hit hard by the president's trade war, they might disagree. i'm going to talk to several of them in the next hour here, but the president and his team really seem to be having trouble getting their story straight on china. there was this on saturday. >> any thoughts on escalating the trade war with china? >> yeah, sure. why not? might as well. might as well. >> do you have second thoughts about escalating -- >> i have second thoughts about everything. >> second thoughts? it sure sounds like the president was thinking of down on the trade war. that prompting him to send his aides to clean up the mess of one of his own making usually, claiming that what he meant was he regrets not being tougher on china. maybe, but that's the opposite of what he actually said. he said repeatedly, and then there's this. >> china called last night our