The overall tax plan I think works for war because and here's why, you've got to look at it in context of our economics war China. You can't separate at the terrorists and what he's doing on the three oh ones, what he's doing on trying to stop intellectual property theft and appropriation from the taxes. The taxes principally were to
make our companies competitive with Germany, Germany and China. The the the personal tax rates, which I didn't totally agree with, right, because it's more of the trickle down, uh, is something that had to be used to get this thing past. So that's Steve bann in a while back explaining that the Trump tax cut was meant to offset the pain there's gonna come with the Tarraf war. Right. I actually heard somebody use that um argument against Trump on one
of the Sunday talk shows. Look all the games that they made here in Pennsylvania with the tax cut, they're losing it all through the Terraf. Well, that was supposed to be an offset. Now, if that was the point, Steve Bannon's on some show talking about it, I haven't heard Trump explain that to anybody. No, No, why don't we usher in the fabulous Debra J. Saunders, White House correspondent from the Las Vegas Review Journal, currently at their
DC bureau, I believe to discuss this and more. Hey, Debra, how are you hard to believe that Steve Bannon is no longer with this administration? Isn't it? Well? I tell you what, the complete lack of reporting on that angle and this is one of the most poorly reported stories I remember in recent years, as everybody is just looking at it purely through the lens of do I like Trump or dislike Trump? Um, this is a really big, interesting,
important negotiation. There in the middle of this is you know, everything the Trump presidency hangs on this because, as you know, because we know that, let's go ahead, say China, China, Trump that the big issue for him. It was that he was going to take on China and that he was going to he was going to do what he could to get China to have fair trade practices, and and and and now we're in the middle of it, and one of two things is going to happen. Trump's
gonna win or he's not. If Trump wins, it's a big game for the US economy. It hurts China, and I think we'll have it. We'll have a great economy through and his chances of being reelected are certainly, you know, better than even right. If he loses and we have a and this is a prolonged trade war, it's going to hurt the U s economy. It's going to hurt him among his base, which has really stood behind him up till now, and and and maybe for a while.
We just don't know how long. Uh, and uh. He's not going to come across as the great dealmaker that he said he was, and it will be ugly. Hey, I want to point something out, partly for our listeners and partly for you, Deborah. We talked about this. I think it was last hour. We got a great note from an eminent thinker and um well as somebody knows about Chinese American trade and has lived and worked in
China for forty years. He says, in China, there's a significant and growing body of academics, business people, and policymakers who agree that most of what the US is demanding of China is in China's long term interest. So while in the short term I think it would be more beneficial for the US than China. There are plenty of Chinese who think we need to sign this deal and continue our move to economic modernity. So I just thought that was worth noting. But as usual, I found that
Trump administration's messaging on this a bit haphazard. Yeah, it's always interesting that Trump is both uh, maybe the greatest political communicator of my lifetime and the worst at the same time. I mean, sometimes he communicates thoughts and feelings to crowds in a way that nobody can and everybody's cheering, and then on stuff like this, I feel like he counts on pundits on Fox News to explain his policies to people because he doesn't, really I haven't hurt him
go out there and make the argument to farmers. Look, it's gonna hurt for a while, I realized this, But this is what's gonna be like for you in the future. Why doesn't he do that? He does it on Twitter. He's been doing tweets saying yes, trying to count on all farmers to read his his tweets. I guess they
get up early, melts the cows and read his tweets. Um, but I mean there are he he said, Um, this is going Um, this is going to hurt China that if you don't want to pay tariffs and you shouldn't be manufacturing in China, you can move to another low cost country to manufacturer, like Vietnam. And yes, farmers are going to be hurt in the long one, that's gonna help you. We've got this fifteen billion dollar fund that we can give to farmers that will help you as
a pain somewhat. I know manufacturers are going to be hurt, but in the end it will be in their interests. He's been saying all that on Twitter. Well, listen, you got to go to the White House and tell him to hire Joe Getty as their new communications director. Because if I were in charge, I would be out there. I would have the President, I would have all of his UH spokespeople saying all we want is for China to follow the rules they agreed to when they joined
the World Trade Organization. We've been letting them slide now for damn near a couple of decades, and they're ripping us off. We don't want him to rip us off anymore. It kind of reminds me of the NATO thing. Look, I didn't decide this, this was decided by others a
long time ago. I'm just trying to enforce the rules. Actually, it fits in with immigration to I'm enforcing the rules, the laws that other people passed, whether it's the World Trade Organization, our own Congress, or whoever, other people were letting it slide. That's kind of interesting. You're right, Um, you would know more about this because you're you're so close to Trump and follow him everything like that. I can't imagine him personally backing down just because he's the
kind of the kind of guy he is. I can see him taking this to the end. But well, the Republican Party cave on him at some point. Well, I mean these are trade negotiations. I mean the party has stuck with him amazingly, and when you think about what a free trade party, the Republican Party has been the fact that he has this much support and that basically, uh, even even free trade senators are trying to give him
a pass on this. I think because of the point you made, everybody knows it's in our interest to have this work. That if Trump can get the concessions he's looking for, it's good for the U. S. Economy and the country comes out stronger. Um, I'm sorry, my mind wandered for a second. His personality. Can you see him backing down? Well, you know, he did back down on the budget, and so we've seen that before where when there was a government shutdown, he did back down once.
I don't see him doing that on this one, except you know, if you get here's the thing. He likes this personal relationship that he has with she, and these personal relationships mean a lot to him. Um. I guess my only question would be if the Chinese can convince him that the deal that China wants is Trump winning, maybe something like that happens. Um. Otherwise, this is his signature issue. This is the thing that he really wants
to win. But if China is just going to be intransigent in the US economy continues to get pummeled and it's already started at some point in time, a reasonable person would cry uncle. And then the question is, then why did you get us into this problem? And that's and that's the thing. I can't imagine the situation that Donald Trump cannot want to be in. Deborah J. Saunders, white House correspondent for the Las Vegas Review Journal, on the line talking about the trade negotiation that's going on.
What do your sources say, Uh, Deborah about speaking of mind wandering? Um, what was it gonna ask? Because it is important China trade something you just said it was? I got distracted. I'm looking at AOC's Twitter page and oh man, she's something. Oh what I hear is that all of the material issues have been decided and they're just hung up on enforcement mechanisms. Is that what you're hearing? Well, I mean what Trump's saying is we agreed on everything
and then they took it all back. Oh yeah, that's what they're saying. We we we agreed, We're not five there, and then chining To just said no and this is and this is a negotiating tactic and that then so we're supposed to give up the concessions we won. Mm hmm. Well, I guess we'll We'll find out in time. But I still think a deal will be struck and I think it will be enormously positive. Um, but but we shall see.
You're you're talking about a totalitarian regime. And if there's one thing, totalitarians who are good at their jobs know that if they give a little, they might lose everything because when it comes to control, you know there's only you know, there's control, and then there's not control. Debra J. Saunders, White House correspondent, Vegas Review Journal. Thanks a million, deb Thank you. We will talk to you soon. I had never thought of about that before until I started rambling
on there. But there are three issues there where Trump could have done could still do a better job of arguing. Look, I'm just enforcing the rules that already existed. The NATO countries agreed to paying this much, they weren't. I'm gonna make them pay how much they agreed to NATO. He wants to t Barnado. Our immigration laws are this, I'm going to enforce them. If you don't like them, change the laws and the w t O the way they've set up everything. China is supposed to do this, they aren't.
I'm saying we need to enforce it, right, Yeah, well devent all these things, these new hard lines, so we'll want to go through a little pain to enforce it. Which none of his predecessors were Republican or Democrat. Pretty interesting worth noting