Rick Harrison has spent his entire career doing one thing better than almost anyone alive: figuring out what something is actually worth. The Pawn Stars star has listened to thousands of people walk through the door of his Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas convinced their grandmother’s trinket was a treasure. His entire professional reputation rests on seeing through the spin and getting to the truth.
So when Rick Harrison stood at the White House this week and said “Literally he’s going to go down as maybe the best president ever. I love this guy!” — that’s not a celebrity endorsement. That’s an appraisal from a man who doesn’t overpay.
Harrison was one of more than 130 small business owners from all 50 states at Trump’s National Small Business Week summit, representing manufacturing, food production, defense, energy, and retail. And the message from the room wasn’t what the media expected.
Trump didn’t show up with a teleprompter full of sympathy and a micro-grant program. He told the assembled business owners straight: “You actually said thank you for the tariffs, but the tariffs really aren’t high enough in my opinion.” Not a hedge. Not a walk-back. A promise to go harder.
And the room cheered.
Because these are people who have watched their businesses get undercut for decades by foreign manufacturers paying three dollars an hour, ignoring environmental regulations, and stealing intellectual property. When Trump says tariffs aren’t high enough, he’s not threatening small business owners — he’s promising them what no other president has delivered: a fair fight. He’s also eliminating the regulatory maze that’s been strangling them, telling the room his administration is “getting rid of 129 nonsense regulations for every new one that we pass.”
Harrison specifically praised the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s 100% bonus depreciation provision — allowing businesses to deduct the full cost of new equipment and facilities in the first year of purchase. That’s not a talking point. That’s real money back in the hands of real business owners.
Contrast that with what Harrison said about the Biden years: under that administration, small business owners felt like they “were the evil people; we were the bad people.” The message from Biden’s Washington was always the same — here’s a complicated form, a PPP fraud investigation, and an SBA that moves slower than a DMV on a Friday afternoon.
Trump’s message this week: “You’re the Lifeblood of the American Economy.”
Rick Harrison — the man whose catchphrase is essentially “I’m not paying that” — heard both pitches. He knows which one is worth something.
I’d say that’s an appraisal you can take to the bank.
