On Thanksgiving, Trump floated the notion that the US could replace all income tax with tariffs, and even The Wall Street Journal's editor James Freeman had to admit that the math "doesn't work" unless you want to dramatically slash most government programs.

Of course, Freeman didn't have any problem with that happening, and praised the notion as somehow being a great idea, rather than an awful regressive tax that would harm the working class and continue to make Trump's rich buddies even richer.

Here's the back and forth with Freeman and guest host Alicia Acuna on this Friday's America Reports on Fox after Acuna played a video of Trump discussing his plans:

FREEMAN: Yeah, it's a beautiful spirit. I think we can appreciate it, and probably people on Thanksgiving may have been toasting the possibility of the end of the income tax. Maybe some of those shoppers were feeling so flush they thought income taxes might go away, so they went out to spend. But look, President Trump has already delivered a lot in terms of income tax relief... trillions of dollars.

We think about that bill that he signed in July, about five trillion of relief over a decade. Now, his trade taxes, his tariffs offset about half of that. So I think if you're thinking, let's get rid of all income taxes completely, that's kind of a tough program because his tariffs, assuming the Supreme Court allows them all, raise about $200 billion a year, roughly.

Government spends about seven trillion a year, so the math doesn't really work there. But I think people can appreciate the spirit of it. He has done a lot in terms of income tax relief.

I think the best way he can help taxpayers now and all of our citizens is cutting spending and specifically saying no to that next Obamacare bailout and liberating consumers to finally be able to buy cheap insurance.

ACUNA: You know, some of the reasons behind the president's thinking here and and what he's saying, why it would work. He says, because there are investments from other nations, commitments also, companies that have promised to increase or expand their footprint in the United States. We talked about the tariffs, what he's also saying, but also, could it be that he's just listening to what Americans are saying they need right now?

FREEMAN: Yeah, certainly we'd all love to have lower tax burdens and we want affordability. I think people want to see the end of inflation. It's down a bit from 2022. Obviously it was up over 9 percent. Now it's in the 3 percent range. So I think everyone wants affordability.

You do have to remember, though, that the reason progressives created the income tax more than 100 years ago was to pay for all of their government programs. So if we want to get rid of it, I think we do have to focus on shrinking in a very serious way the size of government.

The president had the DOGE effort, which maybe was a good start, but we have a long way to go. And if you think about the burden for taxpayers, it's not just those of us who pay now, it's also our kids. If we want to make that burden bearable, I think it's the spending side that really has to be trimmed. And he's made some progress there. This fiscal year just completed, deficit was smaller as a percentage of GDP and smaller overall than the year before, but long way to go there.

"Liberating consumers." Yeah, "liberating" them to be able to buy junk insurance that isn't worth the paper it's written on.

And I'm sure all those "government programs" he wants to slash are our social safety nets that keep millions out of poverty every year. These people actually hate most of Trump's voters because they could care less how many of them they kill.