Trump went after a Fox News reporter who was asking him why he won’t meet with Democrats in the White House to try and get a deal on the 2nd COVID stimulus. Here’s the full exchange (cued up to 29:43):
The reporter, David Spunt, asked his question of the President in a very antagonistic way. Here’s the full transcript:
SPUNT: Sir, you talked a lot about the economy and touted the economy. Three weeks ago in Bedminster I asked you specifically why you have not called Democratic leadership to the White House to meet with thim. If they don’t want to meet, it’s on them. A lot of people are criticizing you. I cover you on the weekends and stuff –
POTUS: I don’t think they are, no, I don’t think they are…
SPUNT: …Why have you not met with them in person? I mean we’re in September. There’s no deal, there’s no hope of a deal. We’re two months out from the election –
POTUS: Don’t say there’s no hope. Why do you say there’s no hope? What do you know?
SPUNT: Crosstalk…
POTUS: What do you know? And let me just tell you, I know my customers. It’s what I do. I know Pelosi, I know Schumer very well. They don’t want to make a deal because they think it’s good for politics if they don’t make a deal. This has nothing to do with anything other than you have to know what you’re dealing with. I do. These are people that I don’t have a lot of respect – I don’t think they have a lot of respect for the American people. And I know who I’m dealing with. And I don’t need to meet with them to be turned down. They don’t want to make a deal because they know that’s good for the economy. And if they make a deal that’s good for the economy, therefore it’s good for me for the election on November 3rd, and therefore they’re not going to make a deal.
Now if we gave the store away, if we bailed out all of their Democrat run cities where we give them a trillion dollars, which is the kind of money they want – they want a trillion dollars to bailout badly run Democrat cities and states, whether it’s New York or Illinois or others, they want to bail them out. And we’re saying well we’re not going to pay that kind of a price in order to bail out the cities. We’ll do something to help cities but that’s gonna have to rest on its own.
And why didn’t you do this in the beginning, because they could’ve done it in the beginning? So I know who I’m dealing with… I also know when it’s time to meet with people. I’ve done very good with deals. That’s what I do. And I know when it’s time to meet. But I don’t have to meet them in order to be turned down and in order for them to walk out to the sticks, which is the microphones, and give you people a false report of what just took place in the Oval Office.
So, they don’t want to make a deal because they think if the country does as badly as possible, even though a lot of people are being hurt, that’s good for the Democrats. David, that’s a bad thing.
SPUNT: Mr. President, shouldn’t you take the high road sir?
POTUS: I am taking the high road. I’m taking the high road by not seeing them. That’s the high road. And if I thought it would make a difference I’d do it in a minute.
Trump is absolutely right about this. If Pelosi and Schumer truly cared about the economy they wouldn’t have been demanding 3 trillion dollars to bail out Democrat cities in the first place, when Trump was only asking for a trillion. Then they tried the let’s meet in the middle tactic, still demanding that Trump bail out these terrible mismanaged cities and refused to simply help people make it through this pandemic.
What Pelosi and Schumer are hoping for now is that Trump loses the election and then they can get Biden to spend the 3 trillion they wanted in the first place, which just shows you they aren’t interested in truly helping people during this pandemic. So Trump is right on all fronts here.
What annoyed me about this reporter was that he was essentially lecturing the president about all of this, as if he were an adviser to the president who was there to give his opinion. “What do you know?” I absolutely loved it when Trump called him on it.