'How do you square that?' House Republican gets swift pushback from skeptical CNN host

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) on Wednesday criticized Senate Republicans looking to curb President Donald Trump’s tariff moves.

“I wonder if this bill passes in the Senate. Should the resolution get a vote or at least debate in the House?” asked anchor Boris Sanchez.

“No. Absolutely not,” Fine said. “Look, tariffs are apparently a great idea when other countries do them. But when President Trump wants to level the playing field by fighting back, everyone loses their courage. He's trying to create a fundamental reordering in how we think about trade policy in the world. I'm behind him 100%, and this won't go anywhere in the house.”

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The congressman doubled down on Trump’s assertion that President Joe Biden is at fault for the economic situation the country faces, and that the tariff move is “President Trump looking for a level playing field.”

But the CNN host expressed skepticism.

Sanchez then asked, “It's interesting that you describe President Biden's policies as losing, where in the last quarter of his presidency, the economy grew 2.4%, in the first quarter of President Trump's, it contracted by 0.3%. How do you square that?”

“Well, there's absolutely no way you can blame the first quarter. Keep in mind, President Trump wasn't even president for the first third of that first quarter. So to say that on January 20th, he's responsible for the first 20 days in his economic policies are going to make some sort of magical difference for the next two months, is a little bit crazy. Those numbers are lagging indicators.”

“Not tariffs?” Sanchez pressed, “Installing tariffs unlike any we've seen since Smoot-Hawley, right before the great depression, is a tremendous change to the economy. You don't think there's any tie-in between tariffs and the economy reacting the way that it did?

“Well, mathematically it's impossible because President Trump put in those tariffs on April 2nd, the first quarter of this country ended on March 31st. So by definition, those tariffs couldn't have had any effect on those results. People have to look at facts. They have to look at numbers. They've got to move away from talking points. You can have concerns about tariffs. People are right to have concerns, but to create a fundamental change in the global order is going to take time. But what we do know is that any tariff policy couldn't possibly have had an effect on the first quarter because they weren't in place."

Sanchez noted some tariffs were installed before April 2. The pair went on to speak about the national debt and cuts to Medicaid.

Watch the full interaction below.

- YouTubeyoutu.be