224. Trump Is Caving to Xi: Will Maga Turn on Him?

15:34Anthony Scaramucci:and i'm gonna send you this i can't do this but i did the talking i'm gonna send you the matt

15:39Katty Kay:Matt Ford, Donald Trump wig, when he puts it on like in places, you know, he didn't use it in Manchester when he was talking to me about all the wrong moves, thank God. But when he puts it on, I start getting scalp sweat and heart rate, you know, palpitations. And I'm like, please, Mr. President, don't fire me again. I don't know if I can handle it. But that was pretty good. But you know, there was something that happened that I want to make sure everybody knows. And that is Driscoll. And Driscoll is talking to the press. Who is Driscoll? He's Secretary of the army he resigned because there's a donut who happens to be secretary of defense who's gutting the army's uh intelligentsia intellectual capital of generals and so he went to the president to the oval and explained to him what pete number zero hexeth is doing to the pentagon and what did Trump do?

16:31Katty Kay:Can I show you the plans of the arc to Trump? Oh, by the way, you want to come to the, I'm going to open up the curtains in the East Room. Let me show you the ballroom that I'm building that was seven times the size of the White House. And Driscoll left the meeting and said, Trump doesn't give a you know what. And all he wants to do is talk about this building stuff. Okay, so the brain is addling. And we're going to get to Xi in the second half because I have a whole lot of stuff on Xi as well. But I'm just saying to you, if you're a Republican, you're scrubbing Trump, you're not talking about Trump anymore.

17:07Katty Kay:You're trying to talk about the party. You're trying to throw the communist line at the Democrats, which doesn't work, by the way. Keep trying to do it, but it doesn't work. And again, Democrats, don't spike the ball. You got five weeks to go, and that is a lifetime. Mike Johnson gave you the benefit. He doesn't want to vote on the Epstein files. You got five weeks where the Congress is closed. You better be out there knocking on doors. Think AOC burning through shoe letter out here in Queens. Start knocking on doors. Don't spike the football.

17:39Anthony Scaramucci:They've clearly can't rest on their laurels. They've got to do all of their work. But most of the strategists that I speak to, Republican and Democrat, say after Labor Day, once you get to September, trying to move public opinion by a large amount, you know, X some huge big exogenous factor is very difficult. People's minds are made up pretty much by the end of summer. I mean, I think you and I both agree there is not much chance of wrapping up this Iran war situation between now and the midterms. I think we would never have suggested that back in February. Everyone thought this was going to be much quicker, but I don't think this is going to get wrapped up.

18:17Anthony Scaramucci:So I don't see how gas prices come down a huge amount between now and the midterm elections. And that's what's really driving this. There was a great, super interesting tweet put out by this guy, Steve Deese, who is a conservative radio host in Iowa. And he is warning Republicans on X this week that if you are in a district that Trump won by plus 10 points, so a pretty solidly conservative pro-Trump district, you are now underwater and that this could be worse than that midterm election of 2006, where George W. Bush lost 30 seats in the House. The Republicans lost 30 seats in the House. So, I think when you have a conservative Iowan saying that and he's seeing what he's seeing, he's sending out an alarm bell around the country to Republicans.

19:05Anthony Scaramucci:You have to be in a super solid magazine. And on that thing of the 3D chess, you've got a not talking about Trump. I think it's the Wall Street Journal has done a survey of all of the top conservative podcast hosts. They went through like 70 ,000 hours of podcasting. God knows why there are 70 ,000 hours of podcasting. But anyway, poor person who had to listen to that.

19:25Katty Kay:There's only one important hour, Kat, Kate. There is only one important hour. And that is right here. I'm sorry, Alistair. I know you're listening, Alistair. But this is the important one out of the 70 ,000. But go ahead. What did they say? What did they say?

19:38Anthony Scaramucci:They basically said that they've stopped talking about Trump. that Trump is no longer the thing that they're talking about. He's not driving the base anymore. He's not driving audiences from them. I thought that was super interesting. And on the press ban, so now we've been in a situation where Trump has banned the press. The judges said not so fast. They have to be allowed back in again. We'll see whether my colleagues, full disclosure, I work for MS Now in the mornings. Let's see if MS Now's reporters and CNN supporters and Politico's reporters are all allowed back in again. But I think you were right when you said to me, oh, that's a huge, big distraction factor.

20:13Anthony Scaramucci:But there's this guy, Conal McShane, who's a host on News Nation, super Trumpy news organization, who put out a tweet saying, by the way, if this was meant to be 4D chess as a distraction from the gas prices, from the war in Iran and from your terrible poll numbers, it's not working because actually what we've been speaking about is exactly that. So you've got conservatives all around the country in the media and in the Senate sending warnings to the White House that this is going to be a terrible midterm elections for them. Look, there's been a lot of gerrymandering. This is the counter argument.

20:53Anthony Scaramucci:There's been a lot of gerrymandering. Democrats now have to win 10 seats to regain the House, not just four seats, which is what they would have had to win before all the gerrymandering around the country. they lost out on that gerrymandering arms race and so maybe that mitigates things but i think they get over that 10 don't you i mean if you're looking at this at the moment it's and you had to weigh up the gerrymandering versus trump's unpopularity and the price of things i think it's the unpopularity and the price of things that weighs republicans down more than the

21:25Katty Kay:gerrymandering helps them caddy what is the case even that the white house is trying to make

21:31Anthony Scaramucci:So one of the reasons that the White House has said that it's banned these reporters is citing various stories. And because Trump likes the national security argument and he thinks the national security argument works well with the courts, he's saying that there's a national security component here. And one of the stories that they refer to, because they refer to specific stories as their reasons for banning these organizations, was a story that Politico ran back in the summer about the chances for an Iran deal. But what's emerged overnight, Anthony, is that that story was based on a call that the White House set up with reporters.

22:06Anthony Scaramucci:This happens often. I've been on these calls before. You get a text, you get an email saying there's going to be a White House briefing call. It's with an anonymous senior White House official. You can't say who the official is, but you can join the call and they'll give you their briefing. Anyway, the White House set up this call with a senior anonymous White House official who just, as it turned out, was J.D. Vance. So J.D. Vance is on this call with reporters. They tell you you can't say it's J.D. Vance, but J.D. Vance is now going to tell you the briefing and you have that for background. So Politico writes the story, quoting a senior anonymous White House official, tells Politico that the chances for an Iran deal he thinks are something like 60 percent in the next week or two.

22:48Anthony Scaramucci:So they run the story. Everybody runs the story. And now the White House is using that story, which shows, I think, how flimsy their legal case is, right? I mean, you're the lawyer, Anthony. I don't know this. But if you're running a story based on a call that you set up with an official you put forward in order to have that official quoted anonymously, and then you're saying that they had some kind of national security problem, they should never run that story. I just don't see how that holds water in a court of law.

23:17Katty Kay:So, Cady, what if the ruling is in place and the White House doesn't obey it? MS Now is reporting this morning that their reporter was denied access. The decision was rendered maybe around midnight last night. Now, it's a 14-day stay. Okay, so let's just talk a little bit about that. It's not totally rendered yet. Trump is obviously squawking about it, whining about it, wants an appeal. If you've read the complaint, which, of course, being a nerd, I read the complaint. It's all about due process in the First Amendment. I've never seen the press lose a case like that in the 250 years or the 237 years of the Constitution.

23:58Katty Kay:So so they're going to win the case. OK. And but yet this morning. OK. They wouldn't let the MSNOW reporter through the gate to get access to the White House. So that could be a whole other commotion. Now, if I'm Donald Trump, if I'm Donald Trump, I want that distraction. Because there's still kernels of my MAGA base that want authoritarianism. There's still kernels of my MAGA base that believe in me. And this will keep the Epstein file out. This will keep the poll numbers, the gas prices. If I can keep this fire burning a little while longer, it would be good for me.

24:35Anthony Scaramucci:I think generally when you're speaking about process, which reporter has a White House hard pass, which reporter doesn't have a White House hard pass, that is not a terribly exciting thing for people to rally about when every single poll is telling us that what matters to them more is the gas prices. But it will be a fight because, yes, I looked at that ruling too. And Judge Kelly, who is a Trump-appointed judge, it was unambiguous that they have to have their hard passes, which allow them access to the White House, return to them immediately. if Trump wants to defy that judge's order, he would have to go to a senior judge, a more senior court, and get that order overturned.

25:20Anthony Scaramucci:He hasn't done that yet, obviously, because the order's only been out for a few hours. Actually, only over immigration and those flights that were leaving for El Salvador have we seen Trump and the White House directly defy a court order. so if he directly defies this court order that would be only the second time yeah he probably

25:40Katty Kay:won't do it permanently but he'll he'll create a little pushing and shoving here because that that's him and he's got nobody he's got nobody saying no to him he's got nobody saying no to

25:49Anthony Scaramucci:him and he likes a fight he he thinks he does better with a fight nobody's walking into that

25:54Katty Kay:study saying hey uh you're you're a jackass what are you doing he's nobody's doing that but i think

25:59Anthony Scaramucci:he should be listening to Conal McShane from NewsNation, who is telling people, if you think this is the distraction that you are looking for that is going to materially change the Republicans' chances in the midterm elections, you're wrong, because actually we are still talking about your terrible poll numbers and the price of diesel. Okay, we're going to take a break and come back and talk about China.

26:25Anthony Scaramucci:This episode is brought to you by the Financial Times.

26:28Katty Kay:No, Katty, the Financial Times journalism provides trusted insight analysis and perspective to help you see the whole story and truly understand the issues that matter. I just want to show you something here, Katty. Every day, every day on my iPad, I pull that up. That's the digital edition of the Financial Times. I've been a Financial Times subscriber both digitally, and I'm talking the salmon paper, Katty, because I'm old, since 2000. That's correct. 26 years of dedicated loyalty to the Financial Times. You get it all in the FT. It's a very objective paper, and it's lots of fun to read, and it makes you smarter.

27:10Anthony Scaramucci:For the why, Financial Times. Listeners of the Restis Politics US can save over 40 % on an annual digital subscription to the Financial Times by visiting ft.com slash tripus.

27:22Katty Kay:That's ft.com slash tripus, T-R-I-P-U-S. Subject to terms and conditions, offer expires October 28th. We are getting a statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The great game. Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess our Prime Minister with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War 3.

28:02Anthony Scaramucci:He took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

28:05Katty Kay:Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex.

28:08Anthony Scaramucci:You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not?

28:11Katty Kay:You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing!

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30:45Katty Kay:feed his take on Chinese leader. Katty, just be honest with me, Katty. Do I have to add President Xi to the Trump man crush list?

30:58Anthony Scaramucci:Along with the Mayor Mandani?

31:00Katty Kay:Is he going up there with Arnold Palmer and Mayor Mandani and UFC fighters? Are we putting Xi on that list? I think so.

31:08Anthony Scaramucci:What is it? Vibrant, strong and fit, the president of China is looking. Okay, so President Trump went to Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington yesterday. I think you and I saw him flying back on his helicopter and all the traffic was snarled up when we were moving around the city last night. He and Melania met President Xi and President Xi's wife. There was a red carpet. There was an honor guard. There was a B-1 flyover. And this is the beginning of the state visit tonight. There's going to be a state dinner at the White House. I suspect that the president is busily involved in all of the decor for that.

31:46Anthony Scaramucci:He likes the decor. He likes to know exactly what the silverware is going to be. So and the question that I had from a Biden national security advisor official yesterday from the Biden administration, he said to me, OK, if we had done this, if we had welcomed President Xi like this just a few weeks before a midterm election, with all of the pomp and circumstance for the communist party leader when people in america are worried about prices and the red carpet welcome would we have got away with it no he

32:18Katty Kay:said we would have been killed oh i mean and we have we have donald trump on tape where he's criticizing president obama for the lavish way he treated president she but i want to talk about the card table caddy because you know some people have the cards and some people don't have the cards and of course zelinski had no cards but it turns out we need zelinski's cards this is the irony of the way life works but if i'm sitting at the card table right now she arrived holding more cards at any point in the trump era and that's one of the reasons why trump showed up plain side i think

32:56Anthony Scaramucci:it's very important because when trump went to beijing by the way remember guys in may she did not come to the airport, he sent the vice president to meet him. So there is an imbalance there in the optics of the way that the president was greeted.

33:10Katty Kay:And we're going to explain that because Mr. Scott Bessent, our secretary of treasury, three days of talks with Chinese representatives, they secured, and this is super important for the United States, way more than the Chinese, they secured a continued impasse, meaning they're not going to have a trade war until January. They're going to continue their negotiations because guess what? We don't have that many cards and we've already half ignited our economy. And if you go back to the protocol and communique from Beijing during the ridiculous, you remember when Trump was coming down from Mount Evil with, you know, like Orange Moses with the tablet, you know, if we go through that, Xi's response was very mature and he held his ground.

33:57Katty Kay:And guess what? That was bluster because the Americans need the rare earth. Americans need the manufacturing capability, etc. But there is a meme that will represent this Trump administration. And just hear me out, Caddy. There was a B-1B Lancer that was timed to fly over the two presidents at Andrews. and one president winced and grimaced as it was flying over and the other one was a stone to use a donald trump word was a stone cold killer looking vibrant quote the president and not moving so which president was wincing and uh cricking his neck and what was what other

34:40Anthony Scaramucci:president was indifferent to the flyover well i'm gonna go with the vibrant and fit and strong President Xi for taking the noise of the B-1 bomber in his stride.

34:51Katty Kay:And Trump was trying to do that for dramatic effect because he always has an overbite with his nonsense. But, you know, let's go to the facts here on the ground. Bloomberg is saying that too bad for the US. You don't have the mining. You don't have the production capability on rare earths. You're going to be reliant on the Chinese at least until 2030. Guess what? Can't have a trade war with somebody that you need all the rare earth minerals from. The tariff escalation backfired and you now have the export machine running away, Caddy, because the Chinese posted a$1.2 trillion global trade surplus last year.

35:32Katty Kay:And guess what they're doing? They're finding new markets away from the United States. You know that and I know that.

35:39Anthony Scaramucci:So do you expect anything to come out of this then, Anthony, concrete? Because what I'm hearing that you're going to get a lot of red carpets, a lot of flyovers, a lot of gold at the White House tonight with President Xi, a lot of long dresses and black tie. But actually, Scott Bessender has already done, as you say, the hard work. He's got Xi what Xi wanted and probably what America wanted too, which is an extension to this tariff truce that was already organized. The other issue that people are talking about here is something concrete on AI. They have said that they will have some kind of mechanism for talking to each other, but I spoke to this official from the Biden administration saying it's super difficult to pin the Chinese down on anything that limits AI at the moment.

36:20Anthony Scaramucci:They just don't really want to hear about it. And so the suspicion is she has just come here to play nice, talk, accept the warm welcome, but actually is not planning to give very much away on pretty much anything. And the most we can hope for is a visit with a lot of pomp and not much circumstance.

36:41Katty Kay:Okay. Well, let me, let me, let me let me say this i'm glad they're meeting probably better to meet than not meet there was a period where they weren't talking i always think it's more i think it's always more important to be meeting i'm glad that the truce the trade truce has been extended okay and i'm glad for all those things and i don't think there'll be any measurable goals that come out of this other than the relationship itself having said that there was a symmetry at the start and knowing the chinese they will use that okay she did not meet president trump at the airport as you pointed out he sent his vice president and that will be all over state television and that listen china is the rising superpower and these guys are worried about us and the the orange man had to show up to greet me but i don't have to show up and greet him that that deference that deference is going to be exploited by the Chinese party, Communist Party in China.

37:43Katty Kay:But listen, I don't think Trump has a choice. I guess, Katty, the question though is always on my mind is about the situation with U.S. farmers because U.S. farmers have been cut off. They stopped selling goods to China because Chinese said, okay, no problem, we'll stop buying the stuff. And the Chinese never lived up to the deal and Trump won. The Biden administration never held them accountable for the amount of farm goods that they were supposed to buy. Trump shot to the moon gas, energy, fertilizer prices on the farmers, which is why you're looking at places like Iowa and saying, oh my God, Trump won the state.

38:21Katty Kay:Now it looks like he's going to get destroyed in the state. What do you think there is? Is there ever going to be a re-engagement of the farmers with the Chinese economy?

38:30Anthony Scaramucci:I don't think at the moment There's nothing at the moment that suggests, and you didn't really see under Biden either, any kind of trade rapprochement. Trump came into office, particularly in 2024, I think, really hoping he could have some kind of big deal with the Chinese. That would be a real capstone for him, a legacy issue for him, if he could have had some kind of big trading deal with the Chinese. And you write in your book, All the Wrong Moves, about how devastating China's entry into the World Trade Organization was for American workers and how Barack Obama tried to put something on the table that would have rectified the loss of jobs that Americans suffered and the kind of hurt that American farmers are suffering.

39:16Anthony Scaramucci:and that was then rejected by donald trump in 2016 so he would like some kind of a deal but i don't think they have the skill in this white house do they to do the kind of deal that would need to be done both on on tariffs and trade and access to farm markets not to push back but i'm going to

39:35Katty Kay:say this they actually do have the skill but they're afraid of their own shadows they actually know what to do they worked with light heiser they they know mike froman who worked for for president obama who shaped the tpp they know what to do but they're frozen by the committee and decision making of one so they they're like okay i know what to do but i can't do it because it's going to piss off trump right that's the spot that they're in but another question caddy about Taiwan because the strategic ambiguity right now, President Xi wants that softened. He wants Trump to say that the Americans are going to back off of the 80-year relationship of having strategic ambiguity, but also suggesting, as President Biden did, that if there was an attack on Taiwan by China we would defend Taiwan and he wants that language softened now of all the presidents that you and I have seen in our lifetime the most likely president to soften that language would be Donald J Trump so caddy what do you think of that you think there'll be any wording shifts because that would be a real concession I actually don't think there will be a word you

40:50Anthony Scaramucci:don't think sorry good I think that would be too dramatic I think it has got through to Trump that he needs to be very careful on the wording around Taiwan. I think if you were going to have some kind of wording shift, it would have come at another time. I think when he went to China, that was the time people were most concerned about some sort of a wording shift. But I do think China coming here and buying time, buying time on the trade truce, buying time on AI negotiations, they have a much longer term play than the Americans do. This is all buys time for Xi to decide what he wants to do on China once the Chinese army is ready, if it wanted to, which Xi has told them should be by 2027, to take some kind of military action against Taiwan.

41:39Anthony Scaramucci:All the time kind of stopping the American president from changing the language. I would be very surprised if we had a language change because that would be a dramatic issue. I'm not sure if Trump wants that kind of a dramatic issue when he's already involved in the war in Iran and the focus to be on that during the state visit. But I may be wrong. Maybe you're right. Maybe that. Do you think there will be some kind of change on language?

42:03Katty Kay:I'm worried about it. You know, I'm hoping, you know, because, you know, you and I were in the car last night heading to politics and prose. I was talking about the Washington, the Washington that I remember, small town Washington, southern charming town, northern efficiency, as Jack Kennedy once said about it. And it's a fairly conformist consensus town. It wants to move slowly on things. And so I'm hoping that will overwhelm what Trump would like to do, because Trump is a keyboard warrior, and he's a keyboard bully, but he's a conflict avoider in big situations. And they'll be pushing him over the next two days.

42:45Katty Kay:but here's a big prediction for me okay right at the end of this Trump is going to say we've got big beautiful things happening and they're going to buy this and they're going to buy that from us and there's going to be a surge in Chinese purchases of American goods and Beijing is going to say nice meeting you we're still in a pause on the trade truce I mean we still have a trade truce nice meeting you we still have a trade truce and there's a consensus ho-hum and they're going to

43:17Anthony Scaramucci:fly back to Beijing exactly that's what I think it is that's what's going to happen right a lot of pomp not much circumstance right not much of anything but President Xi will have got the optics like you say he will have got the optics and he will have won himself some time

43:33Katty Kay:because he's got the cards Caddy Kay he's holding the cards and meanwhile the American voters are going to be slightly scratching their heads thinking why is the president having a great

43:48Anthony Scaramucci:big state dinner with all of the pageantry and the opulence that goes around a state dinner a few weeks before a midterm election in which it is made we have made it very clear we are paying

44:00Katty Kay:too much for everything oh well said said differently caddy why is the president attacking the communists and calling the Democrats a communists while he's fed the communists.

44:12Anthony Scaramucci:How much is he undermining those Republicans who are going around saying, well, actually, my only hope at the moment is to run saying those DSA, Democratic Socialists of America candidates are crazy and too left wing and you wouldn't want to be in the same room as them, let alone elect them to office when our president is standing on the lawn with Mayor Mamdani, a DSA candidate.

44:33Katty Kay:But I mean, it's like President Xi, is that enough Cristal champagne for you? Oh, my God. Yeah. Give him the caviar, please. Pass. Move over the caviar. I mean, it's unbelievable.

44:42Anthony Scaramucci:Yeah. He's making it tricky for them. He's not helping, let's say.

44:46Katty Kay:But thank you for bringing up my book, Caddy. And thank you for the help selling my book, Caddy. Every time. You would have been a great Wall Street bond salesman. I'm just letting you know. Okay. Just if there's a reincarnation opportunity, come back in the 80s.

45:02Anthony Scaramucci:We need a few bond buyers at the moment, not bond salesmen.

45:05Katty Kay:Oh, my God. You would have ripped the eyeballs off of all those unwitting. You would have duped all of them, Katty.

45:11Anthony Scaramucci:And if you would like to hear more about the U.S. economy, the relationship with China and the kind of damage that that has all done in America over the past few decades and how it's actually got us to where we are today with Donald Trump. You can listen to our series, All the Wrong Moves, by becoming a founding member. You can sign up at TheRestIsPoliticsUS.com. We'd love to have you with us. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you on Monday.

45:37Katty Kay:Thanks, guys. See you next week.