Kevin O’Leary’s appearance on Fox News’ The Big Weekend Show should be the wake-up call Americans have been waiting for — the economy is delivering surprises while the political class fiddles. O’Leary told viewers that the recent GDP print was a “huge number” nobody was expecting, and he warned that voters will judge economic realities at their kitchen tables.
What stands out in O’Leary’s analysis is blunt common sense: inflation is not an abstract chart, it is a hidden tax on working families, and targeted tariff tactics can be part of the toolkit to bring prices back down. He explained that careful, surgical tariff policy — not blanket panic or naive free-trade platitudes — can shift bargaining power and ease price pressures that sap American households’ budgets.
Conservatives should welcome O’Leary’s pragmatism: tariffs are a negotiating lever, not an economic religion, and they can be dialed up or down as leverage to win reciprocal trade deals that rebuild American manufacturing. He’s repeatedly said the point is to force fair terms and then remove tariffs once parity is achieved, a strategy that puts American workers and manufacturers first without locking the country into permanent protectionism.
He also reminded viewers that monetary policy matters — cutting rates while inflation remains stubborn risks a policy disaster — and that pretending inflation is solved won’t help grocery bills or mortgage payments. O’Leary’s “hidden tax” phrasing about inflation is a blunt description Republicans should wield in every debate: inflation eats paychecks and punishes thrift.
Let’s be honest: the left’s answer has too often been price controls and more government spending, which historically create shortages and punish supply rather than fixing it. O’Leary pushed back on those more extreme prescriptions and urged sensible, market-aware responses — a message conservatives must amplify while holding the line on fiscal sanity.
Patriotic conservatives should take the lesson to heart — focus on the kitchen-table economy, back pragmatic tools that restore American leverage, and call out the false comforts of big-government fixes. If Republicans want to win in 2026 and beyond, they must show voters a plan that eases costs, rebuilds domestic industry, and keeps the Fed independent so working Americans aren’t left footing the bill for political experiments.
