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President Donald Trump clashed with a reporter Thursday over questions about a newly signed tariff, telling him that he had spent his first term “fighting lunatics like you.” The intense exchange follows a White House signing ceremony for a series of executive actions aimed at expanding reciprocal tariffs and strengthening U.S. trade policy.
While speaking with reporters at the White House after the signing, a reporter confronted Trump on why he is emphasizing tariffs more in his second term.
“You’re weighing your decision to do that, your authority to do that based on a 1977 law. It’s never been invoked before,” said the reporter. “Why didn’t you invoke this law in your first term? You could have taken in billions upon billions of dollars in your first term, but you waited until your second term?”
FEDERAL JUDGES GRILL TRUMP LAWYERS OVER ‘LIBERATION DAY’ TARIFFS ON EVE OF ENFORCEMENT
President Donald Trump drilled into a reporter over a question on tariffs on Thursday, telling him that he had to spend his first term “fighting lunatics like you.” (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Without missing a beat, the president shot back: “Yeah, because in my first term, I was fighting lunatics like you who were trying to do things incorrectly and inappropriately to a president that was duly elected.”
“And we did do certain tariffs in the first term,” he continued. “If you look at China, China, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China.”
He also said that the COVID-19 pandemic also played a factor in his decision to not emphasize tariffs as much in his first term.
“When Covid came the last thing I was going to do is tell France and Italy and Spain and a couple of other countries that we’re going to hit you with tariffs,” he explained. “We had to fight the Covid situation when that came.”
DAILY BEAST PULLS STORY ALLEGING MELANIA-EPSTEIN CONNECTION AFTER LAWYERS DISPUTE FRAMING
U.S. President Donald Trump…
