David Malpass on advising Donald Trump

Kai Ryssdal Aug 17, 2016
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Republican David R. Malpass shakes hands with Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes, before announcing his U.S. Senate candidacy in front of City Hall April 14, 2010 in New York City. Malpass is one of the Republican challengers to Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's seat in the upcoming November elections. Malpass is a former adviser to Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. and served as chief economist at Bear Stearns.  Mario Tama/Getty Images

David Malpass on advising Donald Trump

Kai Ryssdal Aug 17, 2016
Republican David R. Malpass shakes hands with Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes, before announcing his U.S. Senate candidacy in front of City Hall April 14, 2010 in New York City. Malpass is one of the Republican challengers to Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's seat in the upcoming November elections. Malpass is a former adviser to Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. and served as chief economist at Bear Stearns.  Mario Tama/Getty Images
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Earlier this month, Republican candidate for president Donald Trump unveiled a list of economic advisers. That list has grown in the last few weeks. One of the people named was David Malpass, the president and founder of Encima Global. He also advised former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani during his campaign to be the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2008.

Malpass spoke with Kai about the Trump’s plans for the economy. 

On Trump’s trade policy:

Not entering into new bad trade deals is a key part of it. So what Washington wants to do is constantly have more trade deals under negotiation as a fundraising effort for the lobbyists, for the lawyers that are operating; and so stopping that motion and instead focusing on ways that trade and commerce can grow in a way that helps American workers, that’s a major earthshaking change in the direction of Washington policy… One is to renegotiate NAFTA, one is to have China be aware that it’s not complying with the WTO rules that it signed up for and that is causing it to run a big trade surplus and the U.S. to run a big trade deficit. So those need to be changed, that is a lot of detail that has already been spelled out as we go forward; the challenge is implementing it. So you now undertake better negotiations with your trading partners.

On whether or not he thinks Trump is capable of changing government: 

Yes, of course, and that’s why I’m working on the campaign…. I worked in both the Reagan and Bush administrations. They were effective, they tried to be effective. But overwhelms you when you’re there is the number of decisions the federal government is making. [It’s] this giant entity that’s constantly affecting people’s lives. And I think they haven’t been making good decisions in the current administration and we need a better one. 

 Click the audio player above to hear the interview. 

 

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