Trump, love him or hate him...He is a focal point for news
Fox News Take on trade war.
China announces it seeks 'calm' end to trade war, as markets tank and currency hits 11-year flatline
China signaled on Monday it was now seeking a "calm" end to its ongoing trade war with the U.S., as Asian markets crumbled and China's currency plummeted to an 11-year low following the latest tariffs on $550 billion in Chinese goods announced last Friday by the Trump administration.
News of the possible opening in negotiations came shortly after President Trump threatened to declare a national emergency that would result in American businesses freezing their relationships with China. Trump's tariff barrage on Friday was a response to China imposing its own retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods.
At the Group of Seven summit in France on Sunday, White House officials rejected suggestions the president was wavering and insisted that his only regret was not implementing even more tariffs on China. Trump wrote on Twitter that world leaders at the G-7 were "laughing" at all the inaccurate media coverage of the gathering.
CNNs laugh a minute take on the trade war.
Trump's rocky weekend in France dashes hopes of China trade truce
CNN)President Donald Trump -- irritable and inconsistent on the world stage -- raised, then swiftly dashed, hopes for an easing of his fast worsening trade war with China that is threatening the global economy.
The G7 summit in France unfolded in the now familiar manner of Trump's foreign trips. The United States, once the fulcrum of the Western alliance, was isolated. Foreign leaders who once looked to the US for direction largely tried not to antagonize a volatile American President. And Trump battled with the media, reacted furiously to any criticism of his performance and left whip lashed aides scrambling to explain his public comments.
NBC News, Still pushing the debunked climate change, do they not know that Obama bought a 14 million dollar mansion on the beach!
Trump confronts deep divides with G-7 leaders
The president emphasized unity, but stark differences over climate change, North Korea, and tariffs between Trump and other world leaders have been evident this weekend in France.
SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ, France — There were stark differences with climate change, North Korea, and tariffs among world leaders meeting here this weekend — and barely concealed strife between White House and French officials.
But to hear President Donald Trump tell it, the summit so far has been wonderful, the U.S. has been treated "beautifully," and the leaders are "getting along very well."
"The vibes were good," White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters of a meeting Sunday morning on the economy. "There are always disagreements, you got high-powered leaders here, and there may be tactical disagreements. But every single one of those leaders agreed that something has got to be done about China's unfair trading practices, every single one expressed support on that very key point."
New York Post, Miranda Devine probably has the best take on Trump for the week. He is the champion of WWE.
When you attend one of his rallies, as I did last week in New Hampshire, it is obvious that Donald Trump has modeled his presidential persona on WWE pro-wrestling.
The banter, the jokes, the trash talking, the catch phrases, the crowd manipulation, the belligerent patriotism, the villain-slamming: It’s all straight out of a preordained WWE storyline.
Trump applies the patriot choke to “heels” like China, The Squad, Pocahontas, Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary and radical-left Dems.
He has dragged in the media, too, as villains. Penned in the center of the rally arena behind metal barriers, he assigns us a character as the crowd boos: “Fake News,” the heel, or sometimes “The Enemy of the People!”
His extravagant blond bouffant, tanned skin and uniform of suit and overlong tie can be fully appreciated in this context.
It is simultaneously alarming and amusing that the Leader of the Free World is performing like a fictional bad guy, but it needs to be understood, because much of what he says and tweets is only half-serious.
That’s not because he’s channeling “Hitler, Stalin and Mao,” as a CNN guest claimed on Sunday, but because this is how he communicates the great drama of his presidency — in wrestling allegory, as a spectacle of excess.
Last week was a case in point, when Trump called himself “the Chosen One” in a sardonic aside during one of the comic “Chopper Talk” press conferences on the South Lawn of the White House.
The “Fake News Media” played its role to perfection, ginning up stories about the president’s “Messiah complex,” which allowed him to extend the storyline with weekend tweets from the G-7.
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“When I looked up to the sky and jokingly said, ‘I am the chosen one,’ at a press conference two days ago, referring to taking on Trade with China, little did I realize that the media would claim that I had a ‘Messiah complex,’” he tweeted.
By yesterday, this most villainous of heels had become “the Fake and Disgusting News” in Trump’s daily banter blasted out on the @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle.
His Twitter feed, with its outlandish, self-aggrandizing dramas, is an extension of the WWE theme.
His tweet about buying Greenland extended into a mock feud with the Danish prime minister.
The storyline served to distract attention from a plunging Dow, as did Trump’s tweet casting Fed Chairman Jerome Powell as a heel.
From a political point of view Trump’s WWE appropriation makes perfect sense, since the wrestling audience is HUGE — 800 million households worldwide every week, says WWE — and its demographic aligns with those of his voters: 60 percent are male, 60 percent are white, and more than 60 percent are not college graduates.
Even his feud with The Mooch, former communications director Anthony Scaramucci, is a WWE storyline. The Mooch is a babyface- turned-heel who appears at Joe Biden events. Trump tweets that he is a “highly unstable nut job.”
Is Trump a good guy or a bad guy?
“He’s a heel to some. He’s a babyface to others,” says “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, once the greatest wrestler in WWE history, who now hosts a podcast drawing 2 million downloads and a USA show, “Straight Up Steve Austin.”
Trump seems to have modeled himself on Austin, who was an anti-authoritarian, blue-collar, cussing, heel who didn’t care how he was perceived and was so admired by audiences that he “turned face.”
Like Austin, Trump’s persona is champion of the underdog, “The People’s Billionaire,” the “heel” who picks fights and always prevails.
“The crowd know it’s fake but they believe, just like if you went to a movie.”
This is why Trump’s fans let him get away with extravagant untruths that drive his media critics mad.
It was audiences in Trump’s hometown who turned WWE villains into good guys, says Austin, at Madison Square Garden and the Nassau Coliseum.
“They’re a great crowd but they’re tough, especially on babyfaces. Sometimes heels get more cheers,” Austin goes on.
“In today’s age, people tend to be more entertained by the trash-talking of the heels rather than the good guy characteristics of the wholesome babyface [who] always plays by the rules.”
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Trump vows not to build gold Las Vegas-style hotel in Greenland
This is where Trump learned his crowd skills, from decades sitting in the front row of Wrestlemania, studying the form of stars like Austin and a wrestler-turned-politician, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, who became governor of Minnesota.
A friend of WWE owner Vince McMahon, Trump staged two of the first Wrestlemanias in Atlantic City in the late 1980s, was incorporated into storylines and inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
As if to underscore the debt his performance art owes to his old friend, Trump Sunday tweeted “Happy Birthday, Vince.”
Trump’s original catchphrase was “You’re Fired.” Today it’s “Make America Great Again,” which audiences at his rallies chant along with him.
His ability to excite the crowd is, in the tweet of “The Greatest Mayor,” babyface Rudy Giuliani, “a unique and potent political weapon.”
Like the audience, the “Fake News Media,” especially the “Failing New York Times,” suspends disbelief and plays the role Trump assigns it because, in the end, it’s good for business.
Trump’s WWE presidency is both a pantomime about justice and a morality play, as Roland Barthes wrote of wrestling in his 1957 essay.
Even Trump’s name is a wrestling trope, since the dictionary definition is to defeat someone publicly.
But whether his is a “trumped up” presidency or the real deal, only the voters will decide.
