Donald Trump’s sit-down interview Tuesday with the Economic Club of Chicago went completely off the rails as the Republican presidential nominee struggled to offer concrete answers to a business-minded crowd, and miraculously performed even worse as he was fact-checked live onstage.
The Bloomberg News–sponsored event was intended to cover massive ground. Bloomberg’s top editor, John Micklethwait, pressed Trump on issues ranging from immigration, proposed tariffs, the dissolution of some of America’s biggest corporations, foreign policy with regard to Taiwan, and ultimately to the country’s fate post–Election Day. But Trump, seemingly, wasn’t prepared with answers.
The former president elicited groans from the crowd while dodging questions about his proposed foreign tariff plan, which includes a 200 percent tariff (which Trump insinuated could even be as high as 2,000 percent) on foreign cars.
Micklethwait then pointed out how a financial analysis of Trump’s economic policies estimated that they would add $7.5 trillion to the federal deficit—“more than twice the total for Vice President [Kamala] Harris.” But Trump failed to offer rational details in his defense.
“We’re going to bring the companies back, we’re going to lower the taxes still further for companies that are going to make their product in the USA. We’re going to protect those companies with strong tariffs, because I’m a believer in tariffs, I’m not sure that you are, I don’t think you are,” Trump said.
“Not particularly,” Micklethwait responded.
“But I want to congratulate you on your career,” Trump threw back, sparking a surprised laugh from the crowd. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff.”
“Tariffs—do you think that will bring in the revenues?” Micklethwait pressed. “They say it’ll only bring in $200 billion. That’s barely the cost of two of your promises.”
“Yeah, but that’s for like, what company are you talking about?” Trump said, before patting himself on the back for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which he referred to as the “China virus.”
Later in the interview, Micklethwait noted that Trump’s policies would effectively stop trade with China, particularly since tariffs already exist on trade with the foreign power—a reality that Trump couldn’t accept. He baselessly denied Micklethwait’s data points.
But Micklethwait was undeterred: “You’re flooding the thing with giveaways. I was actually quite kind to you, I used $7 trillion,” he said, referring to the cost of Trump’s policies. “The upper estimate is $15 trillion. The Wall Street Journal, which is hardly a Communist organization, they have criticized you on this as well.
“You are running up enormous debts.”
Trump couldn’t handle the flipped tables.
“What does The Wall Street Journal know?” he said, crossing his arms. “I’m meeting with them tomorrow. What does The Wall Street Journal know? They’ve been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way.”
“You’re trying to turn this into a debate, as if there—” Micklethwait continued, before Trump interjected to say that Micklethwait “has been wrong all your life on this stuff.”
While discussing U.S. labor, Trump claimed that autoworkers at U.S. plants for foreign car companies such as Mercedes-Benz simply assemble parts “out of a box” and that children could do their jobs.
When asked about Google and whether the massive search-engine company should be broken up via antitrust laws, Trump opted to completely switch the topic, instead discussing voter rolls in Virginia and the Justice Department, exasperatedly adding that he “hasn’t gotten over that.”
“The question was about Google, President Trump,” Micklethwait said.
Reporter: Should Google be broken up?
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 15, 2024
Trump: Virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes
Reporter: The question was about Google pic.twitter.com/RnjB8bhmFH
