Trump brags about 200 trade deals he’s definitely made
President Donald Trump, in a rambling and frankly terrifying interview with Time magazine, claimed that he’s made 200 trade deals with countries across the world, but he wouldn’t give any details about what those purported deals entail—because he is obviously lying.
“[T]here’s many deals,” Trump told Time, responding to a question about whether he’s made progress on his administration’s promise to make 90 trade deals in 90 days.
“You have to understand, I’m dealing with all the companies, very friendly countries. We’re meeting with China. We’re doing fine with everybody. But ultimately, I’ve made all the deals,” Trump continued, adding that he’s made “200” deals that he will announce “over the next three to four weeks.”
There are only 195 countries enrolled in or recognized by the United Nations, so his claim of 200 suggests some countries have multiple trade deals.
But the clearer signal that Trump is lying is that if he had made the deals, he would have announced them. After all, that would likely quiet the stock market, which has plummeted amid fears that Trump’s dumb economic policy will spike inflation and sink the U.S. into a deep and painful recession.
CEOs of major U.S. retailers have warned Trump that his punishing tariffs on China will leave store shelves bare and increase inflation that will cause Americans serious pain. Freight shipments at U.S. ports are down precipitously, and time is running out for Trump to change course to avoid economic calamity.
Trump also invoked former President Joe Biden’s name 12 times in the interview, an effort to try to make himself look better despite the fact that his standing with voters has fallen dramatically.
In one especially preposterous exchange, Trump told the Time interviewer that Biden “wouldn’t do an interview because he was grossly incompetent.”
Time then told Trump that Biden did do an interview with the outlet last year, to which Trump replied, “How did he do?” When Time said that Trump could read the interview himself, Trump responded, “I did read the interview. He didn’t do well. He didn’t do well at all. He didn’t do well at anything. And he cut that interview off to being a matter of minutes, and you weren’t asking him questions like you’re asking me.”
So apparently, Trump read an interview he didn’t even know had happened.
Throughout the interview, Trump spoke in circles and showed he had little understanding of economic, foreign, or domestic policy.
For example, he lied about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man Trump wrongly shipped off to a prison in El Salvador and is refusing to bring back despite a Supreme Court order to do so.
Trump claimed he hasn’t asked the Salvadoran president to return Garcia because Trump’s lawyers haven’t told him to do that. And he then asserted without evidence that Garcia is a member of MS-13 because he had MS-13 tattooed on his hands—which he does not.
Trump said:
I believe that they made him look like a saint, and then we found out about him. He wasn’t a saint. He was MS-13. He was a wife beater and he had a lot of things that were very bad, you know, very, very bad. When I first heard of the situation, I was not happy, and then I found out that he was a person who was an MS-13 member. And in fact, he had a tattooed right on his—I’m sure you saw that—he had it tattooed right on his knuckles: MS-13. No, I believe he’s a man who has got quite a past. This is no longer just a nice, wonderful man from Maryland, which people, which the fake news had me and other people for a period of time believing. Now, nobody believes that.
Of course, polling shows that Americans do not approve of Trump’s deportation of immigrants to El Salvador, and that 50% want Trump to bring Garcia back.
Ultimately, there’s a quote from the movie “Billy Madison” that sums up the batshit crazy Time magazine interview better than anything else.
After the titular character Billy Madison, played by Adam Sandler, gives a painfully stupid answer during a game-show-style quiz, the moderator replies:
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Truly, with an idiot like Trump at the nation’s helm, may God have mercy on all of our souls.