Republican strategist Brendan Buck told MSNBC that if President Donald Trump's trade war gambit fails, it will be difficult for him to blame it on former President Joe Biden — or anyone else.
Speaking to host Chris Jansing on Monday, Buck said that he was hearing rumblings of "political damage" that could be difficult for the Republican Party to reverse.
"This is supposed to be Donald Trump's vision for the economy. Now, we've got a long way to go, of course, and we don't know how long these are going to stay in place," said the former advisor to two House speakers.
"But if this is ultimately what this is supposed to look like —JD Vance is supposed to be the future of the Republican Party now, right?" he pivoted. "And he's all-embracing this. And if it ends up putting us into a historically bad recession, I think that is going to do really bad long-term damage for Trumpism. I've always been really worried that Trumpism is sort of here to stay, but this could completely upend it."
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He harkened back to the pandemic, saying that Trump can't "blame a wet market in China for this recession," like he did with his handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Buck also said that Trump won't be able to blame Biden for a recession, as he's been doing on other matters.
"But we knew ... based on principles of economics over decades and decades, what kind of results you're going to get, and here we are. We're seeing them. When no one is there to sort of restrain him, it's full Trump. This is what you get," Buck closed.
See the clip below or at the link here.