In Thursday's episode, he boasted about all the money China was sending to the US:
Remarks by Trump, Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 03-26-20
Q Two questions for you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: No. Please.
Q Mr. President, thank you.
Q I have two questions for you.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I didn’t call you, I called this gentleman.
Q Mr. President, thank you. Thanks a lot. On Monday —
THE PRESIDENT: Who are you with?
Q — did you speak with —
THE PRESIDENT: Who are you with?
Q I’m with Bloomberg.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Bloomberg News.
Q Mario Parker.
THE PRESIDENT: How’s Michael doing? Good?
Q (Laughs.) Mr. President, on Monday, did you speak with Chinese President Xi before you urged Americans to not blame Asian Americans for the coronavirus? We noticed that you’ve backed off of that language. I know you’re speaking with him again tonight.
THE PRESIDENT: No, I didn’t. I’m speaking to him tonight. It’s scheduled to go tonight. I’ll have a call with President Xi of China. I have a very good relationship.
No, I didn’t like when they came up. And it — it wasn’t him. Somebody at a lower level — mid-level — we found out, pretty much. But they made a statement that our soldiers brought it into China. No, it came from China.
And, you know, we just signed a very big deal with China. They’re paying us a lot of money in tariffs and other things. They never paid us 10 cents.
Look, China has taken advantage of the United States — until I came here — with Sleepy Joe Biden and Obama and Bush and everybody else. I’m not blaming them; I’m blaming everybody. They were allowed to — $500 billion a year they were taking out. We had trade deficits that were so large nobody’s ever seen anything like it.
And we’ve changed it. Look, now we’re taking in billions of dollars. And we gave some to our farmers because China, you know, they targeted our farmers. And our farmers are very happy and our farmers got through a very rough period because of what I was able to do — took the money from China and gave it to the farmers — and we had plenty left over after that.
Now we’re going into a phase two negotiation with China. But we’re getting 25 percent on $250 billion and then we’re getting a lot on money after that.
So we’ve never had a deal with China. They — China took advantage of the United States. And you know what? I don’t blame China for that. I blame the people that were right here because they should have never allowed it to happen. But the relationship with China has been a very good one.
He was asked about the article in
The Wall Street Journal. during Friday's episode:
Remarks by Trump, Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 03-27-20
Q Just before you go, could I ask you something that just popped on Wall Street Journal? It says, headline: “The Trump administration plans to suspend the collection of import tariffs for three months according to administration officials.” True or not true?
THE PRESIDENT: It’s not even talked to me about. It’s just more fake news, John.
Look, not even talked to me. They’re talking about — the only one I’ve heard that from — like, as an example, China pays 25 percent interest on $250 billion worth of product that they send in. That’s a lot. Everybody keeps saying, “Oh, are you going to suspend the tariffs?” Well, the answer is no. But President Xi never even brought it up last night. It wasn’t even discussed. It’s fake news. Tell the Wall Street Journal. You know, the Wall Street Journal does a lot of fake news too. It’s pretty amazing.
So I want to leave — leave you by just saying I want to thank you for being here. I want to thank the American public and all of the people that have helped so much. And we’re going to give the podium to Vice President Pence, who has been incredible. And if he’s tired and if he’s not answering questions like he should, we have a great reason because he hasn’t slept in about four weeks.
But I want to thank him because he has dedicated — I mean, he is a dedicated person — long before this. But the job he’s done has been fantastic. So I want to thank Mike, all the people on the task force, and FEMA, and Army Corps — everybody. You’ve been fantastic. Thank you all very much.
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