Trump's former press secretary says he's ‘posturing' on tariffs
'I firmly believe that it's posturing,' McEnany said Thursday on 'Outnumbered.' 'This is the great dealmaker, the great negotiator. And he's someone who understands how to get to a good end result.'
Trump on Wednesday announced major tariffs on dozens of nations around the world, accusing many of them of 'ripping off' American workers under previous trade agreements.
Trump's announcement sent financial markets into a tailspin on Thursday and is sparking widespread concern about the impact the new tariffs will have on consumer goods and the cost of living in America.
The president, McEnany argued, 'knows these other countries have something to lose and will be pushed to the negotiating table.'
McEnany served as Trump's White House press secretary near the end of his first term and joined Fox as a host after leaving his administration.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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In the provisions of their budget bill, Republican leaders made extraordinarily few concessions to the political needs of their representatives in those marginal seats (or vulnerable senators such as Collins and Tillis). They placed much higher import on cramming in as many of Trump's priorities as possible and meeting the demands of the hardcore conservatives in safe seats who constitute a much larger share of GOP legislators in both chambers. If that increases the odds some of those swing-district Republicans lose next fall —endangering the GOP majority in the House and conceivably, though less likely, the Senate — that seemed a price Trump and Congressional leaders were willing to pay. 'They want to get as much as they can in the bill,' Dent said, 'and these guys are going to be the collateral damage.' In the long arc of Trump's career, the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' may stand as yet another transaction in which he claims the rewards and others around him pay the price.
