Trump Carrier Deal Wins Praise From ‘Young Turks’ Host Cenk Uygur [Video]
The Carrier deal brokered by Donald Trump and Mike Pence, the president- and vice president-elect, that saved 1000-plus manufacturing jobs at the Indianapolis United Technologies subsidiary has won praise from an unlikely source: Cenk Uygur, the liberal/progressive host of The Young Turks online political show.
Trump and outgoing Indiana Governor Pence visited the air-conditioning and gas furnace plant today for a meet-and-greet/speech prior to a rally tonight in Cincinnati.
Uygur filmed a video yesterday from an airport gate in which he called the Carrier deal a “giant political win” for the president-elect even given its upsides and downsides.
He also insisted President Obama and the Democrats should be “embarrassed” for failing to be pro-active and project strength and leadership like Trump is doing by preventing those jobs from moving to Mexico. “Strength, it matters,” he declared.
The American people voted for change last month, and even before taking office, @realDonaldTrump provided real leadership #carrier pic.twitter.com/JQQsE0toiG
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) December 1, 2016
Shortly before Election Day, Cenk Uygur announced that he was somewhat reluctantly voting for Hillary Clinton, describing Donald Trump, among other things, as a monster, a bigot, racist, and sexist.
Uygur correctly pointed out in the video that the devil is in the details as far as the horse trading is concerned (which apparently is $7 million in tax giveaways) for keeping the Carrier jobs from moving to Mexico as originally anticipated.
“Trump talked a big game about how he was going to bully these companies, and threaten tariffs and stuff. Instead in this deal, it appears they are going to back off the tariff stuff, and instead give the company tax cuts. So, I get it. I get the downside of this. But now let’s talk about one of the things he did that was actually really positive. He said, look, your parent company United Technologies and it has a lot of government contracts. If you want to get United States government contracts, you’re going to have to keep some of your jobs in the United States.”
Uygur underscored that there will be plenty of opportunities to criticize Trump’s decisions over the next four years, but that Trump “scored a big victory” with the Carrier deal.
Continuing, Uygur scolded Obama and his party for what he considered their lack of initiative and failure to exercise leverage over corporations such as United Technologies and others that do business with the federal government to protect American factory jobs.
“Now, this is exactly what I’ve been saying to Democrats and President Obama…if you really want to apply pressure, there are a thousand ways to apply pressure. But they would never do it. I’m sorry, if you’re a Democrat, and you like Obama, I hate to break your heart, and you want to hate me for it and that’s fine, but Obama wouldn’t have done that. That’s not who he is; he is not that guy…If he wanted, he could have pressured Carrier. But he didn’t pressure Carrier. He didn’t pressure United Technologies, and he didn’t threaten to take away their government contracts. Because he’s not that strong. And he always thinks, his default mode is there’s nothing we can do…”
In June, during a PBS town hall, Obama mocked Trump for having a nonexistent magic wand that would actually prevent Carrier jobs from going to Mexico.
How many times can Trump make this clown look stupid? Trump is a 4D chess player & Barry is a checkers player ! #Carrier America First pic.twitter.com/bFYjYUq028
— Unfiltered?Boss (@Unfilteredboss1) December 1, 2016
In a Washington Post op-ed, Bernie Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont who was Hillary Clinton’s rival for the presidential nomination, essentially accused Trump of handing out corporate welfare to Carrier (and by extension, other similarly situated corporations) instead of imposing a tariff on goods coming back into the U.S. from Mexico as Trump had vowed during the campaign.
“In essence, United Technologies took Trump hostage and won. And that should send a shock wave of fear through all workers across the country….Trump has endangered the jobs of workers who were previously safe in the United States. Why? Because he has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives.”
Parenthetically, The Young Turks created a lot of buzz with their NSFW Election Night meltdown as the unexpected (as the media and pollsters perceived it) electoral college landslide victory by Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the presidential contest unfolded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO4xfj0ISoY
Do you agree with Young Turks host Cenk Uygur that Donald Trump deserves props for brokering the Carrier deal?
[Featured Image by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP Images]
