RUSH: Reuters, folks, Reuters. Presidents, they’re supposed to forget all the horrible things said about them in campaigns and hire these amazing people anyway. That is the operative, ongoing theory. Ah, Republicans are not supposed to, presidents are not supposed to pay attention to that stuff. Well, it’s about time they did! It’s like all these former Obamaites in the media going nuts over Trump supposedly disrespecting our trading partners at the G7. They’ve got it all wrong.
The days of the United States being the piggy bank for the world are over! Trump campaigned on this. This isn’t anything new. This isn’t anything people should be surprised about. Trump made a big deal out of trade imbalances and trade deals. And it’s been obvious for the longest time that not only G7, G8, G20, United Nations, the rest of the world looks at the United States as a provider.
And we have had administration after administration and political energy for I don’t know how long that simply agreed with that premise for whatever silly reasoning. “Well, it’s not fair, we’re such a big economy. It’s not fair, we’re such a large superpower. So, yeah, we’ll let other people have some of what we have.” Well, every time that happens it costs the American taxpayer.
These are not poor countries that we are talking about, Canada, the United Kingdom, the rest of the G7. But the idea that the United States is a piggy bank and that it’s open and that we have some sort of a duty to run trade deficits with people to lose money with them, where did that start? Well, as far as Trump’s concerned, those days are over. And he campaigned on it. And it makes 100 percent total sense.
If we could get to the end of these trade imbalances, we wouldn’t need tariffs or taxes or any of these other punitive deals; we could have genuine, fair, and free trade. But, you know, where is it written the United States is supposed to take it on the chin in these deals? And what this is, I’ll tell you, it’s no more complicated than Donald Trump looking out for the average American citizen, whereas the Washington political class really hasn’t and doesn’t.
They just expect you to follow along and go along ’cause there’s nothing you can do to stop it anyway because all of this is way above your pay grade. “You can’t possibly comprehend trade deals. You can’t possibly understand the macro and microagreements and policies that we have with our trading partners. It’s just beyond you to understand it. That’s why we are here. We are your betters; we are your superiors.”
And for Trump it’s not about that at all. It’s not about class. It’s not about elites. It’s about America not being the joke of the world. It’s about America not being Santa Claus to the rest of the world. It’s about people paying their own way and carrying their own weight and so forth. And look at the reaction. When Donald Trump asserts a position, domestically, foreign policy-wise, when he asserts a position that is a testament to America’s power and greatness and to fairness, look at the reaction. It is unhinged and it’s deranged.
And this is because it’s just been this way for who knows how long. This is the way it’s always been done. Trump got elected on the premise that the way it’s always been done has not been good for America. And he’s in the process of reversing this. And he is succeeding. And look at, as I say, unhinged reaction from people upset that economic circumstances for all Americans are improving.
You would think that there would be robust happiness, that people would want to get behind this, ’cause we’ve all believed all of our lives that that’s what Washington was, looking out for us. Well, now we see that that’s not necessarily been the case. We’ve been the stooges. We’ve been the ones expected to pay for all of this. They’re not using their money to run these trade imbalances. And we’re supposed to smile and say, “This is what being an American means.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The trade business, let me see if I can get you right on something. As I have watched this, I’ve watched Trump being interviewed by journalists who don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s a fascinating thing. So many of these reporters now are under 30, like this babe that had the affair with the security director of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Anyway, they really don’t know anything. But they think they do. They think they’re experts on so much.
And so a CNN reporter — we’ve got the audio coming up at some point. I haven’t had a chance to organize it. Forty sound bites. Just give me a chance to put it all together, which we will do. But Trump explains the whole situation on tariffs and trade imbalances perfectly over and over in very simple terms that you would think that even a CNN reporter might be able to understand. And yet they don’t.
And you know what? I have not seen anybody challenge him on the facts that he presents. They might run around and say he’s using incorrect numbers, but they do not challenge him on the facts, just like they never challenge me on other conservatives on issues. They go after us personally for thing to try to discredit it, but they never take us on in the heart of issues. No one challenges Trump on the facts that he presents. They challenge him on his uncouth behavior, in their mind. They challenge him on his unfitness. They challenge him on all of these style things that they find abhorrent.
So they had these Trump-is-terrible temper tantrums that they think serve as actual debate. Now, here’s the thing. Trade imbalances, the trade surplus or the trade deficit, trade deals, this is, for many people, an esoteric type of issue. They don’t really know that much about it, except when it’s explained in a very simple and noncomplex way, like Trump does. But it never approached an issue over which votes turned, or on which votes turned. I mean, it was a trade, trade deals, trade imbalance, pre-Trump. Presidents talked about them, candidates talked about them, but it was never the issue on which an election turned.
But with Trump, the issue has been brought to the forefront. And a lot of people who at points in the past didn’t understand it, didn’t pay much attention to it, have had their eyes opened by all of this. And what people are beginning to realize is that we, the United States, have been literally propping up the entire world by bending over to every single country to give them this cushy deal on trade because we think we are obligated to.
They were obliterated during wartime. They were devastated economically. Their geography was altered. We had a duty to help them rebuild because we were capable, we were big enough, we had the money, we had the economy, we had the growth, we had the productive population. And so it fell to us. And we accepted it as leaders of the free world. But like any other entitlement, after a while people stop appreciating it and start expecting it. And Canada, in many ways, depending on who their leaders are, like this Trudeau kid obviously expect it. Angela Merkel expects it. All the NATO people expect it. The days of appreciation are over.
And Trump has come along and said, “Wait a minute. A thank-you would be nice. And maybe get rid of these tariffs that are hurting our people. There’s no reason to run a trade imbalance where you benefit at our expense. Those days are over. It’s not gonna happen anymore.” Makes perfect sense. People blow up. Can’t deal with it. Trump is upsetting the world order or what have you.
But what people are finally seeing is that these massive trade deals have been almost like a gigantic reparation program. Do you know the collective gross domestic product of the G7 countries is less — if you add them all up — less than our GDP? And that’s all you really need to know about Trump’s negotiating power. We have a stronger, bigger economy than all of theirs combined. And that, by the way, is one of the reasons why so many administrations and so many areas of government have been acquiescent to the idea that we owe them. Classic guilt.
And guilt ends up being used to pay other people. We’re guilted into believing by any number of people, countries that are less fortunate than we are, we have the responsibility to change that by giving things to them. Not by helping them grow on their own.
You know, when I was out these past couple days, at lunch one day the various aspects of politics came up. And I forget what the exact question was, but I looked at whoever asked me this question, and it was a traditional, “So who do you think the Republican nominee’s gonna be in 2020?” Who can possibly know? “Who do you think the Democrats are gonna run?” Well, I originally thought Bernie Sanders, but do you know what? The Democrat National Committee is getting ready to screw him again.
Have you people heard about this? The Democrat National Committee is going to pass a regulation saying that nobody but official Democrats can seek their nomination. Well, Bernie’s not a Democrat; he’s an Independent. They’re gonna whack the guy again. Now, some are claiming it’s nothing more than superdelegate reform.
But, anyway, in this conversation, I said you know what amazes me about the political class from a professional point of view? They still do not seem interested in learning how and why Donald Trump won. I guess it’s because they’re afraid to admit that there are things they don’t know. Remember, these consultants are experts. They’re the people that Jeb Bush gave a hundred million dollars to, and they got him three delegates. A hundred million dollars, and Jeb got three delegates.
I said, “If I were one of these political professionals, I would know by now who it was that voted for Trump and why. I would want to try to find out how to get ’em, how to get ’em to turn away from Trump,” but there doesn’t seem to be any interest in this at all, and that is arrogance and hubris. They don’t want to know. All they want to do is overturn the election. All they want to do is overturn that result. They’re not interested in learning.
And what does it all mean? It means that when you get down to the nitty-gritty, they’re not really interested in what voters want or prefer. The game, apparently, is to fool voters into thinking that candidate A with consultant B is going to provide them what they care about and be interested in it, but it’s all just lip service. And the Democrats the same boat. They cannot, they simply cannot get over the fact that they lost. They’re going nuts at the same time, rather than trying to figure out who voted for Trump, why they didn’t vote for Hillary, why did they lose.
If I were a political professional, that’d be the first thing I would have wanted to know. But not these people. They exist in a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that they were the problem.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’re at the stage now, ladies and gentlemen, where the media has a fallback position. When Trump does well, when Trump defies them, when Trump succeeds, the fallback position is Trump is mentally ill, Trump is unstable, Trump may not be altogether. Trump may not be making sense out there.
“John Harwood made the remarks on MSNBC. Trump used the press conference to take a hard stance on tariffs, warning allies not to retaliate against U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel.
“Harwood said, ‘I’ll be honest as a citizen: I’m concerned about the president’s state of mind. He did not look well to me in that press conference. He was not speaking logically or rationally. It sounded as if he was making stuff up.'” “I am just worried.” This is a common refrain.
So let’s go to some audio sound bites here. We will start Saturday in Quebec at the end of the summit. Trump held a press conference. During the Q&A, a reporter said, “Mr. President, you said that this was a positive meeting. But from the outside, it seemed quite contentious. Did you get any indication from your interlocutors that they were gonna make any concessions to you? And I believe that you raised the idea of a tariff-free G7.”
THE PRESIDENT: I did. Oh, I did. No tariffs, no barriers. That’s the way it should be. Let’s say Canada, the United States pays tremendous tariffs on dairy, as an example, 270%. Nobody knows that. So you go tariff free, you go barrier free, you go subsidy free. That’s the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance. It’s gotta change. It’s not a question of I hope it changes. It’s gonna change a hundred percent. And tariffs are gonna come way down because people cannot continue to do that. We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing, and that ends.
RUSH: Okay. There it. And that is the point. All these people having a conniption fit, that’s why Trump was elected. The people that voted for him did so knowingly. It really is astounding. I keep telling myself these people have made no effort to understand Trump voters. And maybe that’s true. I know they hold them in contempt, and I do think they probably haven’t taken much time to learn why Trump voters voted for Trump. They just assumed that they were fooled, maybe it was something about Hillary, but it just can’t be Trump ’cause Trump’s stupid, Trump is an idiot. It’s gotta be something else, some sort of a protest vote or what have you.
But it’s seen as a one-off and something not serious. And so they don’t have to dig deep and learn what’s going on. But Trump was crystal clear about all of this during the campaign. And it was one of the reasons he was elected. Another reporter said, “Look, as you were headed into these talks, there was a sense that America’s closest allies are frustrated with you and angry with you and that you were angry with them and that you were leaving here early to go meet more friendlier talks with Kim Jong-un in Singapore.”
THE PRESIDENT: Who are you with? I’m curious, sir.
REPORTER: CNN.
RUSH: Now, there’s a couple pictures being bandied about that show Trump seated with the other G7 leaders standing at a table, and it looks like that they are leaning over Trump and berating him, and he’s sitting there sheepishly with his arms folded in front of him, and it was misreported as these people berating Trump and refusing Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted: You people weren’t there and we were, and what that photo is, that photo actually was taken during a negotiating session and these people were frustrated because Trump was not giving them what they want, and they couldn’t believe it.
They’ve always gotten America to do what they want America to do. And Trump is refusing to do it because in his view it’s not in America’s best interests. So he simply said “no” to them. And in diplomatic circles, you don’t say “no,” period, and you don’t do it the way Trump does. There’s a second picture taken shortly after the first picture, the only one they’re really showing. The second picture has everybody laughing and having a good time.
The next question, “President Trump today said that he would cut off trade with countries, that if you retaliate on steel and tariffs as you plan to do on July 1st, that you’re making a mistake, Mr. Trudeau. How seriously do you take that threat? Does that change your plans to go ahead with retaliatory tariffs?”
TRUDEAU: It’s kind of insulting. And I highlighted that it was not helping in our renegotiation of NAFTA and that it would be with regret but it would be with absolute certainty and firmness that we move forward with retaliatory measures on July 1st, applying equivalent tariffs to the ones that the Americans have unjustly applied to us. I have made it very clear to the president that it is not something that we relish doing, but it’s something that we absolutely will do, because Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.
RUSH: See, their definition of being pushed around is being told “no,” after having been told yes, whatever you need, whatever you want, fine. Trump’s telling ’em no, we’re through running trade deficits with you. We’re finished with you ending up raising prices and raising taxes, essentially, on the American workers and the American people. And they’re just not used to being told “no.”
Now, this press conference Trudeau did did not sit well with Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro. Here is Kudlow on CNN’s State of the Union yesterday. Jake Tapper said, “What did Trudeau say that was so offensive? I mean, Trump accused him of lying, so what do you expect Trudeau to do?”
KUDLOW: He says that we are the problem with tariffs. They have enormous tariffs. I mean, they have tariffs on certain dairy and food products of 290, 295 percent. He really kind of stabbed us in the back. He did a great disservice to the whole G7. They were united in the G7. They came together. President Trump was charming, good faith, and they were getting along famously. President Trump actually — and this is music to my ears, Jake — he went through those two days of conference talking about the need for a new free trade system, no tariffs. We were coming together beautifully, okay? And then he goes out there and pulls this amateur political stunt.
RUSH: And next up is Peter Navarro. He is the National Trade Council director for Trump. He was on Fox News Sunday. Chris Wallace said, “Is that really how we want to deal with our second biggest trading partner?”
NAVARRO: Chris, there’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That’s what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did. As soon as the plane took off from Canadian airspace, Trudeau stuck our president in the back. That will not stand.
RUSH: Ah, it won’t. This is the kind of stuff that comes back and bites people in due course.
Quickly back to the phones, Greg in West Richland, what is that, Washington?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Great, welcome to program, sir. How are you?
CALLER: Rush, it’s an honor. In addition to the unfair trade practices with Canada and how they’ve been taking advantage of the United States for a good many years, one thing that’s also been kind of overlooked I think, or not talked about much is with our military might such as it is, so many of our enemies that would love to perhaps take over and move into Canada and take advantage of Canada wouldn’t think of doing it with the United State’s military might and us protecting Canada.
RUSH: Well, maybe. I don’t know that defense — I mean, the idea that somebody’s gonna attack Canada in order to get close to the U.S., that would be a tantamount attack on the U.S., and it wouldn’t stand. I mean it may be relevant to you, but I think the thing that’s really happening here that everybody needs to take note of is that Donald Trump campaigned on reorienting, resetting the table about how Washington operates domestically and internationally. And it’s no more complicated than putting America first and making America great.
All you have to do to understand what’s going on is understand that. And then all you have to do to understand the people upset about it is to ask, why in the world do they have a problem with putting America first? Americans? Why do they have a problem with America being made great again? They do! Why? They’re the ones that ought to be answering questions, not Trump.
What Trump is doing is utter common sense. What Trump is doing is spelled out in the Constitution. Trump is not talking about world domination; he’s not talking about conquering other countries; he’s not talking about mistreating them. He’s simply talking about reasserting America’s dominance because America’s dominance is good for the rest of the world. That’s always been the deal. That has always been the way it is.
American leadership, American strength, America defending freedom and liberty wherever it’s under assault, including our own country has been the definition of America’s role in the world. And for any of that to happen, America has to be strong; America has to be confident; America has to be proud; and America cannot be bullied or taken advantage of or be thought of as able to be taken advantage of.
And all Donald Trump is doing is resetting this table after years and years and years of the political class in Washington believing something just the opposite. It was personified in the Obama administration. We are at a new era: the transformation of our country into a new decline and that we should get used to it. America’s best economic days may indeed be behind us, they said, and it may be now that America’s children will not do better than their parents as an expectation. We need to reorient ourselves, they told us, to this new reality, that America, as the big horse in the world, those days are over.
This whole notion of American exceptionalism, who are we, who are we to tell other countries what they can and can’t do? So gone was American moral authority. Gone was American political authority. Gone was the whole concept of American goodness, American decency, American might. All of that shaved away at the expense of everything becoming global and managed by a select few group of people.
They heard what he said during the campaign, no way he’s gonna get elected. Then after he got elect, no way he’s gonna be able to pull this off, doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s not gonna have anybody help him out. Turns out he doesn’t need a whole lot of advisers, but he’s got some good ones now. And they just continue to exist in a state of constant disbelief each and every day. It’s really kind of stupefying when you realize that these people, supposedly brilliant and smart, and they can’t find a way to outsmart this guy and stop him, when it’s basically all of them against him alone.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So while most of the left is trying to talk themselves into Trump blowing up the G7, getting ready to lose in talks to Kim Jong-un, destroying America, embarrassing America, we now turn to Fareed Zakaria global positioning satellite on his Sunday morning show Fareed Zakaria global position satellite. And here is his assessment of where things are.
ZAKARIA: Over the last decade, the center-left has been destroyed electorally across the West. Unless Democrats face up to this reality and devise a strategy to reverse this tidal wave of defeat, they might find themselves surprised one more time this November. But they are not alone. Britain’s David Miliband observed in 2011 that the year before the Labor Party had received its second worst electoral result in a century. In Germany in 2009, the once dominant social Democrats had their worst showing since the federal republic was created in 1949. In France for the establishment left, recent results have been worse than at any time since 1969.
RUSH: Okay. So what is Fareed Zakaria Global Positioning Satellite saying here? He said the center-left has been destroyed electorally across the West. What he’s saying is two things. Republicans and conservatives are winning elections but also the radical left is taking over the center-left, if there even is such a thing. I doubt that.
What he means by center-left is the traditional Democrats of 30 years ago in the United States. They’re gone. They’re being overrun and thrown out and the radical left is taking over, and the radical left is who is losing elections. Because, folks, they really are a minority. I don’t care what you think watching them, they are a minority.
Quick phone call before we have to go. Rancho Santa Fe, California, Peter. You’re next. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Good morning. Trump’s backhanded refusal of a G7 agreement had nothing to do with the G6. They just got outfoxed. The G6 played into Trump’s ultimate North Korea strategy. By refuting the G7 mutual agreement, the president served Kim Jong-un a platter of reality. “Deal with me, ’cause I’m not afraid of anyone or any country, including our allies, and especially our adversaries.”
RUSH: You know, that’s a good point. I have to endorse that. You do have to look a couple moves ahead with Trump. “He’s not smart enough to do that, Mr. Limbaugh. Trump is such an idiot.” Kim Jong-un, you know, he went for a late-night tourist drive around Singapore with the media in tow. I mean, it was just a joke. So much of what the media engages in lately is just a joke.
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