"I made him": Trump launches into rant in "unhinged" interview
US president Donald Trump had yet another meltdown as he launched into long tirades in a phone interview with Fox Business Network on Wednesday morning.
Speaking to host Maria Bartiromo, Trump started the interview by responding to the news that Robert Mueller is set to testify next month about his investigation into Russian election interference and possible obstruction by the 45th President.
Trump described Mueller as “obviously not a Trump fan” as he continued to deny any obstruction on his part.
“It never ends. We had no obstruction, we had no collusion,” Trump said. “It’s hard to have obstruction when you have no crime … You didn’t have crime. You had crime on the other side.”
In his report earlier this year, Mueller found 10 incidents in which Trump was found to be obstructing justice, including a case where Trump told a White House lawyer to lie on record.
When the interview shifted to the topic of trade negotiations with China, Trump insisted that “China’s paying for it” in a series of statements that mischaracterised how tariffs work.
“We had a deal with [China], and it was very close, we were just finishing it, and you know my whole life is deals. I know when we have them and when we don’t – like with Mexico, we made a deal with Mexico… they know what we have, and if we don’t have intellectual property, theft protections, the opening of China… if we don’t have the opening of China, if we don’t have the things we negotiated, maybe even more than that… and right now, look, we’re getting 25 per cent on $250 billion worth of goods, nobody ever heard of such a thing, it’s massive amount of money. Don’t play, don’t let anyone tell you that China’s not paying for it, China’s paying for it… and we’re not paying for any of it.”
Trump continued: “Since tariffs have been on, the market has been going through the roof if you know what I’m talking about… Now you have another $325 billion I haven’t taxed yet. It’s ripe for taxing. For putting tariffs on… It‘s been an incredible thing. Am I happy now? Absolutely…. When you say, ‘Are we going to make a deal?’ It’s possible we’re going to make a deal, but I’m also very happy where we are now, we’re taking in a fortune…. There’s no way you can beat the tariffs, there‘s no way you can make that money… [the tariffs] help us in ways that nobody even wants to talk about, that I don’t want to talk about them.”
When asked about any possible deals with Europe, Trump declared, “Europe treats us worse than China… I come from Europe, you come from Europe, you’re of the European nations. European nations were set up in order to take advantage of the United States.”
He criticised the trade policies of the European Union before emphasising Vietnam as “almost the single worst abuser of everybody”.
Trump also attacked his handpicked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell after the latter stressed the central bank’s “independence” and warned about the dangers of changing policy for “short-term political interests” in a speech on Tuesday.
“Here’s a guy – nobody ever heard of him before. And now, I made him, and he wants to show how tough he is, okay,” said Trump. “Let him show how tough he is. He’s a – he’s not doing a good job.”
Trump also said he would like to trade in Powell for European Central Bank president Mario Draghi.
“We should have Draghi instead of our Fed person. Draghi, as you know, last week he said lower interest rates and we’re going to stimulate the economy… and with us we have a Fed that keeps raising interest rates.”