Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
A few of my friends work in corporate public relations. One of the things they perform is called “media training.”
This means that they work with executives on developing the skills to deal with the press. A primary focus is on interviews and press conferences.
Even if things are going swimmingly well corporate-wise there is always the likelihood that there will be a question or two that the executive really ought not answer in a forthright way.
Two methods to handle that are to deflect and ignore.
Sometimes the two are combined into one.
Let’s say the executive is at an automobile company. It so happens that there are reports people are having trouble getting their cars started.
A journalist asks what the company is doing to help these people who that problem.
The executive, having been trained, answers:
“That’s a good question.” He doesn’t believe it is a good question, but by saying that, the journalist feel fairly chuffed with her- or him-self for asking a good question. It is just human nature.
The exec continues:
“But you know, one of the things that we really think people ought to focus on is the quality of the interior that we’ve crafted for the Pompeii XL. I like to think of it as an interior that people can spend all day sitting in. And did I mention the 16-inch screen for streaming your favorite shows. . . ?”
Note how the answer is focused on what the exec wants to talk about (the interior) not what the journalist asked about (the ignition issue).
Politicians who have a comms person on staff do the same thing. Watch Meet the Press and listen to the question and how it is answered. There is generally a disconnect between the two. (The sad thing is that Kristen Welker rarely pushes back on the guest so there is nothing near the answer being sought while the journalist asking about the starting problem probably doesn’t let it go.)
The point is, in the answer there is always a message that the interviewee wants to get across.
Which brings us to Donald Trump and his recent interview with Time magazine.
Team Trump, including the captain, have been out in public since the ill-named “Liberation Day” touting all of the “deals” being made with countries who were on the list of those who would be having tariffs applied to their goods — goods, let us not forget, that Americans want to buy — tariffs, let us not forget, that Americans will be paying.
In effect, they’ve been claiming that the phone in the White House has, to use a Joe Biden, old-timey phrase, “ringing off the hook.” Leaders, it is claimed, that are desperate to “cut a deal” with Trump. And we know who “holds all the cards.”
Last week, for example, Trump claimed that they were getting very close to a deal with China.
According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun, China and the US had “not conducted consultations or negotiations on tariffs, let alone reached an agreement.”
While Guo Jiakun might be spinning things for the China side, it is worth noting that also last week the Chinese canceled an order for 12,000 metric tons of US pork—the largest cancellation since 2020.
Presumably if things were going well, that wouldn’t have happened.
The Time interviewers asked Trump about the “deals.” Why no “deals” have been announced.
He replied, “No, there’s many deals.”
The Time interviewers followed up: “When are they going to be announced?”
Trump: “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.”
Companies. Countries. China. Take your pick.
And he, naturally, takes credit for having made the deals.
Huge credit to Time Senior Political Correspondent Eric Cortellessa and Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs for following that answer by asking, again, when they’d be announced.
Trump: “I’ve made 200 deals.”
Time: “You’ve made 200 deals?”
Trump: “100%.”
Time: “Can you share with whom?”
And here is the answer, an answer that makes one wonder whether Trump’s media team consists of geniuses or the polar opposite. Or perhaps Trump, and let’s not forget he is getting up there in years, is manifesting the polar opposite of Biden’s debate performance on June 27, 2024, when Biden seemed incapable of stringing together a few words.
Now remember, this is a simple question. Trump said he has made 200 deals on tariffs. The question is to name one (although some might parse “Can you share with whom?” as being a question about whether he is able to name names, which could have resulted in a binary answer: Yes or No.).
Trump: “Because the deal is a deal that I choose. View it differently: We are a department store, and we set the price. I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price, and they can pay it, or they don’t have to pay it. They don’t have to do business with the United States, but I set a tariff on countries. Some have been horrible to us. Some have been okay. Nobody’s been great. Nobody’s been great. Everybody took advantage of us. What I’m doing is I will, at a certain point in the not-too-distant future, I will set a fair price of tariffs for different countries. These are countries — some of them have made hundreds of billions of dollars, and some of them have made just a lot of money. Very few of them have made nothing because the States was being ripped off by every, almost every country in the world, in the entire world. So I will set a price, and when I set the price, and I will set it fairly according to the statistics, and according to everything else. For instance, do they have the VAT system in play?
“Do they charge us tariffs? How much are they charging us? How much have they been charging us? Many, many different factors, right. How are we being treated by that country? And then I will set a tariff. Are we paying for their military? You know, as an example, we have Korea. We pay billions of dollars for the military. Japan, billions for those and others. But that, I’m going to keep us a separate item, the paying of the military. Germany, we have 50,000 soldiers —"
I’m sorry, but this is the President of the United States answering a simple question.
What does this mean: “So I will set a price, and when I set the price, and I will set it fairly according to the statistics, and according to everything else.”
What statistics? And what’s “everything else”? After all, it has been shown that the “Liberation Day” tariff numbers were essentially based on how much a country exports to the US and what the trade deficit is with that country: numerator, denominator, voila! Not exactly the sort of economic assessment that you’d figure would be made by the most powerful nation in the world.
Yes, part of the “everything else” includes tariffs that other countries charge US goods — but notice he uses that three times in his answer.
“How are we being treated by that country?” Yes, one can make an argument against China, but Canada?
Is Trump’s an example of “the weave”?
Or is this the answer of a man who doesn’t know what he is talking about — while the US pork farmers are trying to figure out what they’ll do with the canceled order from China, while the US automakers are trying to figure out how they’ll handle the tariffs (not only on vehicles, but on the steel and aluminum used to make vehicles), while Boeing, which has been not doing at all well during the past several months, assesses how it will deal with the 50 planes it was planning to export to China (41 of which have been built) that the Chinese are no longer accepting — a financial hit to Boeing of more than $1-billion. . . .
At some point there is going to have to be an acknowledgement that while the US farmers and manufacturers are experiencing serious issues, in some cases actually existential issues, Donald Trump is not a serious man.
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, where he writes primarily for the right column.