Scott Jennings looked at four CNN panelists on Tuesday night and asked a question so simple it shouldn't have caused a single bead of sweat: If Donald Trump eliminated all tariffs tomorrow in exchange for zeroing out all corporate income taxes, would you take the deal?
The answer was laughter. Not the kind that follows a joke — the kind that follows a short circuit.
The September 16 edition of CNN's NewsNight featured Jennings opposite host Abby Phillip, former New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, political commentator Bakari Sellers, and Ana Navarro. The topic was tariffs, and the panel was doing what CNN panels do — treating every Trump economic policy like a dumpster fire while offering zero alternatives. Jennings decided to test whether the outrage had any intellectual foundation underneath it.
"I have a sincere question for you," Jennings said. "You all are very concerned about the tariffs as taxes. If Donald Trump tomorrow said, 'I'll trade you elimination of all tariffs for elimination of all corporate income taxes,' would you take the deal?"
Sellers called it "patently absurd." Navarro demanded her "tariff rebate check." De Blasio sat there grinning nervously. Nobody answered the question.
Jennings pushed. "My question to you all is very simple: If you're so upset about tariffs as taxes being depressive of economic activity, would you trade all the tariffs for a zeroing out of corporate income taxes."
That's when Phillip stepped in it. She argued that "tariffs have the effect of raising prices" but "income taxes do not raise prices on goods." A clean, confident statement — and completely wrong. Research from the Mercatus Center, cited by Jack Salmon, a Gibbs Scholar there, shows consumers bear approximately 52 percent of the corporate tax burden through higher prices. Workers absorb another 28 percent through lower wages. Shareholders eat the remaining 20 percent.
So corporate income taxes do raise prices on goods. They just do it quietly enough that CNN hosts don't notice.
Watch the entire exchange here
The reason nobody could answer Jennings is that the answer exposes the game. If tariffs are bad because they function as taxes on economic activity, then corporate income taxes are bad for the same reason — except corporate taxes have been doing it longer and at greater scale. Opposing one while defending the other isn't an economic position. It's a partisan one.
Jennings landed it himself: "Why are certain taxes good and certain taxes bad? Because Trump did one and you want to do the other!"
The manufacturing numbers tell the rest of the story the panel didn't want to discuss. Manufacturing value-added output rose from $2.961 trillion in Q4 2025 to $3.000 trillion in Q1 2026. Manufacturing employment hit 12,638,000 in August — above the pre-pandemic average of 12,613,000 from 2017 to 2019. Tariff revenues doubled and the trade deficit narrowed through late 2025.
Four panelists. One question. Zero answers.
The 52 percent lands on consumers either way. One version just has Trump's name on it.