in that. But I think we should support Ukraine. I voted to support them in the past, and they were the ones invaded. Putin trying to say that it’s Ukraine’s fault is a bunch of nonsense.

Eaton: Another issue that we were contacted a lot about is Social Security. The fear that cost cutting efforts might jeopardize seniors. President Trump has said it’s not going to be touched, neither is Medicaid or Medicare. But this is a legitimate concern for people.

Simpson: Let me start by saying Social Security is kind of insecure right now in that we’re spending more money than we are taking in Social Security. Automatically, I think in 2033, there will be an automatic cut in Social Security payments of 27% if we don’t do something.

Congress is really good at putting it off. We all know that we’ve got to do something to reform the system – not to take away any benefits from people that are getting benefits now or those that are within, say, 10 years of retirement. But you’ve got to change the system for the younger people.

I think that’s what we will be looking at in the next couple of years is trying to see how you reform that system because there are a lot of ideas out there about how you could do it. We need to sit down and debate them. But, you know, Social Security is third rail in politics. You touch it, you die. So politicians are very reluctant to go in and say what I just said – that we’ve got to reform the system.

But anybody who thinks that we’re going to go in and I’m going to cut my 98-year-old mother’s Social Security doesn’t know me very well. There is no intention of cutting any of Social Security payments.

I understand why people are concerned because they’ve seen a lot of things cut, but there is no intention in Congress or in the White House of cutting Social Security payments.

Eaton: Sen. Crapo was greeted with protesters the other day in Garden City who are calling on him to hold some town halls. Do you plan to hold any town halls?

Simpson: I don’t have any scheduled right now. We’ll see in the future when we get home.

Eaton: Do you think they’re important?

Simpson: Depends. I’ve seen some and talked to some members that have had them, and they’ve been – what’s the best word to use – infiltrated by people from even outside the district and everything else that’s set up. If people are there to discuss an issue, I think that’s fine. But if you’re just there to yell and throw signs and all that kind of stuff, then they’re not really very helpful. They’re just kind of a media show.

Eaton: What are your priorities going forward for the next year?

Simpson: The one thing that I’m working on, probably harder than anything, is trying to make sure we get the ag immigration reform bill done. If you were trying to support all of the people who are here undocumented, working in the agricultural industry all across the country, we wouldn’t be able to produce the food we produce to feed ourselves.

We’ve been trying to reform that system. We’ve passed a bill in the House twice but haven’t got it through the Senate yet for a variety of reasons. It was very hard to do because of what was happening at the border the last four years. Now that things have calmed down there, I think maybe we can get the administration and everyone in Congress to focus on the fact that we’ve got to have some visa reform in the ag industry.

People will say, ‘You’re just rewarding the people that have come here undocumented.’ No, in our bill, we let them come out of the woodwork. They get a permanent green card, they have to pay a fine, go through a criminal background check and everything. These are people that have been here for 10, 15, 20 years working in our agricultural fields.

So we’re trying to solve that, and it’s the biggest issue facing agriculture right now. In fact, it’s probably the biggest issue facing almost every industry I talk to – where are you going to get the workers to fill these jobs? They’re not taking jobs from Americans in agriculture, especially in the dairies.

A couple of years ago, a guy told me they had 4,000 openings across the nation on dairy farms. You have to try to fill those jobs with Americans first, have to advertise and all that kind of stuff.

Out of those 4,000, they filled four of them with Americans. These are jobs Americans don’t want and generally won’t take. So, they’re doing a valuable service in this country, and I think we ought to find a way to create a legalized workforce.

Eaton: What is President Trump like in meetings when the cameras aren’t on?

Simpson: He’s kind of a different guy. He’s much more personable than you would get the idea of what do you see on TV that he’s always against something, but he’s an interesting guy. He’s a guy you’d like to sit in a bar with, although he doesn’t drink, or have a cup of coffee and sit and shoot the bull. He’s very bright in his own way. He’s been one of the most brilliant businessmen around, so it’s hard to criticize what he does.

I find him nice and fun to be around. Sometimes the things he says in press conferences makes people shake their head. I understand that. I tell them to focus on the policy. What policy is it that you disagree with? Generally, they can’t come up with much.

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