Donald Trump criticized President Obama for inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to a state dinner later in September, saying, “I would get him a McDonald’s hamburger and say’You will get down to work because you can’t continue to devalue [your currency].'”
Trump, appearing on “The O’Reilly Factor” Monday, got in a feisty debate with Bill O’Reilly over who exactly is responsible for “sucking out” American jobs. Trump blamed the president of China, while O’Reilly blamed U.S. companies.
Bill O’Reilly: Two people coming to the United States of note in September, the Pope, okay, and the president of China is coming, a man named Xi Jinping. Do you know him? I have never heard who he is. But he is the president…
Donald Trump: Very smart.
O’Reilly: He is coming over. He is getting a big dinner free at the White House and addressing the U.N. If you were president of would you be throwing him a dinner?
Trump: I would not be throwing him a dinner, we’ve had this conversation. I would get him a McDonald’s hamburger and say ‘You will get down to work because you can’t continue to devalue.’ You know, we will give him a state dinner and what he has done is sucked all of our jobs and he has sucked the money right out of our country.
O’Reilly: Again, he hasn’t done it. U.S. companies do it. They’re doing it.
Trump: No, it’s our system.
O’Reilly: So, you would be confrontational with the Chinese? You are saying look,’I’m not giving you a dinner, here is a Big Mac’? Is that what you are going to do?
Trump: I would give them probably a double sized Big Mac. Look, it’s not so much the companies. It’s our government that allowed China to do that to us.
O’Reilly: I don’t buy that for a second. Trump: I do 100%, Bill.
O’Reilly: Our companies, they want as much money as they can. They go to Mexico. Our government let’s them do it but this is a free nation. So they want to go and do it, you can’t stop them.
Trump: Bill, our government, our government should have stopped China from devaluing.
O’Reilly: They can’t. Trump: They never even bring them up.
O’Reilly: How? Trump: Do you know how they can?
O’Reilly: Yeah, how?
Trump: Very simply, Bill, it’s so simple, they put a tariff on Chinese goods. You know, China …
O’Reilly: Alright. Then you have got a trade war.
Trump: You have to, you have to do that and then you bring it back to normal. You have no choice. You do that. Our government doesn’t even, and by the way, China does it to us. Do you think that we sell to China without a tariff? They call it a tariff. I call it a tax.
O’Reilly: There is no question the imbalance, there is no question the imbalance is that way.
Trump: Do you know what the big imbalance is? Intelligence. Their leaders are intelligent. Ours aren’t. We don’t know what we are doing. We had to do this and it should have taken place a long time ago, and you wouldn’t have this bubble right now, Bill.
O’Reilly: Okay, so I’m not going to get Xi Jinping and you together. I was going to take you both out to dinner but I’m not doing that because I think it might be bloody.
Trump: I’d get along with him very well. I think we would get along. I get along very well.
O’Reilly: I know, just like Putin and the Chinese, you would be vacationing in the Yellow Sea with them.