Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Grills Trump on US Taking a Stake in Intel and Other Companies: ‘How is That Free Market Capitalism?!’

Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo pressed President Donald Trump on how the federal government taking stakes in private businesses is “free market capitalism” in an interview from Davos, Switzerland, that dropped on Wednesday.

Bartiromo interviewed the president this week from the World Economic Forum and she brought up Trump’s administration taking a 10 percent stake in companies like Intel, a computer chip designer. The investment totaled $8.9 billion, according to Intel.

Bartiromo said:

About a month after the inauguration for your second term, I asked you, Mr President, what do you want the economy to look like in four years? And you were very clear. You said, I want the private sector to rule the day. And since then, in the last year, you’ve taken a 10% stake in Intel. You’ve taken the stake in MP Mountain Pass. You told the defense companies two weeks ago, don’t pay any dividends, don’t do buybacks until you produce the weapons that we need. So please explain to our audience how is that free market capital.

Trump claimed these moves are all “very free market” and accused companies with defense contracts of taking advantage of the federal government.

“It’s a very free market. We have defense companies that were making a fortune, they were buying back stock with all their money. And then they come to us for money if they want to, you know, we want to buy something or we want our plants built, and they’d say, could you loan us some money? And they’d be doing tens of billions of dollars of stock buyback, so I’m not letting them do it. I want them to put money into it,” the president said.

He continued by noting the massive salaries of executives at these companies, as well as the long turnaround for equipment. The president claimed if he wants a weapon, it is scheduled out for years.

“When we need tomahawks, I want them within 24 hours. When we need any kind of a patriot or whatever I want, I wanna have it quickly. I don’t wanna be waiting three years for it. What kind of thing is that? And you make all this money. And I’m prohibiting them from doing stock buyback. And you know they haven’t even complained about it?” he said.

“Well, so free market capitalism, unless it’s a national security issue,” Bartiromo responded.

Trump still maintained that the moves are “very free market.”

He argued:

Look, it’s free market, it is stupid market letting them take — why would I let them do stock buybacks and we give them, you know, the businesses from us? So, I want to buy, and interestingly, the stocks went up because we raised the budgets. You know, our budgets are high, we’re going to buy more military equipment. We have to. In this world, we have to. We have the strongest military. I rebuilt the military in my first term. We’re the strongest military we’ve ever had. And we’re going to keep it that way.

Watch above via Fox Business.

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