His Supreme Court nominee. No more stimulus talks, according to the president. The dow had been up more than 200 points and now you can see, it has swung to the downside, now lower by 267. Weve got the s p down 33. Nasdaq has lost all of its gains and more, down 128 points. But what are we to make on top of all of that . Of a trade deficit that expanded to its widest margin in 14 years, despite President Trumps buy american drum beating, the countrys taste for foreign goods, yes, thats you, remains firmly in place but a slight shrinkage in demand for chinese products. Is team trumps china trade war working or are we seeing squishy numbers in the middle of a Global Pandemic . Trumps biggest china hawk, adviser Peter Navarro, joins us live. And could it be the most intensely watched Vice President ial debate in history, as the vp candidates get set to battle it out on a utah debate stage tonight. Democratic nominee joe biden is just hours away, about one hour away, actually, of his own version of the gettysburg address. Bidens economic adviser robert wolf is here on the candidates messaging on jobs, taxes, the economy and maybe even stimulus. We begin, though, with one online issue here. You know how much online purchasing you all did during the pandemic . The startling trade deficit numbers came out of the Commerce Department today and they show what you are buying is not mostly made in america. The u. S. Trade deficit for august, meaning the gap between imported foreign goods and then american exports, came in at 67. 1 billion. That is the third highest deficit on record. Now, when you break out the specific deficit with Different Countries, lets look at china here, it shrank 18 year over year to 26. 4 billion. So how to differentiate between policy and pandemic when it comes to the state of u. S. Trade . We take you to washington, d. C. Live, where senior trade adviser to the president Peter Navarro joins us now. Peter, great to have you. First lets tackle the headline number. Thank you for coming on the show. While we sold close to 172 billion in u. S. Made goods, americans bought 239 billion in foreignmade products. What does this tell you about the state of trade here in the u. S. Right now . The big picture here, liz, is even though our trade deficits up in real dollars, as a percentage of gdp, it actually had been falling under the Trump Administration but more importantly, our deficit with china has been falling for several years now as a result of one thing. You know what that is . Tariffs. Tariffs work. Tariffs work to defend the american blue Collar Worker from chinese predatory practices and the unfair trade practices of the rest of the world, and President Trump, i mean, if you look at all Different Countries we interact with, india, for example, they have the highest tariffs in the world. Europe has tariffs that are four times higher on autos than theirs. All thats telling me is tariffs work and that in the second term, weve got a lot of work to do. Liz youre right, to look at the trade deficit with china, it shrank 18 this most recent time for august. That is going in the right direction. Ive got a graph of this from 2001 when joe biden voted to get china into the world trade organization. That thing looks like a ski slope in colorado, right, just straight up. Then boom, you put the tariffs on, down it comes. Tariffs work. Tariffs work to protect american factories and jobs and as they do that, they work to drive wages up. If you look at january 2020, that was the time when President Trump, after three and a half years engineered the greatest economy in American History and everything was hitting on all cylinders. Then the Chinese Communist party, make no mistake about this, infected america and the world. Its been difficult since then. We are bouncing back but tariffs work and that was demonstrated by the president s tariff policy. Liz help me work through this number, though. Foreign imports are higher now than they were in february, which was before the covid lockdowns. This is a number that is moving in the wrong direction. Well, part of the problem is its a good problem to have. The United States economy is actually relatively stronger than a lot of other Major Economies as we are moving through the pandemic and what that does is suck in some of these imports. But as i said, if you looked at the trade deficit numbers as a percentage of our gdp, that has been declining under President Trump and i wouldnt get too fixated on monthtomonth now in the middle of a pandemic. What we need to focus on really is made in america and part of the disappointment of nancy pelosi failing to come to the table in an honorable way on this whole phase four thing, there was a lot in the phase four bill designed to spend money to bring our essential medicines onshore, our medical supplies and medical equipment. Thats the mission of President Trump. He is the blue collar president. He is the party of the working class. And i if i the buy american report that we released on friday, its up on white house. Gov is really extraordinary across five dimensions. You have buy american, hire american, the increase in Defense Budgets coupled with increased Foreign Military sales. You got all the trump tariffs and then all the support including the jones act. Its really in that report, we show an amazing amount of statistics as to at the microlevel, as to why this president has succeeded at building up a strong economy, rebuilding our defense. So thats my focus. The other thing here is try to defeat the china virus through the four vectors of attack, which is the ppe, testing, therapeutics and vaccine development. By the way, that creates jobs as well. Liz indeed. But peter, ive got to attack the market issue here at the moment. We are now down 385 points. We are at session lows after President Trump tweeted right before our show started, he said quote, Nancy Pelosis asking for 2. 4 trillion to bail out quote, poorly run high crime democrat states, money that is in no way related to covid19. We made a generous offer of 1. 6 trillion and as usual, shes not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their request and looking to the future of our country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when immediately after im reading this to you so in case you missed it, after i win, we will pass a major stimulus bill that focuses on hardworking americans and small business. Then it goes on, he says hes asked Mitch Mcconnell not to delay but instead to focus fulltime on approving his outstanding nominee to the u. S. Supreme court. Now, peter, we are talking about the trade deficit, whos buying what, whos exporting what. Right now we have close to 30 million americans who are taking some form of government aid or another. We have thousands and thousands of businesses going out of business. They have had to shutter, mostly the Small Businesses who you know are the backbone of the economy. They dont really care right now at the moment about details of what you and i are talking about. They want to see stimulus. I know thats not your bailiwick as the trade adviser but this is a problem, is it not . Well, let me say a couple things. You are absolutely right, not my bailiwick. I dont want to get in the middle of that. For those who are investors moving those numbers around right now, im sure theres a lot of day traders kind of having some fun on the fear that whatever might happen. We dont want to contribute to that. The underlying economy is bouncing back from a terrible blow from the Chinese Communist party virus. We put in place a lot of things. Lets not forget this. The only person who has acted since the phase three vote has been donald trump. Hes signed four executive orders on things like getting more money to the unemployed, on protecting people from evictions and foreclosures. Liz why not just go for more and more money . I mean, i understand our deficit is absolutely huge, but people are suffering, peter. Let me do the Aaron Rodgers thing here. Lets stay calm and let those negotiations go. Im not part of that. Not part of that. Nothing i can say today should move markets because i have no knowledge of those negotiations. The only thing that we know is that President Trump has taken action in the face of inaction by nancy pelosi and we have seen, look, we have seen evidence that the Democrat Party clearly does not want to do anything to help this economy in the short run for fear that it would help the trump campaign. I hate to think liz they made two offers. They made two offers. [ speaking simultaneously ] im here to talk about a lot of things but im not getting into the middle of that. Its not my liz thats fair. Let me just end with this, then. Let me get to what is your thing and that is china. You are a china hawk. You wrote that book. We are all china hawks. Arent you a china hawk . Arent you a china hawk . Liz peter, im not getting into that discussion. But i will simply say, i will simply say that if you are such a china hawk, ive got to ask you about tiktok. I know you dont want to talk about the situation because it is still in a state of flux. But if the president it is, though, peter. You were talking a lot about it right here on this show until you went radiosilent which i understand, thats fine. But i hate to do that liz been given a stay of execution, hold on, hold on, hold on, been given a stay of execution by a judge. President trump actually appointed and who had clerked for judge Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. Its not like hes some left wing judge. He felt there wasnt enough evidence presented by the Trump Administration that there is some type of move by tiktok to start stealing all kinds of data from the u. S. My question is this. As we finish up, hold on, hold on, heres the question, if china gets to keep bytedance, which is china, and the parent of tiktok, gets to keep the actual algorithm of tiktok, and yet the big compromise is that orac oracle, who may buy it, gets 20 and just some people on the board, how is that good enough for somebody like you or the president if you are that antichina communist party . That reminded me of Chris Wallace during the president ial debate. I want to ask a question, then theres likethat arent in evid or may not be right. Heres what i can tell you. Liz what do you mean . Theyre keeping the algorithm. Heres what i cant talk about. I cant talk about this because this is part of the cfius process. By law its a felony to discuss that stuff literally. What i can tell you is this. What President Trump wants to do with his policy of banning mobile apps in general is to prevent the surveilling monitoring tracking of american citizens, thats number one, the transfer of data, number two, and then theres the issue of these apps either singly or in networking basically putting trojans and viruses into our systems and all three of these things are threats depending on what type of app there is. One of thems more threat than the other but those are the three things these chinese apps do. They are very very dangerous, liz. The president again, hes the only president who has ever stood up to china and we know joe biden has just laid down for china. Heres donald trump standing up to china, 47 years of joe biden laying down for china. This election is about a lot of things. Its about jobs, its about china, its about law and order. I think those are kind of my top three. But we know where the president stands and a lot of things, joe biden simply wont tell us where he stands except for trying to steal buy american which anoise t annoys the hell out of me. This is me annoyed. When joe biden says hes the buy american president , i think he bought it for nafta. Hes the made in mexico president. He let china into the world trade organization. Dont get me started. Liz some would argue that President Trump coopted the buy american from who . Liz message from democrats back in the the democrats in the 70s and 80s never did anything. We got laws on the books. Liz peter hey, my report. White house. Gov. It shows the ten executive orders President Trump did to strengthen and expand buy american for blue Collar Workers in america who are going to carry the day for the president. The blue wall will crumble again. Liz let the record show i did not interrupt you during your answer. Let the record also show i agree with you that china has been stealing our intellectual property. Thats got to stop. Peter, great to see you. Thank you so much. Peter navarro. When we come back, peter and i are good buddies. Thank you so much. Closing bell, we are 46 minutes away. We are still in selloff mode down 310 points. Look, this isnt my first rodeo and let me tell you something, i wouldnt be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior, or worse, that it was some way to take your home. Its just a loan designed for older homeowners, and, its helped over a million americans. A reverse Mortgage Loan isnt some kind of trick to take your home. Its a loan, like any other. 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Look, reverse mortgages arent for everyone but i think ive been round long enough to know whats what. Im proud to be part of aag, i trust em, i think you can too. Trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. Call now so you can. Retire better prolonged slowing and the pace of improvement over time could trigger typical recessionary dynamics as weakness feeds on weakness. That would be tragic, especially in light of our countrys progress on these issues in the years leading up to the pandemic. Liz listen, when the Federal Reserve chair uses the word tragic, thats a little bit disconcerting. Jerome powell did say, yes, it would be disastrous if enough is not done to protect the u. S. Economy from severe economic consequences caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But his underlying theme was pass some stimulus. As you see with the markets right now, red on the screen, it was not that way before President Trump tweeted saying he was stopping stimulus talk until after the election. Now, while House Speaker nancy pelosi reiterated powells call, a need for robust action immediately, this tweetstorm from the president , he got very frustrated and said that he was done with the stimulus negotiations and that set the markets spiraling. We are down 362 for the dow but the session low hit just a few minutes ago was a loss of 416 points. There were still reports that pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin were set to speak later this afternoon so we are getting our washington, d. C. Bureau on that to find out if those talks are still happening. But is this a flashing warning signal that we will not see any stimulus deal no matter how big or small until after the president ial election . To the floor show and what it means for stocks. John hayes and phil flynn. Well, liz, the good news is the president is obviously feeling better with the tweeting. The bad news is we may not get a stimulus package. But i think what we are likely to get is an executive order for 380 billion that was unspent from the first package. You know, if you look at this package we will have negative 3. 5 gdp for 2020. The size of this package they want to do was between 8 to 11 of gdp. Its like filling in a 750 billion pothole with a couple trillion dollars worth of asphalt. It might be more than we need, albeit we do need to get support to those who need it the most. You can do that with an executive order and with the second stimulus check which would be about 300 billion. The biggest beneficiary would be banks. Banks are over reserve by about 23 billion. The study from the National Bureau of Economic Research said 60 of the last stimulus check went to savings and paying down debt. Only 40 went to spending. If you gave that assistance to people, they would get out there, they would pay off their debt and banks could release those reserves and those companies would skyrocket. Thats really how were looking about things right now. Im sure they will get something done probably after the election but in the meantime, the surprise could potentially be another executive order. Congress approved that money. The president , theres 200 years of precedent, may have discretion over how