White House, Trump press conference with Romania president Klaus Iohannis

Only one question goes to Romanian president.

This is a very good press conference. I listened to it twice and parts of it three times.

Most notable, I think, is Trump's response to a question straight from Wall Street thinky-thoughts tanks. As if President Trump is pulling this out of his butt:

"... you keep insisting that your trade war with China ... is not affecting the U.S. economy. But a lot of economists disagree with that. And they worry that if China goes into a recession, they’ll pull us down with it."

See? It's not the reporter thinking this, it's "a lot of economists" who worry about recession.

Eight solid years of slogging through recession with regulators having their field day through Obama's leadership and Obama jacking with every corporation that didn't directly support him, and kowtowing to foreign leaders, taking a backseat to leadership and bragging about that, and each quarter report recording failure to flourish, unemployment at all time high and renamed to funemployment and social services expanded beyond capacity with healthy people filing disability claims and SNAP claims at all time high, and blame placed on everyone else, mostly Bush II, with media reporting each quarter "a surprise" and now economist are worried about recession?

Blow me

down

with a feather.

The question is not the reporter's. They are words given him to ask. Posed as a genuine question.

Oh, look at me, I speak for all those voiceless economists.

Ew, I can't stand these people. The phrasing, "some people say."

How does Trump answer without ripping the guy's head off and drop kicking it down the hallway?

Reasonably. Thusly. Quite impressively, actually.

Let me tell you something, we're doing very well as an economy. But somebody had to take China on. You know, I read and I see so much and I read so much, and I’ll see these economists saying, “Oh, give up. Give up on China.

China has been ripping this country off for 25 years. And it’s about time, whether it’s good for our country or bad for our country short term. Long term, it’s imperative that somebody does this because our country cannot continue to pay China $500 billion a year because stupid people are running it.

So I don’t mind this question.

Whether it’s good or bad, short term, is irrelevant.

We have to solve the problem with China because they’re taking out $500 billion a year-plus. And that doesn’t include intellectual property theft and other things. And also, national security.

So, I am doing this whether it’s good or bad for your ... your statement about, “Oh, will we fall into a recession for two months?” Okay? The fact is, somebody had to take China on.

My life would be a lot easier if I didn’t take China on. But I like doing it because I have to do it. And we’re getting great results.

China has had the worst year they’ve had in 27 years. And a lot of people are saying the worst year they’ve had in 54 years. Okay? And frankly, I don’t want that to happen, but it does put us in a good negotiating position, doesn’t it? And China wants to make a deal, and that’s good. But they have to make a deal that’s fair to us. It can’t be a deal that’s not fair to us.

And you should be happy that I’m fighting this and I’m fighting this battle, because somebody had to do it. We couldn’t let this go ... I don’t even think it’s sustainable to let go on what was happening.

They were stealing all of our intellectual property ideas. The theft was incredible. They call it “intellectual property theft.” And they value it at $300 billion a year. Who knows how they value it? I know how to value dollars; I don’t know how to value intellectual property theft. But they have experts that say it’s at least $300 billion a year, where they steal it.

Somebody had to do something with China.

Obama should have done it.

Bush should have done it.

Clinton should have done it.

They all should have done it. Nobody did it. I’m doing it.

And very much more. This is only half of his answer about China. There are a lot more subjects besides China. It blew me away how cogent because it's all off-the-cuff. Gone is Obama's measured back and forth between Teleprompters like a metronome with its nose in the air. (Metronomes don't have noses. It's a simile ah'ight? )