A Milwaukee steel foundry from 1907 closes, and The Damage Report blames the tariffs
John Iadarola and Sharon Reed set Maynard Steel's closing beside Trump's promise of a huge new plant, and the segment ran far ahead of everything else the show posted that day.
The Damage Report
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 438,461 views a day, 8.5 times a normal first day on this channel (51,324).
Trump Tariffs BACKFIRE As Massive Steel Plant Shutters
Maynard Steel Casting Company has been part of Milwaukee since 1907, when Charles Maynard started it on Reed Street as Maynard Electric Steel Casting Company. Sylvester Wabiszewski later bought it and gave it the name it carries today. Now, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, the foundry is closing, and The Damage Report built a segment around it: "Trump Tariffs BACKFIRE As Massive Steel Plant Shutters."
John Iadarola and Sharon Reed set that closing beside a very different steel story. Trump has been pointing to a massive new steel plant as proof of a manufacturing revival, while, in the show's telling, questions keep growing over whether that project is even ready to break ground. The video's tags place it all against the 50 percent steel tariffs imposed under Section 232.
The segment reached close to 180,000 views in its first seven hours, more than three times what a regular video here usually gathers in a full first day. The show's other segments from the same morning, on Trump's "midterm surprise" post and on James Talarico's "ScanDuel" ad against Ken Paxton, stayed near 40,000. That stands out more because the channel as a whole is running well below its usual pace, as are most of the political commentary channels close to its size.
The comments came in faster still: more than three times a usual first day's total in those seven hours. Many are written by Canadian viewers, who talk about the steel and raw materials their country sells to American plants. Others turn to Trump's past business bankruptcies and to the gap between the richest families and everyone else. By the next morning the show had moved back to Texas, with another segment on Ken Paxton's Senate race.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- The Damage Report
- Subscribers
- 1,380,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 4,841,857
- Channel views, pace per day
- 144,551 (on a normal day: 1,112,704)
- Video published
- October 7, 2026
- Video views so far
- 176,454 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 438,461
The numbers
One segment pulled far ahead on a day when the rest of the channel ran quiet.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which American city is famously nicknamed the Steel City?
Pittsburgh earned the nickname as the center of American steelmaking, and its NFL team, the Steelers, is named after the industry.
