CNN’s Jake Tapper Calls BS On Trump Claim About Anti-Tariff Ad Using Reagan Speech
CNN anchor Jake Tapper called BS on President Donald Trump over his claims about an anti-tariff ad featuring a radio address by now-deceased former President Ronald Reagan.
Trump has been complaining bitterly about a Canadian TV ad he says is trying to “illegally influence” the U.S. Supreme Court on an upcoming tariff case, even announcing “ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”
The ad features remarks by Reagan criticizing tariffs, and while the Ronald Reagan Foundation also complained the remarks were “out of context,” the omitted portion doesn’t seem to affect the meaning of the package drastically.
On Friday’s edition of CNN’s The Lead, Tapper compared and contrasted the original 1987 radio address and the ad, and concluded Trump was wrong and Reagan’s words “seem to have been misused”:
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The Lead tonight, your family is likely paying close to $200 more this month than you would have at this time last year for the exact same goods. That’s according to new inflation numbers. We’re going to get you to that report in a moment. Those prices could go up again soon because President Trump today called off trade talks with Canada over what the president is calling a fake ad from Ontario’s government, where President Reagan lambasts tariffs. Here’s a bit of that ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: At first when someone says, let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is, first, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then while all this is going on, something even worse occurs, high tariffs (INAUDIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Okay. So, that is the actual speech that Ronald Reagan gave in 1987 talking about tariffs. Here is the ad that President Trump is calling fake.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAGAN: High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens, markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. America’s jobs and growth are at state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, the bulk of the address that we brought you earlier from 1987 was not as Trump puts it about how Reagan actually loved tariffs for our country and its national security, unquote, and the premier of Ontario now says he’s going to begin phasing out the ad, even though it doesn’t seem to have been misused in all Reagan’s words. Up until this point, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney says, tariff talks with the U.S have yielded progress, but Donald Trump called off talks. And today, the Dow closing above 47,000 for the first time, the S&P and Nasdaq also seeing boosts.
Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.
