Fox’s Chris Wallace Surprised That ‘Flailing’ Trump Thinks He Can Just Order Private Companies Around
Congratulations to Chris Wallace for the understatement of the day on Friday.
The Fox News anchor told Sandra Smith of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom that “as best I can tell, the President of the United States can’t order companies how they’re going to do their sales and where they’re going to have their supply chains.”
He added, “We have a free market, capitalist system. I don’t think a president can order a car company to move some of its factories from one place to another.”
It’s the I don’t think that makes this statement art. Of course a president can’t order a car company to do such a thing. Not even when that president is bailing out the car company at the height of the worst recession in nearly a century. Which Trump is most certainly not doing.
Wallace was responding to Trump’s Friday-morning Twitter meltdown, in which he told American companies they are “hereby ordered to start looking for alternatives to China” as a trading partner and place to locate any parts of their businesses.
….better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
….your companies HOME and making your products in the USA. I will be responding to China’s Tariffs this afternoon. This is a GREAT opportunity for the United States. Also, I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE,….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
The Dow Jones plunged several hundred points immediately after these tweets went out.
Wallace also noted that while Trump’s economic advisors Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro have recently talked up “optimism” about the economy and said that trade talks with China are on track, the president keeps sending out tweets that undercut the message and give the impression that he is “flailing.”
“The president isn’t responding well to this,” Wallace concluded with yet another understatement referencing China’s Friday announcement that it will impose a further $75 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods.
Watch the video above, via Fox News.
