Donald Trump’s batshit crazypants answer regarding childcare was the part of his address to the New York Economic Club that deservedly attracted the most attention last week.
But I was interested in a response Trump gave to Sullivan & Cromwell Rodge Cohen regarding whether he would alter the sanctions against Russia.
H. RODGIN COHEN: Thank you, Bob, and thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. I would like to ask about the United States economic sanctions programs. These programs have been used, as you well know, to advance our national security interests, our foreign policy objectives, but they also have economic implications. And the most recent was the program against Russia in response to the Ukrainian – their invasion of Ukraine, where, for once, we got the support of all our allies. So my specific question is, would you strengthen or modify any of these economic sanctions programs, particularly Russia, including the pipeline you mentioned?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, it’s a great question. The problem with what we have with sanctions – and I was a user of sanctions, but I put them on and take them off as quickly as possible because, ultimately, it kills your dollar and it kills everything the dollar represents, and we have to continue to have that be the world currency. I think it’s important. I think it would be losing a war. If we lost – if we lost the dollar as the world currency, I think that would be the equivalent of losing a war.
That would make us a third-world country, and we can’t let it happen. So I use sanctions very powerfully against countries that deserve it, and then I take them off. Because look, you’re losing Iran, you’re losing Russia, China is out there trying to get their currency to be the dominant currency, as you know better than anybody. All of these things are happening.
You’re losing so many countries because there’s so much conflict with all of these countries that you’re going to lose that, and we can’t lose that. So I want to use sanctions as little as possible. One of the things that we have with tariffs is that I’ll say to them, you don’t honor the dollar as your world currency. Is that right?
You’re not going to do it? No, we’re not. I said, that’s okay. I’m going to put tariffs all over your product, and they’re going to say, sir, we’d love to honor the dollar as the world currency.
You know, tariffs, in addition to monetary and the money that we’ll take in, which will be bigger than you’ve ever seen in this country before, gives you tremendous political power for something like that, as an example. I stopped wars with the threat of tariffs. I stopped wars with two countries that mattered a lot. A lot of people would have been killed. [my emphasis]
Cohen asked only about Russia. But Trump’s answer included Iran (and wildly misrepresented what he did with sanctions on Iran, which Biden rescinded a month after becoming President). Trump seemed to suggest that sanctions, including those against Iran, had to be limited, or targeted countries would abandon the dollar.
I’ll leave it to economic experts to address whether his plan to enforce adherence to the dollar using tariffs could have the same effect.
I’m interested in the response, generally, because if there was a quo that Trump was supposed to provide after Russia helped Trump win in 2016, it was sanctions relief. Trump went to some effort — with an attempt to script Steve Bannon’s HPSCI testimony, Don Jr’s refusal to testify before a grand jury, Trump’s complete blow-off of a sanctions question from Mueller, and the attempt to reverse the Mike Flynn prosecution — to prevent Mueller from substantiating that Trump had taken steps to deliver that quo before the Russian investigation became overt.
Yet here he is again, suggesting he’ll end sanctions on Russia during the election.
But I’m particularly interested in Trump’s affirmative inclusion of Iran in the comment.
Sure, his inclusion of Iran in this discussion might reflect his belief that Jared’s effort to spread Trumpism around the Middle East will bring Iran into the fold — or perhaps it reflects the efforts of his Russian buddies to view Iran as an ally.
But I found it interesting given that Iran not only targeted his rat-fucker and his campaign manager for hacking, but also allegedly tried to hire hitmen to assassinate him.
All the more so given how Trump lied about DOJ’s focus on Iran when he responded to DOJ’s exposure of the RT influence laundering last week at his equally batshit appearance in Mosinee, WI.
Did you see? Three days ago, it started again. The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again. You see that, Mr. Congressman, great Congressman from Texas? You see that Russia — it’s Russia. And you know? The whole world laughed at him this time, 2.5 years, not a phone call made to Russia, not anything to do with Russia but stopping their pipeline and lots of other things that people approved. And they said just the other day, the Attorney General, we are looking at Russia, and I said, oh no. It’s Russia Russia Russia all over again. But they don’t look at China and they don’t look at Iran. They look at Russia. I don’t know what it is with poor Russia. This is very, very. But you know what? Russia would have never happened if I were President, attacking Ukraine would never have happened. I knew Putin. I knew him well. And you know, he endorsed — I don’t know if you saw the other day? He endorsed Ka-Mala. He endorsed Ka-Mala. I was very offended by that. I wonder why he endorsed Ka-Mala. Now, he’s a chess player. I endorse Ka-Mala. Should I be congressman, should I be upset about that? Now, it was done with a smile — Ron? Was it done with a smile? I think it was done. Maybe with a smile. I don’t know who the hell knows. Nobody is going to figure out. There are about 19 steps ahead of us but this whole Russian thing, nobody, was tougher on Russia in history than Trump and the person that knows that better than anyone is President Vladimir Putin.
Trump acknowledged the hack at his Bedminster presser — where he also predicted “we will be friendly with Iran.”
I originally thought this response from Trump was a response to the Ukraine question, I think, instead, he was responding to the hacking question.
Can you say anything about the hacking of your campaign?
I don’t like it. Really bad. I’m not happy with it. Our government shouldn’t let that happen.
Does there need to be a government response?
Yeah there should be. Our government should not let — they have no respect for our government.
Trump blamed the government after, earlier in the Potemkin Presser, he had already predicted that “we” will be friendly with Russia’s increasingly critical ally, Iran.
We will be friendly with Iran. Maybe, maybe not. But they cannot have a nuclear weapon. We were all set to make sure they did not have a nuclear weapon.
But last week, he lied about it. He lied and suggested that DOJ would never look at Iran’s influence operations, even though the Deep State has twice done what they did last week with Russia, attribute Iran’s effort to interfere in the election, in that case by harming Trump, and do so before the Trump campaign alerted the FBI to the hack.
Trump was targeted for hacking (and, allegedly, assassination) by Iran. And yet he’s hiding that when he dismisses DOJ’s similar focus on Russian influence operations.