Jim Geraghty Senior political correspondent at National Review and contributing columnist at The Washington Post since 2022.

“If you're worried about wealth inequality, maybe stop firing people. If only the CEO of United Airlines could do something about job creation and economic vitality, and people's wages. It's like, you're the guy running one of the biggest airlines in the country.”

3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary · US Politics · November 2026

Context

Geraghty responds to an airline CEO's call for a national wealth tax and near-total inheritance taxes on very large estates, pointing to layoffs at the CEO's own company.

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Transcript

3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary Around 28:17 into the episode

Jim Geraghty

October 2021, United Airlines laid off 75,303 workers. Actually, that's over a period of like a decade or so, but that was significant. Also, last year, they cut around 4% of management roles at headquarters.

Speaker 1

If you're worried.

Jim Geraghty

About wealth inequality, maybe stop firing people. You know, like, oh, oh, all these people, they're having such a hard time. Well, you're laying them off. Now, I'm assuming they felt like they had to lay them off. I felt like, you know, but we see both the increase in jet fuel prices other increases in expenses and things like that like if you're worried about like if only the ceo of united airlines could do something about job creation and economic vitality and like If only he could do something about people's wages. If only he could do something. It's like, oh, you're the guy running a big airline.

Speaker 1

It's one of the biggest airlines in the country. You mentioned the point about he would pay a 100% inheritance tax. Go do it.

Jim Geraghty

No one's stopping you from writing a check to the treasury. Nobody's stopping any of these people. What they're really saying is like, look, I don't want to leave anything to my kids. And by the way, how do you like to be this guy's kids? He's like, I absolutely intend to leave nothing to you…

Speaker 1

Well, this is up to them. People say, oh, now, can we argue about what level of income it should kick in?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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