CNN Anchor Openly Mocks Trump With Blizzard of Clips Promising Deals That Haven’t Come
CNN anchor Abby Phillip openly mocked President Donald Trump with a package of clips showing Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick promising that an avalanche of trade deals is just around the corner.
Trump’s habit of whiplashing between issuing massive tariff threats and backing off of them spawned the derisive Wall Street acronym TACO — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — to describe a “TACO trade” strategy to outsmart Trump’s chaotic market-roiling tariff policies.
But one thing that has been consistent is that since Trump claimed he had made 200 trade deals, Trump officials have been teasing a blizzard of announcements that have not come close to fruition.
On Monday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip couldn’t suppress an amused smile after she played a montage of Lutnick making those promises over and over:
PHILLIP: We are two weeks from the new deadline for nations to make trade deals or face new tariffs, and the Commerce Secretary is once again promising he’s got the goods.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: Oh, they’re going to love the deals that President Trump and I are doing. I mean they’re just going to love them. This is going to be — the next two weeks are going to be weeks for the record books. President Trump is going to deliver for the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The President has been saying he has 200 deals ready to sign, but the truth is the results have been limited at best. And the amount of teasing is a trend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD LUTNICK: You’re going to see over the next month or so, we’re going to roll out dozens of deals.
LUTNICK: Oh, there are so many coming and you’re going to see deal after deal that’s going to start coming next week, and the week after and the week after. And we’ve got lots of them in the hopper.
LUTNICK: We’re going to announce a whole bunch of deals over the next week or so.
UNKNOWN: Are you confident we can get these big, the big ones, the big deals done?
LUTNICK: I have them done.
LUTNICK: The next two weeks are going to be weeks for the record books.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was just a couple days ago. So far, only four trade agreements have been announced. Kevin, when are the deals coming?
O’LEARY: Bessent tempered the enthusiasm from Japan over the weekend at the American Pavilion and he spoke again this morning about this. He referenced, I want quality deals, not fast deals.
PHILLIP: Do you mind if I play it? We have the sound bite.
O’LEARY: OK, let’s listen.
PHILLIP: Let’s play — Scott Bessent.
[22:35:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE KERNEN, CNBC HOST: Mr. Secretary, August 1st is a week from Friday, I think. And I think that’s on everyone’s mind. Any progress that you can report on some of our big trading partners?
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: Joe, talks are — talks are moving along, but the important thing here is the quality of the deal, not the timing of the deals. You know, again, again, we’re — we’re proceeding at pace with the negotiations, but we’re — we’re not going to rush for the sake of doing deals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O’LEARY: Abby, let me give you the metric on all this stuff.
PHILLIP: I mean, it just sounds like those things are contrary —
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: — to be honest — to be quite honest.
Watch above via CNN NewsNight.
