CNBC Host Calls Out Tim Scott’s ‘Abstract’ Trump Defense

CNBC hosts pressed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on Wednesday after the Republican made a wild claim to defend Donald Trump for threatening to hit John Deere with a 200% tariff should he win the election.

The Trump surrogate, who has gone to bat for the former president’s “Black jobs” remarks and pushed conspiracy theories to support him, was asked by “Squawk Box” host Joe Kernen about the GOP nominee’s plans to impose such a tariff on the agricultural equipment company if it brings some of its manufacturing in the U.S. to Mexico.

“You agree with all the tariffs. Do you think John Deere, 200%? Do you think companies that make stuff here should have a 15% tax? That’s industrial policy, isn’t it?” Kernen asked of Trump, whose tariff proposals have prompted warnings by economists.

“I believe that President Trump oftentimes talks in the abstract, number one,” Scott replied.

As he attempted to continue, co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin interrupted, “What are we supposed to believe then?”

Scott has previously criticized Trump after the GOP nominee entertained imposing a 10% tariff on all imported goods in 2023.

“An across-the-board 10% [tariff would] increase in the cost of everything,” Scott told The New York Post at the time.

“In the current inflationary environment [that] would not be helpful.”

Scott, in his CNBC appearance, called for the co-hosts to evaluate Trump’s “performance” between 2017 to 2020 — one year before he left office.

“We should believe the seven million jobs that he created and two-thirds of those jobs went to African Americans, Hispanics, and women,” Scott declared. “We should actually believe what he produced.”

“Obviously, that excludes Covid, right?” Sorkin said. “Part of, part of what you’re saying is we should sort of take this time out period around Covid and not include that in.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Scott argued. “I would actually say that if you look at Covid itself, specifically, they said that you couldn’t get a vaccine in ten years or five years. He did it in nine months.”

“No, no, I’m saying on the economic numbers,” Sorkin noted.

You can check out more of Scott’s appearance in the clip below.