Reagan Alum Shocks Fox Business Host in Heated Exchange

What happens when someone from the Reagan administration clashes with one of the devoted MAGA drones working for American Pravda (Fox News)?

David Stockman, who served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan (from 1981 to 1985) appeared on Fox Business on Friday, with host, Charles Payne.

Stockman was brought on the show to talk about the drop of the Dow Jones industrial average that occurred at the start of the day.

His assessment of the “Trump economy” was not the sunshine and roses smoke that Fox usually blows up the rear ends of their viewers.

The former budget director called Trump’s economy “unstable” – not really a word that inspires hope or positive thoughts.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Stockman came in full of fire and toppled all of Fox News’ golden calves.

“We’ve got a perfect storm of a madman in the White House, who’s pursuing trade wars, border wars, a fiscal policy that is totally out to lunch, and attacking the fed,” Stockman said.

In that moment, if you listened closely, you could hear Lou Dobbs, howling in pained outrage, somewhere in the distance.

The ensuing exchange between Stockman and Payne was rowdy, to say the least.

Payne interjected: “It’s kind of harsh to call President Trump a madman.”

Stockman was unmoved.

“Oh absolutely he is,” Stockman said.

I concur.

“Because he’s fighting back against unfair trade, and intellectual property theft, a country that’s building manmade militarized islands that all of their neighbors say have imperialistic ambitions,” Payne continued. “You don’t think that we should be pushing against China?”

Please explain what’s unfair about the trade? We’re worse off now with Trump’s ill-advised trade war. That much is a certainty.

When farmers have no place to sell their grain and it rots in storage facilities, that’s a loss.

When the government says, “We’re going to cut down your market, thereby crippling your livelihood, but don’t worry, we’re going to give you a fat welfare check, by digging further into the pockets of taxpayers” that’s not a win. That’s the exact opposite of a win.

That’s just one example of how Trump’s economy is every bit the failure Stockman made it out to be, and those who feel they have to toe the administration line on the economy, no matter the facts, are not to be taken seriously.

Stockman pushed back against Payne’s MAGA hysterics:

“China is not a threat to us whatsoever,” Stockman said. “If they want to waste their money on sand castles in the South China Sea, be our guest.”

“China’s economy is a house of cards, it’s got 40 trillion of debt, it is the biggest speculative building spree in history,” he continued. “Without our export markets, without 4,000 Walmarts and everything else in America, their economy would collapse,” he continued. “They don’t dare threaten us.”

You’ll have to excuse Stockman’s bluntness. He comes from an era and an administration that had a strong, principled, conservative leader at the helm. He didn’t work for a president that pouted and lashed out at anyone that disagreed with him. Nor did President Reagan spend hours every morning in full flop sweat, tweeting out incoherent rage posts.

“The point is that they are threatening us,” Payne shot back, and Stockman disagreed. The exchange got heated when Payne suggested China and the U.S. could go to war.

Keep raging.

I stopped taking Charles Payne seriously when I saw how dedicated to the MAGA cause he was, early in the primary season.

In an interview segment with then-candidate Rick Perry, Payne asked Perry about the border. As the former Texas governor attempted to give a reasoned response on border security, Payne repeatedly cut him off, growing increasingly, visibly aggressive, to the point that he was screaming like a lunatic at Perry. For his part, the future Secretary of Energy seemed baffled as to why this person was losing his mind on live TV.

You ask a question, the sane thing to do is let the person answer, but this was Fox News, and their drive to elevate Trump began early.

I later challenged Payne on his behavior, only to have him try to justify himself with the same, nonsensical responses.

So, yeah. When Charles Payne whines about people being “unfair” or “harsh” to President Trump, feel free to ignore it as the cult ramblings from state-run media.