Trump mocked on MSNBC as he tries to 'redefine what a deal really means'

President Donald Trump promised "90 deals in 90 days," but that deadline is up next week, and he's falling far short of the goal. The president's attempt to explain his progress prompted an MSNBC host to chide Monday afternoon that he's "redefining what a deal really means."

In an interview with Fox News, Trump explained that he now wants to recalculate "deals."

The "Art of the Deal" co-author told Maria Bartiromo, "What I want to do is, and what I will do, just sometime prior to the ninth, is we'll send a letter to all these countries. There's 200 countries. You can't talk to all of them, no matter how many people you have, you can't talk to all of them. We'll send a letter and we'll say we would consider it a great honor — and this is what you'll have to do to shop in the United States, like a department store to shop in the United States. And you'll pay a 25% tariff. And we wish you a lot of luck. And that's the end of the trade deal."

MSNBC host Alicia Menendez noted that the plan was "ambitious" to begin with, but with a little over a week left, "it appears the administration has only one and a half agreements in place. Naturally, the goalpost-moving has already begun."

She questioned, "Is that how it works? Is a trade deal like having an aggressive pen pal?"

Later in the segment, Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy, lamented, "It points to a really fundamental problem, which is the president tends to change his tariff policies more often than I change my underwear. And to be clear, I do that daily, Alicia."

The University of Michigan professor explained that it ultimately causes the problem that if Trump were to make a deal on something he says today, he could upend it tomorrow.

"Look, think about the poor Canadians, for example, which is they had a deal that went through Congress. It went through their parliament. It was called NAFTA. This new bloke, Donald Trump came to power in 2017, ripped up that deal, said it was a terrible deal and wrote a whole new one. So then they abided by it. And then this new bloke, Donald Trump, comes back to power, calls that a terrible deal, rips it up and then accuses them of not doing a nice job in negotiating with them when your word is worth nothing."

It prompted him to ask why any country would give up anything in exchange for Trump's word.

See the clip below or at the link here.

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