CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Roasts Trump Trade Honcho for Praising His Own Answer During Driveway Confrontation

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins roasted senior Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro for praising his own answer to her grilling on the White House driveway, asking a guest to vouch for Navarro’s self-assessment.

Collins has earned a reputation for tenacious and tough questioning as CNN’s senior White House correspondent, which she demonstrated Wednesday when she took “Drill Baby Drill” to the next level by pressing Navarro repeatedly about disparate treatment of countries that buy oil from Russia.

Navarro responded to Collins’s follow-ups by telling her “I think I’ve given a really good answer to that.”

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins played the exchange for ex-Trump adviser John Bolton and asked him “Do you agree with him that that was a really good answer?”:

KAITLAN COLLINS: A question that I had for Peter Navarro, Trump’s — you know, one of his trade adviser on this, today — one of his top trade advisers on this was, China is importing way more Russian oil than India is. So, why is China not getting the same kind of treatment?

I want you to listen, given you wrote about this today, Ambassador, to what Peter Navarro told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: China buys more Russian oil than India does, and they have not been targeted for that. So why is India having its tariffs doubled?

PETER NAVARRO, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As the boss says, let’s see what happens. Keep in mind that we have over 50 percent tariffs on China already.

COLLINS: Right, but you could get higher.

NAVARRO: We have–

COLLINS: But they haven’t been punished for buying Russian oil.

NAVARRO: We have–

COLLINS: And India is being punished for that.

NAVARRO: We have over 50 percent tariffs on China–

COLLINS: But not because of buying Russian oil. NAVARRO: –so we don’t want to get to the point where we actually hurt ourselves. And so that question–

COLLINS: But do you see why people would be confused by that?

NAVARRO: And I think I’ve given a really good answer to that. We’ve got tariffs 50 percent — we already have high tariffs on China. So, I take your point. President certainly will be working with China on that issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Do you agree with him that that was a really good answer?

JOHN BOLTON: That shows exactly what I think could be the worst outcome for the United States, that India has reacted very negatively, as you might expect, to these tariffs related to Russian oil purchases, in part because they see that China has not been tariffed.

And Trump seems to be, in the minds of many China experts, setting up to treat China more leniently than he has treated India, thus putting in jeopardy decades of American effort, to bring India away from Russia, to bring India away from China, to join us in trying to push back on Chinese efforts, to gain hegemony along its long Indo-Pacific perimeter.

And the irony here is that while the secondary tariffs against India are intended to hurt Russia, it could push India back closer to Russia, and ironically closer to China, perhaps negotiating together, against the U.S. tariff efforts.

COLLINS: Ambassador John Bolton, always great to have you. Thank you for your insight tonight.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.