'Very concerned': MAGA senator openly doubts Trump’s strategy behind key policy

03 April

U.S. President Donald Trump holds "The Trump Card" as he speaks with journalists onboard Air Force One en route to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 3, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

This week, President Donald Trump rolled out double-digit tariffs on every country, with additional tariffs on other trade partners affecting virtually all imported goods. And even though financial markets are currently reeling, Trump said he's not worried.

“I think it’s going very well,” the president said of the stock market Thursday before leaving the White House for his Florida golf resort. “We have an operation, like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing. I said this would exactly be the way it is.”

But now, one of Trump's biggest supporters in the U.S. Senate is expressing hesitancy about the president's casual attitude toward the dip in financial markets in response to his tariff announcement. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) told CBS News' Caitlin Huey-Burns on Thursday that he was "concerned" about the blowback from the new trade duties, and that the stock market was likewise "very concerned."

"I don’t have the president’s strongly held belief this is something that absolutely has to be done," Johnson said. "But he's president, I'm not, he ran on this, and, you know, I hope he's absolutely right."

Huey-Burns then asked Johnson about the possibility of Trump not being absolutely right, to which Johnson would only say her question was "hypothetical." His remarks criticizing Trump are notable, as he has consistently been one of Trump's loudest defenders — even in the wake of the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol building.

Johnson made headlines in 2022 (when he was last up for reelection) for allegedly taking part in the "fake elector" scheme following Trump's loss in the 2020 presidential election. Politico reported that Johnson tried to hand a slate of fake electors from Wisconsin to Vice President Mike Pence, as part of the gambit to have dueling slates of electors presented during Congress' certification of Electoral College votes. The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack uncovered Johnson's alleged role in the plot, as members of the committee examined the scope of the scheme in other swing states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, among other states.

The Badger State's junior U.S. senator may be sensitive to electoral pressure as a result of how Trump's tariffs financially impact Wisconsinites, should he decide to run for another six-year term in 2028. Even though Trump won his state in 2024, Democrat-backed Dane County Judge Susan Crawford recently won a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, defeating Republican-backed Brad Schimel by a double-digit margin.

Watch the video of Johnson's comments below, or by clicking this link.

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