Phil Mattingly: Catherine Rampell VS Scott Jennings On Donald Trump VS Canada & Mexico

"CNN's Catherine Rampell and Scott Jennings debate what President Donald Trump won by placing, and then pausing, tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico." 

Source:CNN with Catherine Rampell vs Scott Jennings. Perhaps you can tell for yourself who is who.

From CNN

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this earlier today:

"As Ederik mentioned yesterday and what Jesse Dollemore talked about today, is that Donald Trump creates all these man-made disasters (generally unintentionally, I believe, because he doesn't know what he's doing) and gets leaders of other countries to make some announcement announcing that they're doing what they already agreed to do years ago, or at least weeks ago." 

From The New Democrat

I give Catherine Rampell credit for willing to be on the same CNN panel with Scott Jennings to discuss anything with him and not just being able to beautifully (in more ways than 1) deliver her key points about an issue, but then just sit there and be able to take his garbage (to put it mildly) and just laugh it off as if she's thinking: "He can't be serious". Which is how Scott Jennings has really sounded for about a year now every time he's on CNN talking about anything related to Donald Trump. 

This point that she made here is the key to the whole discussion: 

“I mean, I don’t know what Trump wanted in this situation,” she began. “Again, he didn’t actually get anything. But if he were to put these tariffs in place, they would be very painful- " 

And then after Scott Jennings accused said that Catherine Rampell's comment was a "total lie": 

"For American consumers. Okay, Scott, I mean this is, this is public information!” continued Rampell. 

If you don’t know that these countries have-, are committing to do exactly what they have already been doing, either you haven’t done your homework, or you think the American people are idiots because again, they’re doing exactly what they were already were doing,” said Rampell." 

Donald Trump as President of the United States, (which is a big enough American nightmare right there) is like a stocker at a grocery store, who is a bit of a klutz, who just made another mess, cleans up all the apple sauce, or tomato sauce, the milk, that he just knocked over on the floor, who then cleans up that mess and expects extra credit for cleaning up his own mess, that he should've never created in the first place. 

As Kire Schneider also said earlier today on The New Democrat: 

"My point here is President Trump when he announced his tariffs on Canada and Mexico over the weekend, got burned by that. The Stock Market took a tumble and what mostly likely happened is that his oligarch backers got on him about that and told him that he needs to retreat (or something to that affect) and end, or at least pause these tariffs. 

So what the President did on Monday was try to save his face by announcing that he he reached new border agreements with Mexico and Canada, that were already in place. And tried to take a victory lap on that. But as much as President Trump might hate this, we still have free speech and a free press in America. And Catherine Rampell and a lot of others, including The New Democrat, called him out on that." 

And the Scott Jennings of the world can act like Donald Trump just saved America from World War III or something, but anyone who actually knows this story, who follows the news, who does their own research... knows better. Especially better than someone who admittedly gets their information from Donald Trump's White House. Which is what Scott Jennings does.

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Catherine Rampell: Donald Trump Got Rolled By Canada & Mexico

"Jesse discusses several moments from yesterday's news cycle that prove Catherine Rampell's assertion on CNN that "Trump is trying to repackage the status quo as a victory. That's what the leaders of these foreign countries are learning. You don't actually have to give Trump anything. You have to let him announce victory on TV."

Source:Jesse Dollemore talking about how Scott Jennigs also got "rolled" by Catherine Rampell.

From Jesse Dollemore

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell on CNN last night debating Donald Trump propagandist Scott Jennings: 

“I mean, I don’t know what Trump wanted in this situation,” she began. “Again, he didn’t actually get anything. But if he were to put these tariffs in place, they would be very painful- 

For American consumers. Okay, Scott, I mean this is, this is public information!” continued Rampell. 

If you don’t know that these countries have-, are committing to do exactly what they have already been doing, either you haven’t done your homework, or you think the American people are idiots because again, they’re doing exactly what they were already were doing,” said Rampell.

The pair continued to snipe at each other until anchor Phil Mattingly finally stepped in and broke it up... 

From Mediate

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins last night on President Trump's trade wars with Mexico and Canada: 

"President Trump is declaring victory for now, in his trade standoffs with Mexico and Canada, with the President pausing, for at least the next month, on actions that could have dramatically increased prices for Americans on everything, from cars to avocados.

But Trump, the same person who, of course, on the cover of “The Art of the Deal,” said this today about his goal, ultimately with Canada. 

That was after his first phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, today, but before his second one. I was there in the East Room, shortly after that second call had ended.

Trump here, overall, seems to have won an agreement, where Canada is really going to do what it was already going to do. The Prime Minister saying this $1.3 billion border plan that he announced, back in December, is going to go into place.

And as for Mexico, this is how President Trump explained that result.

According to Mexico’s Defense Ministry, there are already 15,000 troops, nearly, they're on the border. It’s a deployment that started in 2019... 

From Mediate

As my colleague Ederik Schneider wrote about this yesterday: 

"Sorry, but I don't give credit to people for: 

Not jumping off the bridge. 

Not breaking into my house. 

Not hitting my car when they're parking. 

I don't give cabbies a bigger tip from dropping me off at the right location. 

When you almost create a trade war and you are just pausing that trade war, you don't deserve credit for almost blowing up your house, but putting pause on that. Perhaps you really want to look at the consequences of that. Will the insurance company be fooled. That sort of thing.

The CTV News piece is correct:America gets  0.2% of its fentanyl from Canada. So where is the victory here? How is Canada putting more of their own troops on their border with us, a victory for America? If anything, Canada with its unpopular and outgoing Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, caved. And Donald Trump takes a victory lap for not blowing up his own house." 

From The New Democrat

As Ederik mentioned yesterday and what Jesse Dollemore talked about today, is that Donald Trump creates all these man-made disasters (generally unintentionally, I believe, because he doesn't know what he's doing) and gets leaders of other countries to make some announcement announcing that they're doing what they already agreed to do years ago, or at least weeks ago.

Countries like Canada and Mexico, Britain, the European Union, already have a pretty good dossier  of President Trump. They know how easy it is to play him, to manipulate, to make him feel good. And they do that because if they make him feel good, he'l probably leave their countries alone. 

In the 1950s and 60s there was a term for someone like Donald Trump: he's what you would call back then a "damn fool". Another term from that era would be patsy. "Damn fool" would probably be a good term for most of Donald Trump's blue-collar supporters who see them as their lord and savior, who will take America back to it's "glory days' and they'll be in-charged again. But that's a different discussion. 

My point here is President Trump when he announced his tariffs on Canada and Mexico over the weekend, got burned by that. The Stock Market took a tumble and what mostly likely happened is that his oligarch backers got on him about that and told him that he needs to retreat (or something to that affect) and end, or at least pause these tariffs. 

So what the President did on Monday was try to save his face by announcing that he he reached new border agreements with Mexico and Canada, that were already in place. And tried to take a victory lap on that. But as much as President Trump might hate this, we still have free speech and a free press in America. And Catherine Rampell and a lot of others, including The New Democrat, called him out on that. 

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You can also see this post on WordPress.

NBC News: President Trump Pauses Tariffs On Canada & Mexico

"Days after announcing a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump agreed to delay them for one month after the two countries' leaders announced moves to ramp up security at their borders. NBC News' Yamiche Alcindor reports on the terms of the deal while Christine Romans details where things stand with the tariffs on China." 

Source:NBC News with a look at President Donald J. Trump (MAGA, Florida) 47th President of the United States & 1st wannabe dictator.

From NBC News

From CTV News: 

"U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have made a variety of complaints about Canada to justify his plan to impose 25% tariffs on most imports from Canada (with 10% tariffs on energy imports) beginning on Tuesday.

Most frequently, Trump has cited the U.S. trade deficit with Canada, the trafficking of fentanyl from Canada to the U.S., illegal migration over the Canada-U.S. border, and Canada’s low level of defence spending.

Trump, however, has wildly exaggerated the size of that trade deficit. He hasn’t mentioned that Canada is responsible for a minuscule percentage of illegal fentanyl imports into the U.S. and a small percentage of U.S. encounters with migrants. And while Canada’s persistent failure to meet NATO defence spending guidelines has long been a bipartisan U.S. concern, Trump has sometimes overstated the extent of the problem.

Here is a fact check.

Just 0.2% of U.S. border fentanyl seizures are at the Canadian border

Trump has lumped together the Canadian border and the Mexican border when talking about illegal fentanyl imports. The day after his inauguration in January, for example, he said, “The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. The fentanyl coming through Mexico is massive.”

But there is a massive difference between the extent of the problem at the two borders.

Federal statistics show U.S. border authorities seized 21,889 pounds of fentanyl in the 2024 fiscal year. Of that amount, 43 pounds were seized at the Canadian border — about 0.2% — compared with 21,148 pounds at the Mexican border, about 96.6%.

There’s no indication of any substantial change in the first three months of the 2025 fiscal year (October 2024 through December 2024). Of the 4,537 pounds of fentanyl seized by U.S. border authorities during that period, 10 pounds, about 0.2%, were seized at the Canadian border, while 4,409 pounds, about 97.2%, were seized at the Mexican border.

It is true that the quantity of fentanyl seized at the Canadian border increased in fiscal year 2024. Just 2 pounds were seized there in fiscal year 2023, and 14 pounds were seized in fiscal year 2022. And, of course, even tiny quantities of fentanyl can be fatal.

Still, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment report did not even use the word “Canada.” It mentioned Mexico 86 times... 

From CTV News

I just want to correct something that NBC News anchor Ryan Nobles said, first and then I'll get into the bigger story here. 

Ryan Nobles said: "Donald Trump likes to fashion himself as a great dealmaker. He even wrote a book about dealmaking called "The Art of The Deal". 

It's actually Tony Schwartz who ghostwrote that book. You know when Donald Trump wrote something by looking at his personal social media accounts. That's the only time he ever writes anything on his own. 

As my colleague Rik Schneider wrote about President Trump's tariffs on Friday: 

"When you raise the costs of goods and doing business in America, the costs of those goods and business goes up. It doesn't get paid for by corporations or government's (domestic or foreign) but by the consumers themselves, because businesses just pass those new costs onto their consumers. We already saw the stock market take a big hit today even with the President's announcement of his tariffs that he's planning this weekend. Tariffs and tax hikes on goods and business simply makes those things more expensive in this country. Other terms for tariff are national sales tax, or national consumption tax. 

And Charles Payne can talk all he wants about the "facts" that Americans will be paying less in taxation under President Trump, which would offset the tariffs. But according to Econo Fact, 60% of Americans only got 500 bucks back in tax relief under President Trump's 2017 tax cuts. So 10 bucks a week is supposed to pay for a 25% increase in food and milk? I don't think so. The wealthy won't be hurt by this, they may even like it. But the overwhelmingly majority of American voters are middle class Americans, who can't afford tax hikes right now. And putting tariffs on their goods and services, is giving them a 25% tax increase." 

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Derik Schneider wrote about this today: 

"President Trump's cave on the tariffs, is just like his his cave on the attempt to unilaterally freeze government spending last week. His got negative feedback from his own people and then he tried to spin it like it was some type of victory for him. 

Imagine being the coach of a football team and you just lost a game 35-7, after you spent a week talking about how your team is going to beat the other team and the press is talking about how bad your team was beat and your answer is something like: "We didn't get shut out. We scored in that game. You thought we would get shut out". 

This is what Donald Trump is like as President of the United States, he swings for the fences every time he tries to do anything. And when he misses badly, he tries claim victory by saying he did something that he had nothing to do with. He's like the amateur card player who goes to Las Vegas with his 10,000$ in savings on a Friday night, leaves on Sunday with 100 bucks left, claiming he just made a 100 bucks." 

From The New Democrat

Sorry, but I don't give credit to people for: 

Not jumping off the bridge. 

Not breaking into my house. 

Not hitting my car when they're parking. 

I don't give cabbies a bigger tip from dropping me off at the right location. 

When you almost create a trade war and you are just pausing that trade war, you don't deserve credit for almost blowing up your house, but putting pause on that. Perhaps you really want to look at the consequences of that. Will the insurance company be fooled. That sort of thing.

The CTV News piece is correct:America gets  0.2% of its fentanyl from Canada. So where is the victory here? How is Canada putting more of their own troops on their border with us, a victory for America? If anything, Canada with its unpopular and outgoing Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, caved. And Donald Trump takes a victory lap for not blowing up his own house. 

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President Donald Trump Caves On Tariffs With Mexico

"BREAKING: Donald Trump Suffers BRUISING LOSS in Trade War Update" 

Source:Brian Tyler Cohen with a look at President Donald J. Trump (MAGA, Florida) 47th President of the United States and its 1st wannabe dictator.

From Brian Tyler Cohen

From Reuters: 

"Mexico has doubled its detentions of migrants with a deployment of 10,000 troops to its southern border, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Monday, as Washington leans on regional governments to help slow arrivals at the U.S. border.

Reuters reported in March that Mexico had launched enforcement operations for rounding up immigrants transiting illegally toward the U.S. border, and stepped up its efforts along its border with Guatemala.

The operations include members of the National Guard, a militarized police force, along with soldiers and members of the navy and immigration officials. Mexico said on March 22 that it had close to 9,000 troops from the defense ministry, Navy and National Guard on its northern and southern borders.

A Mexican National Guard member deployed to the area said the force's daily arrest rate had doubled in recent weeks... 

From Reuters

So in case there's a MAGA person who reads this and they think that Brian Tyler Cohen is just some radical, left-wing, hippie revolutionary, trying to take down "The Man", Reuters, as well as the Associated Press confirmed what BTC said about this story as well. 

President Trump's cave on the tariffs, is just like his cave on the attempt to unilaterally freeze government spending last week. His got negative feedback from his own people and then he tried to spin it like it was some type of victory for him. 

Imagine being the coach of a football team and you just lost a game 35-7, after you spent a week talking about how your team is going to beat the other team and the press is talking about how bad your team was beat and your answer is something like: "We didn't get shut out. We scored in that game. You thought we would get shut out". 

This is what Donald Trump is like as President of the United States, he swings for the fences every time he tries to do anything. And when he misses badly, he tries claim victory by saying he did something that he had nothing to do with. He's like the amateur card player who goes to Las Vegas with his 10,000$ in savings on a Friday night, leaves on Sunday with 100 bucks left, claiming he just made a 100 bucks. 

As far as President Trump's tariffs, this is what me colleague Rik Schneider said about them on Friday: 

"When you raise the costs of goods and doing business in America, the costs of those goods and business goes up. It doesn't get paid for by corporations or government's (domestic or foreign) but by the consumers themselves, because businesses just pass those new costs onto their consumers. We already saw the stock market take a big hit today even with the President's announcement of his tariffs that he's planning this weekend. Tariffs and tax hikes on goods and business simply makes those things more expensive in this country. Other terms for tariff are national sales tax, or national consumption tax. 

And Charles Payne can talk all he wants about the "facts" that Americans will be paying less in taxation under President Trump, which would offset the tariffs. But according to Econo Fact, 60% of Americans only got 500 bucks back in tax relief under President Trump's 2017 tax cuts. So 10 bucks a week is supposed to pay for a 25% increase in food and milk? I don't think so. The wealthy won't be hurt by this, they may even like it. But the overwhelmingly majority of American voters are middle class Americans, who can't afford tax hikes right now. And putting tariffs on their goods and services, is giving them a 25% tax increase."

From The New Democrat

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