OK, I admit it, I used the phrase “chickens out” the other day when talking about Putin being a no-show for proposed negotiations with Volodymyr Zelensky to end the Russia-Ukraine war. But I wasn’t in the Oval Office, and I wasn’t talking to President Donald Trump.

If I had been, I might have been mowed down like this unfortunate lady.

Thinking she’d embarrass the president following a ceremony to swear in new U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, Megan Casella of CNBC asked, “Wall Street analysts have coined a term called the ‘TACO trade.’ They’re saying that Trump always chickens out on his tariff threats.” What is your response to that?”

She probably wishes she hadn’t asked:

Trump thought about it for a brief moment, then brought her a hard dose of reality:

Isn’t that nice? I chickened out? I’ve never heard that.

You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set down to 100, then down to another number? And I said, “You have to open your whole country?”

And because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tariff? And they called up and they said, please, let’s meet right now. Please, let’s meet right now? And I said, OK, I’ll give you until…July 9th?

[…]

You call that chickening out? Because we have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing, when Biden didn’t have practically anything. This country was dying.

More: Trump Has 'Very Nice Call' With EU Commission President, Changes Tactics on 50 Percent Tariff

Winning Bigly: Tariff Receipts Top $16 Billion in April

The term “TACO trade,” or “Trump Always Chickens Out" on tariffs, was coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong in a May article. Other liberals and folks like the TDS-addled Lincoln Project weirdos have been trying to mock Trump with variations of it since:

Trump had more to say to Casella:

We have the hottest country anywhere in the world…

Six months ago, this country was stone-cold dead. We had a dead country. We had a country that was not going to survive, and you ask a nasty question like that.

It’s called negotiation. You set a number. You know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit, they [his critics] want me to hold that number, 145 percent tariff.

He continued, saying that the China tariff got “really up there,” and he had never intended to keep it permanent. He left her with a piece of advice if she didn’t want to get steamrolled on live television again:

But don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question.

For her part, Casella said that the president calling her query nasty was “a badge of honor.” If getting humiliated in the Oval Office is your idea of success, Megan, then just keep doing what you’re doing.

Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie.

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