An agitated President Donald Trump called a reporter a “lunatic” — minutes after bashing another reporter — during a question-and-answer session Thursday afternoon, reacting to a question about his tariff policy.
“As you know, a federal appellate court today heard oral arguments about whether or not you had the authority to unilaterally impose those tariffs,” the reporter told Trump. “I’m not going to get you to weigh in on the legal arguments, but you’re weighing your decision to do that, your authority to do that, based on a 1977 law.”
The reporter noted the law has never been invoked.
“Why didn’t you invoke this law —” the reporter began, as Trump tried to interject.
“Well, we’ve been winning all along,” Trump began to reply.
But the reporter refused to let the president cut him off.
“I just want to ask you, why didn’t you invoke this law in your first term?” the reporter asked. “You could’ve taken billions upon billions of dollars in your first term, but you waited until your second term.”
Trump, now visibly frustrated, took a shot at the reporter.
“Yeah, because I was fighting lunatics like you who were trying to do things incorrectly and inappropriately to a president that was duly elected,” he fired back.
Trump insisted they did levy tariffs during his first term, including slapping them on China.
“We took in hundreds of billions from China,” he said.
Trump said he also planned to hit France, Italy, Spain, and other countries with tariffs, only to be thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump concluded, “We took in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs,” before giving the reporter a parting shot.
“You people didn’t cover it very well,” he said.
Trump placed tariffs on China in a March 2018 memo, slapping tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods due to concerns about Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property. The first tariffs of 25% began in July of that year, with the remaining beginning in August 2018. Additional tariffs were imposed on Chinese imports the following year.