CNN anchor Chris Cuomo on Friday blasted President Trump for likening Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to Chinese President Xi Jinping, declaring that the “president’s mouth is a threat to this country.”
“We all get politics is often about provocative talk, trash talk even,” Cuomo said on his show Friday night. “But there is also a point at which what he is saying is inherently abnormal and a dereliction of his duty. His oath is … to preserve and protect the Constitution. I argue that he’s not doing either.”
“The truth is, the president’s mouth is a threat to this country,” he added.
The comments from Cuomo, who has in the past locked horns with Trump, came as the president on Friday further escalated his trade war with China by announcing plans to increase tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods.{mosads}
Trump tweeted that a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion in Chinese goods set to take effect Sept. 1 would increase to 15 percent, and a 25 percent tariff on an additional $250 billion will rise to 30 percent starting Oct. 1.{mosads}
Hours earlier, Beijing had announced that it would impose $75 billion in tariffs on U.S.-made goods.
Also on Friday, Powell warned that while the Fed may cut interest rates to support the U.S. economy, it can’t fix the damage created by Trump’s trade battles. Trump fired back by tweeting: “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?”
Cuomo called the comparison a “metaphor for the mess this president is making.”
“The sick part is why he’s doing this — it’s just because both these men represent what he doesn’t want. They won’t do what he wants,” Cuomo said. “This president is a living, breathing, tweeting example of a very different America than the one that made us great.”