Donald Trump clashed with his interviewer during a series tense exchanges over his his plan for big tariffs and other policies at the Economic Club of Chicago.
Trump, who sometimes takes questions from what he calls the ‘fake news’ media but often sits with friendly interviewers, was asked repeated questions about his plan to slap tariffs of as high as 100 percent on imported goods Tuesday.
‘To me the most beautiful word in the English language is tariff,’ Trump said. ‘And it’s my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm,’ he said – in an early acknowledgement of the disputes that would follow.
‘I know you’re an anti-tariff guy,’ Trump told his questioner, John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News.
‘You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war,’ Micklethwait told him. ‘You’re going to basically stop trade with China… That is going to have a serious effect on the overall economy … The overall effect could be massive.’
Trump countered: ‘I agree. It’s going to have a massive effect – positive effect.’
Former President Donald Trump went back and forth with interviewer John Micklethwait over his proposed tariffs
The exchange had Trump ready to take a dig at his interlocutor, a British former editor of the Economist who tried to confront him with predicted effects of his plans.
‘It must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as negative and then have somebody explain to you that you’re totally wrong,’ Trump told him.
He said you could make the tariff ‘so high, so horrible, so obnoxious’ that the companies would come and invest ‘right away.’
Micklethwait countered that there were 40 million jobs in the U.S. ‘that rely on trade,’ then tried to point out that US consumers can bear the brunt of tariffs through higher prices.
‘Critics say your tariffs will end up being like a national sales tax’ on consumers, Micklethwait told him. ‘Nope,’ Trump responded.
Micklethwait then asked him about the math. ‘Not the way you figured. I was always very good at mathematics,’ Trump told him.
In the wide-ranging discussion there were times when Trump veered into talking about North Korea, South Korea, and the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But it was his interviewer, not the crowd, who was put off by the tangents.
Trump had a response for this wandering answers. ‘I call it the weave. You have the weave. As long as you end up in the red location at the end,’ he said. Then he said the nation was never so close to World War III and his efforts to stamp out ISIS.
After Trump switched to talking about how great the US military is, Micklethwait told him, ‘With great respect to you, I was asking about tariffs.’
Trump is threatening to slap tariffs as high as 100 percent – or even ‘20,000 percent’ to try to force companies to build factories in the US
Micklethwait said tariffs would amount to a consumption tax on US consumers
‘You have said that Taiwan should pay for us protection. Yeah, I asked because this morning, you just mentioned North Korea, the Chinese army, literally, as we speak, are engaged in rehearsals for a full naval blockade of Taiwan. So I suppose my question, if China invades Taiwan, would you send American troops to defend it?’ Micklethwait asked.
‘Well, the reason they’re doing it now is they’re not going to do it afterwards. Okay? So they’re doing it now,’ Trump said.
The editor also pressed Trump on a disclosure from Bob Woodward’s new book that Trump had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin seven times since Trump left office.
He asked Trump for a yes or no of whether he had spoken to Putin since he stopped being president.
‘Well, I don’t comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing,’ Trump said.
Micklethwait also pressed Trump on his spending plans, and alluded to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that it would at $7 trillion over a decade. ‘You are running up enormous debt,’ he told Trump. He pointed to an even bigger $15 trillion estimate by the Wall Street Journal.
‘They’ve been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way,’ Trump shot back.
‘You’ve been wrong.’
‘You’re trying to turn this into a debate,’ Micklethwait told him. ‘It’s not a debate: you’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff,’ Trump responded.
When Micklethwait tried to keep his answers on track, Trump reached again for the weave. ‘You can’t go that quickly … I’m just telling you basic – it’s called the weave. It’s all these different things happen.’
Trump also got applause when he railed against a ‘corrupt press.’
The two men also clashed over January 6th, when Micklethwait told him ‘it was by far the most, the worst transfer of power for a long time.’
‘This is what they like to do,’ Trump said when asked if he would accept a peaceful transfer of power.
‘I left the morning that I was supposed to leave. I went to Florida, and you had a very peaceful transfer,’ Trump said.
‘And some people went to the Capitol, and a lot of strange things happened there. A lot of strange things with people being waved into the Capitol by police,’ he added.
