Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / Trump denies offering to sell weapons to China's Xi

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Trump denies offering to sell weapons to China's Xi · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Did Donald Trump illegally offer to sell weapons to China?
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Here's his U.S. ambassador.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: President Trump has already sold 50 percent more arms to
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Taiwan than any other president since 1979. And so I
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: don't accept the premise that, you know, he's not doing
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: all that we should be doing for Taiwan.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Twenty billion dollars in aid and armaments.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: Will that be expedited?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Well, earlier, President Trump's already approved 11 billion. There are
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: continuing conversations about other sales. He and President Xi talk
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: about that every time they get together. But President Trump
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: around the world. He actually asked President Xi would he
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: like to buy some at one point.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Those comments come as CNN has learned that China has
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: been helping Iran target the United States and its military
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: sites in the Middle East. The State Department responded to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the ambassador's comments, noting that it is against the law
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to sell arms to China and that there is no
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: offer or plan to do so. President Trump also denied it.
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: Is that accurate?
• 1:07
  Speaker 6: Did you make such a suggestion?
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: To China?
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: To China.
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: You mean to Taiwan?
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: No, to China.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: That's what he said.
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: I never heard of that one. I'm going to have
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: to ask him. You mean we're going to sell? No,
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: they'd probably like to buy it because we do make
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: better equipment than that. So maybe it's a good idea.
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: but we didn't discuss it. They may have been talking
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: about that one. I think he probably was talking about
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: that one.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: Out front now, retired Army Major General Randy Manor. And General,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: that's the point. Perdue did not think he was saying
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: anything wrong by telling the world what Trump said in
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: that room. And in fact, he was proud of it.
• 1:42
  Speaker 7: It's very disconcerting. Here we have somebody who cannot remember
• 1:45
  Speaker 7: what they said, obviously something that was illegal. I mean,
• 1:48
  Speaker 7: it sounds very much like that that very senior elderly
• 1:52
  Speaker 7: uncle that's suffering from early stages of dementia, except for
• 1:55
  Speaker 7: in this case, that uncle happens to be the president
• 1:57
  Speaker 7: of the United States. It's very disconcerting when he cannot
• 2:00
  Speaker 7: even remember what he said, which again, if he even
• 2:02
  Speaker 7: said it, it would have been an illegal act.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: So, you know, context here, you know, Bloomberg's talking about
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: China intercepting incredibly sensitive F-35 stealth aircraft parts, including the canopy,
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: which is required for reverse engineering. I mean, this is
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: the most sophisticated technology you know, plane that we have,
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: you know, the context here is that, right? That they
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: diverted a shipment and they took it. So I guess
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: I'm curious in that context as to why do you
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: think President Trump, who's well aware of that F-35 issue,
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: as well as others even with the F-35s, why Trump
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: would even offer to sell the president of China weapons?
• 2:47
  Speaker 7: Again, I truly believe the president does not know what
• 2:49
  Speaker 7: he's talking about any longer on many issues. The fact
• 2:53
  Speaker 7: that that was a tremendous Chinese intelligence cue to be
• 2:58
  Speaker 7: able to literally sidetrack and steal that cargo vehicle, that
• 3:04
  Speaker 7: cargo container full of parts, that was amazing that they
• 3:07
  Speaker 7: pulled that off. And it was a tremendous loss to
• 3:10
  Speaker 7: the United States in terms of losing that to the Chinese,
• 3:13
  Speaker 7: let alone, of course, the Chinese government. hacking into defense
• 3:16
  Speaker 7: and defense contractor databases, which they have already done.
• 3:19
  Speaker 8: David Perdue, who is the U.S. envoy, the U.S. ambassador
• 3:23
  Speaker 8: to China, said that during this state visit, Trump asked
• 3:27
  Speaker 8: Xi if he wanted to buy American weapons. Do you
• 3:30
  Speaker 8: have concerns about that?
• 3:34
  Speaker 6: I couldn't believe the reporting when I read it. I'm
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: the top Democrat on the China committee. and I'm a
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, I'll tell you,
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: I don't think there's a single Republican on either of
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: those committees who would be for selling arms to China.
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: What they're for is that we stand by our assurances
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: and don't have China interfere in any of our arms
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: sales to Taiwan. So I don't know if the president
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: just got confused, but it is against the law to
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: be selling arms to China. And why in the world
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: would we want to do that when they are tightening
• 4:10
  Speaker 6: the noose militarily around Taiwan?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It's an odd thing for Ambassador Perdue to say. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I just think about what you were saying about the president,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: what he promised and how he campaigned. And he did,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: he campaigned so many times on this sort of tough
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: on China campaign. anti-China rhetoric, he could not be further
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: from that right now than where he is.
• 4:35
  Speaker 9: Well, I disagree because if you look at fentanyl, fentanyl
• 4:38
  Speaker 9: deaths in the United States are down 36%. And when
• 4:41
  Speaker 9: you think about that in the context of thousands of
• 4:44
  Speaker 9: American lives and people's brothers and loved ones and mothers
• 4:48
  Speaker 9: and siblings, that really means something. I mean, in the
• 4:51
  Speaker 9: last administration, the leading cause of death for young Americans
• 4:54
  Speaker 9: was fentanyl overdose deaths. And Trump did that by being
• 4:57
  Speaker 9: tough on China. You know, he said to Xi, I'm
• 4:59
  Speaker 9: going to do a 10% tariff if you don't stop
• 5:02
  Speaker 9: the flow of fentanyl precursors going to America.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, the drop in fentanyl deaths began
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: under Biden at the end of the Biden term.
• 5:09
  Speaker 9: Joe Biden did not do anything to tell Xi Jinping
• 5:13
  Speaker 9: to knock it off.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Let's just put on the table that what's driving the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: drop in fentanyl deaths is a multifaceted thing. It's not
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: just one thing. It's not just pressure on China. It's
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of things, and it started under Biden. So
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that's the only thing I would say. So what else, Caroline? Well,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: hold on.
• 5:29
  Speaker 8: I don't want to say what else, because this is serious.
• 5:31
  Speaker 8: This is the leading.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Cause of death for young Americans. But if your premise
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that this was solely driven by Trump's rhetorical pressure on China.
• 5:40
  Speaker 9: When it comes to.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Federal, I don't think that's accurate.
• 5:43
  Speaker 9: Because he told Xi it's a 10% tariff.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: Xi didn't back down.
• 5:46
  Speaker 8: He said it's a 20% tariff.
• 5:48
  Speaker 9: She said, I'm not going to back down. Now he
• 5:49
  Speaker 9: said it's a 20 percent tariff and it's an $ 800
• 5:52
  Speaker 9: de minimis non-exemption.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: You have to explain how the fentanyl deaths, drug deaths
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: began dropping before Donald Trump came into office. And if
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: you can't explain that with Trump's pressure on tariffs. then
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: it's just maybe one thing that contributed to it, but
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: it cannot explain the entire phenomenon.
• 6:12
  Speaker 9: Let me explain. Because I've spoken to families who knew
• 6:15
  Speaker 9: that the Biden administration didn't give a rat's ass about that.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Are you going to offer anything else?
• 6:18
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I am, because fentanyl precursors come 100% from China.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Are you going to offer anything else?
• 6:23
  Speaker 8: This is a huge deal. I'm so passionate about this
• 6:27
  Speaker 8: because I feel like you guys are being really dismissive.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Of the fact that nobody is being really dismissive of
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the fact that when you say, well, how did this start?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: How did this happen?
• 6:37
  Speaker 10: It's multifactorial.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: It's not multifactorial.
• 6:40
  Speaker 11: It could be multifactorial.
• 6:41
  Speaker 9: Federal precursors come 100% from China. And they stopped coming
• 6:45
  Speaker 9: from China because the president did something about it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 8: And that matters.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Let me just play what Trump has said about another
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: trading partner of ours that we are typically pretty close to.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: This is in stark contrast to what he has said
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: about China. This is about Canada. Listen.
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: Well, they want to have a deal with us. They
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: call us all the time. The problem is that they've
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: treated the United States very unfairly. They have been one
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: of the worst countries in the entire world. We get
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: along with China, we get along with the people, and
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: we make good deals, but Canada's been really very difficult
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: to deal with, actually. And they've charged our farmers 400%
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: tariffs and more. And they take advantage of us. They
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: feel entitled.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: So the truth is that Trump has been in an
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: escalatory trade war with China of his own making, right?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: But on this visit, he had almost nothing negative to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: say about China. And it seems like it did pay
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: off because one thing that he got that we know
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: of so far that benefits him the most is he
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: backed down on tariffs and so did China on some
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: key things that are important for the economy. Things like corn, wheat,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: frozen meat, seafood, cosmetics, medical devices, wood products, the list
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: goes on and on. It was a mutual back down,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: but one that Trump needs more.
• 8:21
  Speaker 11: Wait a minute, though. When Trump took over, the trade
• 8:25
  Speaker 11: deficit with China was $ 295 billion. Today, after the tariff policies.
• 8:29
  Speaker 6: It's $ 140 billion.
• 8:30
  Speaker 11: Now, I'm not going to defend all his tariff policies.
• 8:33
  Speaker 11: The Canadian tariffs are a head-scratcher for me still. But
• 8:37
  Speaker 11: tariffs on China were absolutely in order. China was absolutely
• 8:40
  Speaker 11: taking advantage of our market. Joe Biden had done nothing
• 8:43
  Speaker 11: to do it because Joe Biden was a weak president.
• 8:45
  Speaker 11: President Trump zeroed in on it. American workers are better
• 8:48
  Speaker 11: off now. And now that progress has been made, the
• 8:50
  Speaker 11: president is strategically adding things back into the mix. And
• 8:56
  Speaker 11: that's exactly what should happen. I mean, soybean farmers are
• 8:58
  Speaker 11: a little upset they're not on the list this week.
• 9:01
  Speaker 11: That would probably help politically and the Midwest some. But
• 9:04
  Speaker 11: it is right and good for us to ratchet the
• 9:07
  Speaker 11: pressure up on the Chinese until... They are fairer with
• 9:10
  Speaker 11: our economy.
• 9:10
  Speaker 8: That's the right thing to do.
• 9:11
  Speaker 7: But we're still talking about.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Tariffs as abstract.
• 9:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: We're talking about these big numbers. And I want to
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: point to one thing you even said about cosmetics, that
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: little portion. Every woman, since Trump has been president, has
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: had to pay more for things even like getting your
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: hair done. And when you talk to small business owners
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: across the country... Even beauticians, they talk about how some
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: of their supplies, because we get them from China, a
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: lot of beauty supplies, including hair extensions. One business owner, $ 300, 000
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: worth of stock stuck in an LA port, wasn't able
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: to recoup that whatsoever. He can talk about the conversations
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: he's had now. There are real Americans whose businesses are
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: on the brink because of actions he took.
• 9:47
  Speaker 11: If you can move back to Brazil or Mexico or
• 9:49
  Speaker 11: some other place that's comparable, that's not an enemy like China,
• 9:52
  Speaker 11: we'll all be better off. And there is a transition
• 9:54
  Speaker 11: to do that.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: Hold on.
• 9:55
  Speaker 8: One, I think you would be hard-pressed to find an
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: American worker who would say that they're better off now
• 9:58
  Speaker 8: than they were a year and a half ago. You're
• 10:00
  Speaker 8: just not going to find people who are going to
• 10:01
  Speaker 8: say that.
• 10:01
  Speaker 11: Construction jobs for the steel plant in Iowa, they're going
• 10:03
  Speaker 11: to be pretty happy about it.
• 10:04
  Speaker 8: According to ADP, we lost manufacturing jobs and construction jobs
• 10:06
  Speaker 8: last month.
• 10:07
  Speaker 11: Energy industry as a whole, they're all pretty happy.
• 10:09
  Speaker 8: I'm sure you've got a lot of stats trying to
• 10:10
  Speaker 8: prove this, but people sitting at home are not feeling
• 10:11
  Speaker 8: any good.
• 10:12
  Speaker 11: Mike, you can't be. They're not statistics.
• 10:14
  Speaker 8: They're real people who are suffering right now.
• 10:17
  Speaker 6: Rewind the tape.
• 10:17
  Speaker 11: Five minutes ago, you were saying it's a multifaceted problem.
• 10:19
  Speaker 8: I didn't say that.
• 10:20
  Speaker 11: That means you need to be honest and say, look,
• 10:22
  Speaker 11: there are some things in the economy that Donald Trump
• 10:25
  Speaker 11: has improved because we didn't have Joe Biden's weakness in
• 10:27
  Speaker 11: there doing it. The Chinese trade deficit is one of them.
• 10:30
  Speaker 8: Nobody sitting at home is buying this pro-Trump message.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I guess that's if you assume that trade deficits are
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: inherently bad, which is a completely disputed idea.
• 10:39
  Speaker 11: They're not inherently bad.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: They just represent.
• 10:42
  Speaker 8: The flow of trade from one country to another.
• 10:44
  Speaker 11: But with a line-cheating country like.
• 10:46
  Speaker 7: China, they are bad.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I get that. I get that on things that are important,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: but on combs, they're much less important. And so the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: idea of a trade deficit in and of itself is not,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that's Trump's way of looking at it, but it's not
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: actually economically significant because, yeah, Americans probably should pay less
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to get combs from China as opposed to manufacturing that
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in the United States. We don't need to manufacture combs
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: in the United States. And Americans don't need to pay
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: more for it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: We don't.
• 11:18
  Speaker 11: We should manufacture them in an ally, not an enemy.
• 11:20
  Speaker 11: We should make them in Brazil or Ecuador or Colombia,
• 11:22
  Speaker 11: not China.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: But if you listen to Trump, you wouldn't even know
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: that Trump.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: After this visit, I'm not sure.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't even know that China was an enemy and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: not an ally. Hold on.
• 11:30
  Speaker 8: Can I get an opportunity?
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: Because we started.
• 11:34
  Speaker 8: This conversation about whether or not Donald Trump was going
• 11:36
  Speaker 8: to sell weapons to China, and I think we shouldn't
• 11:38
  Speaker 8: lose sight of that. China is actively helping Iran right now.
• 11:41
  Speaker 8: We have at least 22 military service men and women
• 11:44
  Speaker 8: who have been killed. We have countless others that have
• 11:46
  Speaker 8: been wounded. They're lying about those numbers right now. And
• 11:48
  Speaker 8: what's Donald Trump doing? He's serving a beautiful dinner to
• 11:50
  Speaker 8: the Chinese government. He's lavishing them with praise while attacking
• 11:53
  Speaker 8: our enemies and promising to sell them weapons, which is illegal.
• 11:56
  Speaker 11: He should not offer to sell them weapons, even if
• 11:58
  Speaker 11: it's flippant.
• 11:59
  Speaker 8: I appreciate you saying that because a lot of Republicans
• 12:01
  Speaker 8: won't say that.
• 12:01
  Speaker 10: Trump understands two things about China, I think. First, that
• 12:04
  Speaker 10: it was wrong to offshore the entire manufacturing sector of
• 12:06
  Speaker 10: the American economy to China and other countries. And second,
• 12:10
  Speaker 10: he looks at the world as people who are getting screwed,
• 12:13
  Speaker 10: like Taiwan, and people who do that to them. And
• 12:16
  Speaker 10: he's much more comfortable dealing with the great powers. and
• 12:20
  Speaker 10: tossing aside, that's why every country in the world is
• 12:22
  Speaker 10: recalibrating its relationship with the United States under Trump, because
• 12:25
  Speaker 10: he won't commit unless you're a power that he has
• 12:28
  Speaker 10: to stand up to.