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The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg tangled with a touchy Donald Trump Thursday after he pressed the president about who pays tariffs during questions in the Oval Office with U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer.
“That’s enough,” Trump also snapped after Feinberg pressed Starmer later at a press conference for his opinion on Trump’s jab that he’s going to turn Canada — which is part of the Commonwealth of former British Empire territories — into America’s 51st state.
Feinberg talked about the experience as a guest Thursday on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.
“Andrew Feinberg got so fed up with Trump lies” that he confronted the president,” O’Donnell remarked. He dubbed Feinberg “tonight’s winner of the best question.”
Trump had announced in a Truth Social post earlier Thursday that his proposed tariffs — 25 percent on certain goods imported from Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10 percent on China — would go into effect March 4.
Feinberg quizzed the president about the post in the Oval Office as Trump sat with Starmer “You just said, ‘We charge them,’ as in: ‘We charge China.’ But the tariffs are paid eventually by American importers and consumers.”
Trump responded before dodging: “No they’re not. No. I think they’re paid for by the country.”
Trump has often characterized tariffs on imports as money paid by foreign countries directly to America, which is not true. He has said China sends “billions of dollars” directly to the U.S. Treasury to cover the tariffs, also not true.
Feinberg told O’Donnell that Trump appears to regard tariffs as “tribute paid by other countries for the privilege of accessing American markets.”
“Of course this isn’t true, yet he’s been saying this for years,” Feinberg added.
Companies that import goods to America, such as giant retailers like Target, or American stores that sell appliances made in other countries, pay the tariffs, the costs of which are almost always passed onto consumers.
“Tariffs are sales taxes, that’s all they are. And the buyer pays the sales taxes,” O’Donnell emphasized. “If Donald Trump puts a 50 percent sales tax on a Samsung TV coming into this country, then you will pay 50 percent more for that TV.”
O’Donnell added: “The sad truth is we don’t actually know if Donald Trump is so deeply stupid that he believes what is saying,” or if he knows he’s lying to American voters.
Feinberg followed up later in the day at a White House press conference with Trump and Starmer, again pressing the president on tariffs, asking him: “Can you explain how you came to this belief that foreign governments are paying tariffs?”
“The tariffs are necessary because we’ve been treated very unfairly,” the president responded, eventually concluding: “It will make our country rich and stop us from being a laughing stock all over the world.”
He did not address Feinberg’s question about who actually pays the tariffs.
Starmer then addressed the White House correspondent’s question about Trump’s “repeated statements of desire to annex Canada,” and whether King Charles has expressed any concern about the president’s aim to “removed one of his realms.”
Starmer responded: “You mention Canada. I think you’re trying to find a divide between us that doesn’t exist. We’re the closest of nations, and we had very good discussions today. But we didn’t address Canada,” he acknowledged.
That’s when Trump said: “That’s enough, as he waved a hand at the members of the press, but appeared to shut down both Feinberg and Starmer.
The White House quickly denied in a post on X that Trump cut off Starmer. “Fake News,” the post complained. “President Trump was clearly talking to the reporter trying to goad the leaders into division,” referring to Feinberg.
