Despite that ideological shift, Gramm said he thinks that a large majority of today’s GOP senators would still not vote for the aggressive tariffs that the administration has imposed if it were up to them.

“I believe that if you had an up-or-down vote on Trump’s tariffs, you wouldn’t get 30 votes in the Senate,” Gramm said.

INTEREST PAYMENTS ECLIPSED $1 TRILLION AS FEDERAL DEFICIT HIT $1.8 TRILLION IN FISCAL 2025, CBO SAYS

Trump first announced his sweeping tariff agenda on “Liberation Day” in April. Since then, many of the tariffs have been postponed, and deals have been made with key trading partners to avert higher levies, but global markets are still facing pressure from the aggressive ramping up of tariffs.

The Trump administration argues that the tariffs are necessary to reshore domestic manufacturing and to correct long-standing trade imbalances with other countries, but free-market conservatives like Gramm contend that such tariffs are destructive to the United States’s economic growth and dominance.

Gramm said that tariffs and industrial policy are bad ideas and that no bad idea ever dies in society. He also mentioned this during his appearance before a room of a few dozen near Capitol Hill. The event was hosted by Advancing American Freedom, a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump has implemented tariffs unilaterally, without involving Congress. Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday afternoon that he thinks Gramm’s assessment about how a vote to codify the tariffs would go is accurate.

“Codify the tariffs? Oh, I agree with Phil, he’s absolutely right,” Tillis said. “I’m a free-market, federalist, limited-government conservative. And I’m an absolute ‘no’ vote on codifying what is effectively a value-added tax.”

Gramm’s political ascendency came at the height of Reaganism. He served in the House from 1979 to 1985, and then in the Senate from 1985 to 2001. And Gramm characterizes himself as a “Ronald Reagan conservative,” a characterization he thinks most conservatives still identify with.

But the Republican Party has experienced some major shifts since Gramm left the Senate, particularly in recent years as Trump led the GOP to victories in 2016 and 2024.

Gramm wasn’t shy about criticizing people who brand themselves conservatives but who advocate for economic policies traditionally espoused by the Left, such as industrial policy, protectionist trade policies, and government intervention in the free market.

“There is a sort of new wave of people that call themselves ‘new conservatives,’ but that are basically socialist,” Gramm said.

What will happen following the 2026 midterm elections and after Trump leaves office in 2029 is still to be determined. Some expect Vance or another MAGA acolyte will take up the populist mantle.

Gramm said the Trump administration’s policies could cause discontent at the ballot box.

“I think the paradox is — with AI and with all these technological breakthroughs, if the president had simply extended the tax code and deregulated, we would have had a boom economically,” he said. “But I think the protectionist policies and the industrial policies will mute that growth, and I think that inflation will continue to be at a level that will be an irritant to the economy and to consumers.”

WHITE HOUSE PRESSURES DEMOCRATS OVER SHUTDOWN DELAYS TO KEY ECONOMIC DATA

Gramm said that he expects the midterm elections to be challenging for his party because of that fallout.

“And then I think in ‘28 there will be an effort to continue the Trump policies, and there will be an effort to change them,” he continued. “And which will be successful? I don’t know.”