Trump had.

He weighed in on Ukraine.

Well, he was also asked about Taiwan.

Take a look.

Should the U.S. help defend Taiwan if it means going to war with China?

Well, I don't want to say it, because if I'm in the position of president, I don't want to say what I'm thinking.

You know, I just — if I answer that question, it will put me in a very bad negotiating position.

That being said, Taiwan did take all of our chip business.

You know, we used to make our own chips.

Now they're made in Taiwan.

Ninety percent of the chips are made in Taiwan.

Advanced semiconductor chips, 90 percent, are made in Taiwan.

If China goes in there, they'll be able to turn the world on and off.

Isn't that right?

If China takes Taiwan, they will turn the world off, potentially.

I mean, potentially.

But remember this.

Taiwan took — smart, brilliant.

They took our business away.

We should have stopped them.

We should have taxed them.

We should have tariffed them.

So, Richard, what do you think?

I mean, this is — the president is talking a very dangerous game here with Taiwan.

And akin to how we mentioned a little earlier how Vladimir Putin might be watching the 2024 election to take his cues as to what to do next, well, maybe Xi Jinping will as well.

No, you're exactly right.

I think both presidents, Putin and Xi, are going to wait and see and see what things look like come January 2025.

The first half of what the former president said was actually consistent with U.S. policy.

He wouldn't say one way or the other — it's called strategic ambiguity — whether the

United States would come to Taiwan's defense.

That's actually consistent with American foreign policy.

Second half, though, shall we say, is wildly, wildly inconsistent.

This idea of portraying Taiwan as an economic adversary, the way he did it, is, one, wrong, and two, casts real doubt about our willingness to come to Taiwan's defense.

And if we were not to, we shouldn't underestimate the consequences, not just economically, but strategically — the Japanese, the South Koreans and others.

The entire American alliance system in Asia, I think, now hinges on what the United States is prepared to do for Taiwan.

If you don't want China to be in a position where, to use the president's expression, it can turn off the world's economy, then let's deter China.

Let's persuade Xi Jinping that whatever his dreams, whatever his aspirations to take over

Taiwan, the costs and the risks would be too great.

We ought to be projecting a certainty that we are going to come to Taiwan's help, and we ought to be building up the capacity to do it.

This, unfortunately, goes in the opposite direction.

So, Reb, we mentioned how President Putin and President Xi are watching this, but our allies are also getting messages here that they know that Donald Trump has a, at least, a reasonable chance of being president again.

And it seems like every time he opens his mouth on issues of foreign policy, foreign capitalists, some of our staunchest allies, have to wonder if America will be there for them again were Trump to return to office.

Which is the kind of trepidation a lot of them have said, is that we don't want to go all in until we see where the future is.

You have to remember, for this wannabe president again, to give the signal that the United

States will not be committed to Taiwan, one, he's saying something that could be devastating in terms of relationships.

But at the same time, is he playing politics to Xi, like he plays politics to Putin?

I mean, he plays all these dictators.

Let's not forget, when we saw the attempted mutiny with Putin just three weeks ago, it was also uncovered that this group, led by his former chef, tried to, in many ways, influence the election and support Trump in the first place.

We're looking at the front page of today's New York Times, talking about if Trump gets back in, he wants these vast powers.

So vast powers, if he gets back in, play to Xi, play to Putin.

I mean, this is very threatening, not only to our allies, but to our citizens.

You know, President Biden has had some struggles sticking to the official policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, too.

He said several times, made it very clear that under his watch, the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan.

But Ali, I wonder what you're hearing on Capitol Hill.

We've talked earlier in this hour about the divisions among Republicans on aid to Ukraine.

Where does the Hill stand on this debate over what the U.S. would do if China moved against

Taiwan?

Yeah, I think this is one of those conversations that we're rightly having, as inextricably linked with the conversation around Ukraine and Russia, especially as we watch the ways that the Chinese are both observing that situation and potentially engaging with it.

This was one of the key issues on combating Chinese aggression that we saw the Hill at the beginning of this State of Divided Congress actually likely to act in bipartisan fashion on.

And we've seen, for example, the Select Committee on China issues work in bipartisan fashion.

It's one of the places where we do watch Republican senators and lawmakers broadly criticize the former president for the ways in which he speaks graciously about people like Xi, similarly to the ways that he speaks about Putin and Kim Jong-un.

I do think I was struck there, too, by the way that, you know, folks in the Commerce

Department probably had their ears perk up as Trump is talking positively about the need to recalibrate the way that chips are made.

Certainly, that's something that Congress acted on in the early phases of the Biden administration in the first year.

That was a big win for them.

And so, certainly, that's one of the things that they're trying to tout here, even on the world stage.

I know that people don't exactly connect hard politics with chips politics, but that's something that the White House and the Commerce Department are trying to show, as they, again, tout Bidenomics and take that show on the road.

Trying to factor it into the geopolitical landscape, too, I think is going to be an interesting thing on if they can do it.

Coming up—