Trump's campaign tough talk on China EVAPORATES in real world test

[0:00] When Donald Trump was running for president, you may remember this. He had a question he [0:04] loved to ask, a particular thought experiment about a tête-à-tête between Vice President [0:10] Harris and President Xi. And it went like this. Kamala Harris is so incompetent. Can you imagine [0:17] her dealing with President Xi of China? Can you imagine her dealing with President Xi? [0:23] Can you imagine with President Xi? Can you imagine her negotiating with President Xi of China? Can [0:29] you imagine her standing with President Xi of China? I don't think so. Can you imagine? He said [0:36] that so many times. I mean, Trump spent that campaign railing about China's influence in the [0:41] world. And he repeatedly insisted that he alone was the only candidate tough enough to go toe-to-toe [0:47] with President Xi of China. He was the only person who could show Xi who's boss. Well, Donald Trump [0:54] just finished his first state visit to China in his second term. And how did it go? Did big, [0:59] bad Donald Trump stand up to the Chinese leader? We have a friendship, really. He's a tremendous [1:08] leader. He's been here a long time. Very powerful. Very strong. There's no doubt about it. I say about [1:14] him that if you went to Hollywood and you look for a leader of China to play a role in a movie. [1:21] Central casting. Central casting. You couldn't find a guy like him. Even his physical features, [1:29] you know, he's tall, very tall. I'll get criticized. They always criticize me when I [1:33] say good things about certain leaders and this one. But he's a leader for China. He's led almost 1.5 [1:46] billion people for a long time and he's respected. Can you imagine if Kamala Harris was president? [1:55] Could she lavish the leader of the Chinese Communist Party with praise like that? Would she be able to [2:01] capture what a tall, beautiful autocrat with movie star look Xi is with the same gushing prose? I don't [2:08] think so. I don't think she has that in her. OK, so Donald Trump didn't exactly put on his tough guy [2:14] American first routine for President Xi as he claimed he would do throughout the campaign. But [2:19] maybe that's OK. After all, Trump has just plunged our country into a disastrous and protracted war [2:24] with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed for 77 days now, driving up global oil prices and [2:31] forcing Americans to pay a whole lot more when they fill up their gas tanks. Maybe Trump is focused on [2:37] getting President Xi's help to reopen the strait and fix Trump's big mess. Doesn't make a ton of sense, [2:43] but maybe that's where his focus is. Any progress on that front? President Xi would like to see a [2:49] deal made. He would he would like to see a deal made. And he did offer, he said, if I can be of any [2:55] help at all, I would like to be of help. He did say that. Yeah, he did say that. And look, anybody that [3:01] buys that much oil has obviously got some kind of a relationship with him. But he said, I would love [3:07] to be of help if I could be of any help whatsoever. He'd like to see the Hormuz Strait open. He said, if I [3:13] could be of any help whatsoever, I would like to help. Well, hey, I mean, even Sean Hannity [3:19] sounded a little surprised there. Did you catch that? As he should be, because China has no real [3:24] incentive to help end this war. But Trump says President Xi agreed to help reopen the Strait of [3:30] Hormuz. Maybe something, maybe miraculously will come out of this after all. Now, all Trump has to [3:36] do is seal the deal with those trademark negotiating skills he's always bragging about. Any luck with that [3:41] one? I'm not asking for any favors, because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return. [3:57] We don't need favors. I didn't ask him to put pressure because, you know, I don't, I don't need [4:02] favors. Literally on the flight home from China, where he did the interview with Sean Hannity. [4:10] So no help with the Strait of Hormuz then. Cool. Cool. I guess Trump's biggest international [4:16] blunder will continue to just blunder along for now. But then again, this trip was about more than just [4:22] fixing Trump's latest scripts. It was about reaffirming the U.S.'s position on big decades-long [4:28] issues, issues like China's claim over the country of Taiwan. For years now, people have been worried [4:32] that China may try to invade Taiwan and take the country by force. And even Trump's immediate [4:37] predecessor, the man Trump loves to criticize as weak, took a harder line than U.S. presidents had in [4:43] some time. Would U.S. forces defend the island? Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack. [4:50] To be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese [4:57] invasion. Yes. So what did Tough on China Donald Trump have to say about the issue of Taiwan on [5:06] this trip? I think the last time it was a war, that's 9,500 miles away. I think that's the last [5:16] thing we'd do. We'd do it very well. Would the U.S. defend Taiwan if it came to it? I don't want to say [5:21] that. I'm not going to say that. There's only one person that knows that. You know who it is, [5:26] me. I'm the only person. That question was asked to me today by President Xi. I said, [5:33] I don't talk about that. Trump says he's not going to talk about his position on Taiwan, [5:39] although I kind of feel like he sort of did tell us his position in the first part of that clip. [5:43] Let's just play that part again. Last thing I was at war, that's 9,500 miles away. I think [5:54] the last thing we need right now is a war that's 9,500 miles away. It sounds kind of like Trump is [6:02] saying he's not interested in defending Taiwan if they're invaded by China, which was the position [6:06] of most presidents in recent memory. And for the record, Taiwan isn't 9,500 miles away from the U.S. [6:14] It's 6,500 miles away or about the same distance as Iran. You know, the place where Donald Trump [6:20] decided we did need a war for reasons he has never effectively explained. So I guess Trump [6:25] wasn't interested in standing up for Taiwan on this trip, but maybe he was just saving all his [6:30] leverage for the stuff that really matters to the folks he likes to call his people. I mean, [6:34] after all, Trump has spent years making big promises to parts of his base about how he would [6:39] specifically stand up for them against China. Promises like this one, which Trump made on the campaign [6:45] trail just a few years ago. I will ban communist China from buying up American farmland and other [6:53] critical infrastructure. You have to do it. You have to do it. So Trump promised he would ban China [7:11] from buying up U.S. farmland. He said, you have to do it. So did he do it? Did he keep that promise? [7:18] Chinese nationals have been buying up thousands and thousands of acres of farmland, [7:26] ranchland and land near military installations. Look, it's not that I love it. You want to see [7:33] farm prices drop? You want to see farmers lose a lot of money? Just take that out of the market. [7:38] But they've had a lot of land for a long time. There you go. Looks like Trump's not exactly [7:47] keeping that promise he made on the campaign trail either. Look, Donald Trump talked a lot, [7:51] a lot, a lot of big talk about how he would be tough on China as president. But at the end of this [7:56] trip, it seems like he's done really nothing for his voters, nothing for Taiwan, nothing to end his [8:02] war in Iran. The only things he seems to have done was compliment the leader of the Chinese Communist [8:07] Party for his good looks and his height, I guess. After all that, what does Donald Trump want us to [8:13] believe he got out of this trip? What was our big success? What's the most significant, specific thing [8:20] you walk away from here for the U.S.? I think the most important thing is relationship. It's all about [8:27] relationship. I have a very good relationship with President Xi and with China. And it sounds [8:34] like something that doesn't mean anything, but it's everything. Can you imagine that guy sitting [8:40] across from Xi Jinping? Unfortunately, we don't have to. I could not think of two better people [8:46] to break down all of this madness with me and everything that just happened on that trip. [8:51] Michael McFaul is the former U.S. ambassador to Russia. Barbara Starr is the legendary [8:54] former Pentagon correspondent for CNN. Both of them have been on many, many, many trips, [9:00] international trips with many leaders in the past. And I'm so grateful they're joining [9:04] me now. Ambassador McFaul, let me start with you. I just outlined some of the biggest issues [9:09] that were at stake during this visit. We talked about this late last night when it was the trip [9:13] was still a bit ongoing. But as you looked, it's now over. What did Trump and really the United [9:18] States get out of this trip? Jen, you just summarized it brilliantly. That was a fantastic [9:25] laydown. And I'm so glad you reminded everybody about what he said he was going to do with China. [9:32] Remember, when he first ran for president, it was all about China. China's eating our lunch. [9:37] China's taking our jobs. They're doing all these horrible things to us. And he used in that phrase, [9:43] that clip you just showed, communist China, right? You never heard him use the word communist once [9:49] on this trip. And I just think this flip is remarkable. And I hope his voters noticed it. [9:57] I hope Republicans noticed it. Because for decades, the Republican Party was always saying, [10:05] Democrats are weak on China. We're going to be tough. And now he is completely flipped. [10:10] You could not do a bigger flip than what he said he was going to do from his first term. [10:16] And you could say, well, OK, Mike, settle down. We got really important things we got to do. [10:22] Therefore, he has to say nice things about the chairman of the Communist Party of China. [10:28] He has to praise him as the great, great leader. We don't do that for our allies. We only do it for [10:33] Putin and Xi Jinping. But he has to do it, Mike, because we have to get some concrete things done for the [10:39] American people. But as you just showed, there's not a single concrete deliverable that makes the [10:46] American people better off, more secure as a result of this trip. And that, I think, makes it very [10:52] bankrupt because everything was so sycophantic about what a great leader he was. You would hope [10:59] you could translate that into something tangible. And I haven't seen it yet. Now, maybe there's [11:04] something behind closed doors we'll learn about later. But I haven't seen it so far. [11:10] No, I haven't either. And usually you would see it because usually all of the work is done in the [11:15] lead up to the trip. And then the president's announced things because all the work was done [11:19] by cabinet members and others.