Fox News Contributor: ‘There’s No Polite Way to Put This,’ But Trump Doesn’t Get ‘How Trade Works’

On Friday, Fox News contributor Stephen Hayes spoke bluntly about what he thought of President Trump‘s proposed tariffs.

Appearing on Special Report, the Weekly Standard editor-in-chief said he wasn’t “surprised” by Trump’s position since he echoed it on the campaign trail but he was surprised by his “language.”

“You don’t typically hear a president argue for raising tariffs by announcing that he is starting a trade war and then trying to spin his trade war as a good thing for the country,” Hayes elaborated. “I think if you read what the president tweeted this morning, there is no polite way to put this. He doesn’t understand how trade works. And he’s talking about it as if it’s an $800 billion loss on a ledger. That’s not how trade works.”

Hayes thought the White House “doesn’t really know what its own arguments are” on trade, pointing to conflicting numbers given by the administration.

Meanwhile, liberal radio talkshow host and Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall actually sided with the president.

“When I agree with the president and some Republicans, you have to say there is something going on here that actually may be right,” Marshall told Bret Baier. “When you have American steel being used and being purchased, GM uses 90% American steel, but the United States imports more steel than any other country. That is problematic. We do have a trade deficit that has to be addressed. If you have these tariffs in place, you are then putting middle class workers, the very people who put the president in his position in the Oval Office in states like Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, throughout the Rust Belt––you are putting these people back to work.”

Watch the clip above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]