Trump’s “Off the Record” Canadian Trade Discussion With Bloomberg Reporters Leaked to Toronto Paper
Is the press trying to reinforce public hate?
Trump sat down with reporters from Bloomberg News to discuss trade discussions with Canada.
The meeting was supposed to be off the record, meaning the content discussed during the meeting was not for publishing. The whole purpose of off the record meetings is to allow for candid discussion and background context, without providing content that’s directly printable.
Someone in the meeting, who, we know not, chose not to honor the “off the record” bit and passed Trump’s comments on to the Toronto Star, who then published the contents of the meeting.
It’s hard to be less professional than that, truly. But anyway, the Star claims the quotes published have “upended” negotiations between the two countries.
And given Trump’s bluntness, it’s not like he’s saying something off the record vastly different from what he says publicly. So I’m not entirely sure what they think they have to gain here.
From the Star:
High-stakes trade negotiations between Canada and the U.S. were dramatically upended on Friday morning by inflammatory secret remarks from President Donald Trump, after the remarks were obtained by the Toronto Star.
In remarks Trump wanted to be “off the record,” Trump told Bloomberg News reporters on Thursday, according to a source, that he is not making any compromises at all in the talks with Canada — but that he cannot say this publicly because “it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal.”
“Here’s the problem. If I say no — the answer’s no. If I say no, then you’re going to put that, and it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal … I can’t kill these people,” he said of the Canadian government.
In another remark he did not want published, Trump said, according to the source, that the possible deal with Canada would be “totally on our terms.” He suggested he was scaring the Canadians into submission by repeatedly threatening to impose tariffs.
“Off the record, Canada’s working their ass off. And every time we have a problem with a point, I just put up a picture of a Chevrolet Impala,” Trump said, according to the source. The Impala is produced at the General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ontario.
Trump wasn’t happy but said he’s used to it.
Wow, I made OFF THE RECORD COMMENTS to Bloomberg concerning Canada, and this powerful understanding was BLATANTLY VIOLATED. Oh well, just more dishonest reporting. I am used to it. At least Canada knows where I stand!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2018
It’s not like Trump and Trudeau are on the best of terms anyway. Earlier this summer, Trump allegedly invoked the War of 1812 to suggest Canada was a national security threat (still hilarious).
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The Liberal Mind believes all measures are on the table to combat Trump
They really are the enemy.
And they are astounded we think that–which indicates they may be as stupid as they think we are. Or maybe just blinded by arrogance.
Embrace the power of “and”.
The democrat/GOPe media is the enemy, that’s for sure.
There are still solid information media outlets left. Like this one here.
Do you see how President Trump used Bloomberg to get his message to Canada?
Now he gets his way against Canada and can attack the democrat Press. I hope he pulls their press pass.
Trump really is quite lucky to have enemies this stupid.
Is the press trying to reinforce public hate?
Best rhetorical question of the week!
So Trump will never, EVER give Bloomberg an off the record interview ever again.
Hope it was worth it for a really weak ‘gotcha’, Bloomberg.
“Is the press trying to reinforce public hate?” asks Kemberlee Kaye.
According to Axios:
So I read this to mean that Trump admits his reckless discussion on rejecting in advance any position that Canada might have on a new “Nafta.”
Bloomberg is suggesting that they had no such an agreement with the President or they didn’t leak anything. The biggest bunch of leakers I can think of work in the West Wing.
I interacted with the press a great deal in my heyday, but I did have one female reporter at a rinky dink publication known as Mlive use off record comments. That was about 20 years ago, and I continue to periodically give them quality time. Actually, they seem to do a good job undermining the credibility and viability on their own.
Loving every minute of it. Lib. press and the Great White North snow flakes just got touched.
New day, new drama.
Don’t miss the sunshine up my rear end if Hilary was in.
At least Canada knows where I stand!
Sounds like the Bloomberg Rats did the job the President wanted them to do.
Two things:
1. NEVER give Bloomberg an interview again, either on the record or off.
2. The Canadians are outraged and scared to death over their own government’s refusal to negotiate with President Trump. Just watch a few videos from Rebel Media on YouTube.
President Trump IS going to get what he wants – and Canada has nobody but themselves to blame.
Only the MSM could congratulate themselves for being played so well. If this were a TV show or a movie, I believe that as “Trump Towers” it might even be better than Fawlty Towers.
You’d think by now that some in the MSM would have read “Art of the Deal” so that they’d have an inkling when he was playing them, but then, they wouldn’t be able to cry “victim” as often.
I’d bet money Trump said what he did to find out where Bloomberg stood. Trump’s no fool. He knows the DLSM is against him. Therefore, he also knows that none of his off-the-record agreements will be so honored with the DLSM. What Trump had is his trap sprung and the DLSM revealed as untrustworthy connivers who are out to get him.
Hey, I just realized something.
This is the first time in a very long time that the American media has reported a truthful story about Trump.
Sneaky, ain’t he?
I don’t see where he’s going to be any tougher on Canada than he was on Mexico, where the “new” deal contained fairly minor changes to NAFTA, so I agree that he probably expected and wanted Bloomberg to leak.
The White House should bar all Bloomberg interviews and attendance at press conferences.
It does speak to trust, and they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, so there should be consequences for their actions.
The Leftwing Media (and BOY does that ever include Bloomberg news) proves to us every day, that THEY consider Trump and US, to be THEIR enemy. That’s the direction of the hatred, and they’re so filled with hate they don’t get that obvious direction of hatred Trump has referred to. They’re literally trying to destroy his Presidency, which is insulting and sick.
Press got played. Trump wanted them to leak it.
What did Trump get?
1) Show Canada what our position was, Trump holds all the cards in that negotiation
2) Show the press as his foes again
3) Control the topic he wants covered in the press
It was deliberate, they took the bait, the press got played.
Again.
Trump says the agreement with Bloomberg was violated. So we immediately assume it was Bloomberg who violated it. Maybe that’s a bad assumption.
Perhaps Trump authorized the leak (then implied it was Bloomberg who leaked it). He doesn’t seem very upset by it.
What we know is that Trump has hated NAFTA for decades. Earlier in the week, after the deal with Mexico was struck, he even said he was no longer going to call it NAFTA. It’s now the US-Mexico Trade Agreement.
He’s essentially telling Canada, “NAFTA is over. The US has a new trade agreement with Mexico. You can sign onto it or take your chances negotiating a bi-lateral trade agreement with the US. But the old NAFTA framework is over and so are those negotiations. Take it or leave it.”
Canada can try to negotiate a bi-lateral trade deal with the US, but they are in a terrible bargaining position. US GDP is $18.6 trillion. We export $290 billion, or about 1.5% of GDP, to Canada. Sort of a large rounding error. However, Canada’s GDP is only about $1.5 trillion. It exports $300B to the US, or around 20% of Canada’s GDP. Canada depends on the US market FAR, FAR more than the US depends on the Canadian market.
Trump’s basically saying, “Good luck, O Canada, trying to negotiate a better deal than what is available in the new US-Mexico Trade Agreement.”
So I can see how the leak may have come from the Trump side.
It looks like a win-win for Trump. 1) He’s happy if Canada signs on to the new US-Mexico deal. 2) If Canada makes a bad decision and chooses not to sign, then he negotiates an even better deal for the US with Canada.
Whether it is Bloomberg or the Trump side who leaked Trump’s comments, the message is that Trump is playing hard ball from a strong bargaining position. He will win. If Trudeau makes a bad decision and tries to negotiate a bi-lateral deal with the US, he will lose. And the Canadian public will have the last word at the ballot box in the next elections. Trudeau/Freeland are cornered.
Daniel Dale
✔
@ddale8
I’d said I wasn’t going to say anything about my source for the quotes Trump made off the record to Bloomberg.
However, I don’t want to be party to the president’s smearing of excellent, ethical journalists. So I can say this: none of the Bloomberg interviewers was my source.
1:37 PM – Sep 1, 2018
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So… It seems all is not as T-rump would have you believe…
There’s nothing in this leak that Trump didn’t say a zillion times on the campaign trail.
You do raise an interesting point, though, about Dale’s insistence that he didn’t get the information from “a Bloomberg interviewer,” which conveniently leaves out other Bloomberg attendees, i.e. those who weren’t “Bloomberg interviewers,” and anyone enlisted by “a Bloomberg interviewer” to leak this information on their behalf.
If it does mean all those present from Bloomberg and excludes any courier of the information from an actual “Bloomberg interviewer” to Dale, it begs the question: if Dale is not lying or obfuscating about his source, who did leak the details? I’m sure the Trump team is working to figure that out right now. Or, more likely, laughing their butts off at having played the media (“At least Canada knows where I stand!”) so successfully (like Canada didn’t know before? Where have they been for the past two years?).
Bottom line: those who supported Trump before this “leak” will continue to do so; those who didn’t will continue not to do so. Stalemate. Version 351,357.0
“Ragspierre” will take any side, prog, Canadian, “journalist”, as long as it is anti Trump.
“Journalists” are such paragons of honesty after all.
“I’ve seen nothing”
One cannot see with their eyes shut and head in the sand.
Nothing personal “Ragspierre”. You have shown without any doubt that you will take any side that opposes Trump, as you do here with no knowledge whatsoever of the truth. Here you decided to side with a “reporter” and the Canadians. You don’t know what is true and what is false. You chose because it is anti Trump, nothing more.