CNBC Journalists Crack Up as Tim Scott Tries to Explain Trump Tariffs
Tim Scott continues to be a laughingstock of the Republican Party with his latest comments.
Joining CNBC’s Squawk Box on Tuesday, Scott made the entire roundtable laugh when he desperately tried to defend Donald Trump’s economic plans.
“Do you agree with all the tariffs?” Joe Kernen asked, referring to Trump’s isolationist economic agenda. “John Deere, 200 percent? Do you think companies that make stuff here should be at 15 percent tax? That’s industrial policy, isn’t it?”
“I believe that President Trump often times talks in the abstract,” the South Carolina senator responded.
CNBC hosts laughed at the ridiculous nonanswer. “What are we supposed to believe then?” asked one journalist.
CNBC: Do you agree with all the tariffs?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 2, 2024
TIM SCOTT: I believe President Trump often talks in the abstract
CNBC: What are we supposed to believe then?
SCOTT: Believe in his performance
CNBC: That excludes covid, right? pic.twitter.com/YrrXXik6ki
“Believe his performance,” said Scott. “Believe what we saw from 2017 to 2020.” He then proceeded to stumble over words and throw out numbers about jobs Trump brought home.
“Obviously, that excludes Covid,” said the CNBC host, referring to the devastation the economy and everyday people endured while Trump was president in 2020—as well as its effects on how we compare economic numbers under the Trump and Biden administrations.
While Trump’s team continues to slam Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the economy, as the hosts pointed out, they want economists and pundits to cherry-pick the highlights of Trump’s time as president.
It’s not a surprise that Scott can’t defend Trump’s economic plan. When Scott was running for president last year, he openly criticized Trump’s tariff plan on the campaign trail. “An across-the-board 10 percent [tariff would] increase … the cost of everything,” Scott told The New York Post a year ago. “In the current inflationary environment [that] would not be helpful.”
In reality, experts are warning that Trump’s economic plans, including his new tariff policies, might be even more harmful during a second go-around.
“Despite his ‘make the foreigners pay’ rhetoric, this package of policies does more damage to the US economy than to any other in the world,” wrote independent nonprofit nonpartisan researchers at the Peterson Institute in a report from September.