President Monty Hall
Allison Silberberg's Plain Talk
President Monty Hall
By Allison Silberberg
August 27, 2025
It is astounding how President Trump often sounds like he is a modern-day version of Monty Hall, the longtime host of the popular tv show, “Let’s Make a Deal.” On nearly a daily basis, Trump proudly says that he is making lots of deals.
When Trump talks incessantly about his ability to make a deal, it sounds more like a threatened version of a deal, a la “Goodfellas” or “The Sopranos,” and not a Monty Hall game show where you win a fancy car or a new washer/dryer with a promise to enjoy a better life and a hug from Monty. With Trump, it’s a deal where you decide to agree to something while he has you by the throat. It’s Trump’s presidential shakedown.
We are not on a game show with Monty Hall. This is our lives; it’s not a show. It’s real life. With Monty Hall, there was no fear. With Trump, his modus operandi is based on using fear, reminiscent of Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. It was called the Red Scare for a reason.
In April, Trump announced his massive new tariffs, some would say punitive tariffs, and that he wanted to make deals with numerous countries. Most economists warned against such a move. At first, his proposed tariffs seemed to be random, ever-changing, and thrown around like shooting stars. The tariffs immediately affected the economies of multiple countries as well as our relations with those nations. India is an excellent example where Indian Prime Minister Modi is scrambling to mitigate the impact of Trump’s 50% tariffs, which went into effect today. Modi is promising retaliation.
Let there be no doubt that Trump’s tariffs will inevitably be a tax on all of us – the American people.
The business community is the backbone of our economy, especially small businesses. Small business owners are hurting already due to Trump’s looming tariffs. Business owners will be forced to increase their prices, and this in turn will hurt their customers and their bottom line.
Last week, sounding eerily like Monty Hall again, Trump proclaimed as if by fiat his version of the ultimate deal that the U.S. government is taking a 10% stake in Intel worth $8.9 billion. In a bizarre twist, this deal occurred while Trump had been publicly attacking Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, and pressuring him to resign and while the Trump administration was withholding some of the government’s grants that were supposed to go to Intel through the CHIPS Act. Trump had Intel over a barrel.
Intel had already received $2.2 billion of its CHIPS Act funding and was hoping to receive the remaining $8.9 billion in CHIPS Act government grants. Now, Trump’s deal is that the U.S. government will get a 10% stake in Intel stock by converting the $8.9 billion that originally were to be issued as grants from the CHIPS Act.
This whole situation sets the government on a course of heavy intervention in a business. It sets our country on a dangerous course. Talk about big government leaning into private enterprise. It creates a hornet’s nest of potential conflicts. For example, will our government now lean on other companies to buy Intel products in order to protect the taxpayer’s investment?
A friend wondered if the 10% stake might bring in revenue to our federal government. It might look rosy at first glance, but it’s anything but rosy. It’s actually interfering in private enterprise and is anti-business.
To make matters far worse, over the weekend, Trump added that the Intel deal is the first of many deals to come and that the government will be buying a similar stake in many other companies, especially in the tech field. Imagine the reaction in Silicon Valley.
Shakespeare might have called this foreshadowing.
There is little or no precedent. In 2008, when the financial crisis occurred, the federal government quickly pivoted and helped save the auto industry in Detroit and also helped save the banking industry and with good reason. These investments were rare and justifiable because of emergency crises, which is not the case with Intel.
Taking a federal stake in companies such as Intel is not free market capitalism. Rather, it is a version of state-managed capitalism. Is Trump’s endgame ultimately to control our economy by nationalizing it?
This is what authoritarians do. This is authoritarianism 101. Our country has never seen anything like this.
Wall Street is paying close attention.
For decades, many American business titans have stated that they just want the government to leave them alone, reduce regulations that are suffocating them, and let them make their money. They want government to get out of their way.
Ironically, many of those business leaders are staunch Republicans, and the Republican Party has traditionally pushed for a hands-off approach, not an interventionist approach.
But this deal is actually not red or blue; it’s simply bad business. And it’s not who we are as a country.
Trump’s idea of taking a 10% stake in companies such as Intel is analogous to his getting into bed with businesses and doing so as an uninvited guest. This will not end well. He will inevitably take all the covers and monopolize the bed.
There is a palpable fear wafting through the air. I would guess there is quiet chatter on Wall Street and among business leaders, large and small. They can see the writing on the wall and yet, there is no clear off-ramp. Plus, the president is ravenous; he will want more no matter how much he gets. There will be no end in sight with this nightmarish scenario.
We are in a meandering catastrophe. Under Trump, every day is unpredictable and one filled with chaos. And what do business and Wall Street crave? Stability and predictability. Trump provides neither.
Then this week, while trying to seize control of the Federal Reserve by any means, Trump sent a letter officially firing Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. It’s an unprecedented move against the Fed and its noted independence, and Lisa Cook immediately fought back by filing a lawsuit. The world’s economies and our own dollar are already being affected by this move against the independence of the Fed, creating another level of uncertainty.
Historically, the one thing that authoritarian leaders often have in common is they eventually overreach. They cannot help themselves, and that can be their undoing. Trump’s downfall will likely be of his own making, much like a Shakespearean drama. But we don’t know yet. We are still in Act Two of a three-act play.
America deserves better than a Monty Hall in the Oval Office.
Allison Silberberg is a writer and public affairs/public policy consultant. She served as mayor of Alexandria, Virginia, 2016-2019. Her work includes working on staff on Capitol Hill for Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen (D-TX). She is the author of “Visionaries In Our Midst: Ordinary People who are Changing our World,” which hit #1 on Amazon’s List for Philanthropy & Charity. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, on PBS.org. To learn more, please visit: www.allisonsilberberg.com
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