August 27, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - Donald Trump is in a tough spot. You see, his trade war with China is hurting the economy just like everyone said it would, which is threatening to push the United States into a recession. Even Trump, whose brain short-circuited years ago, knows this would be bad, particularly for a guy whose campaign slogan is, “You have no choice but to vote for me because your 401(k), everything is going to be down the tubes [if you don’t].” The problem is, China appears unlikely to budge and has met every single round of tariffs with retaliatory measures of their own. But if Trump called the whole thing off now, without a deal, he’d look pretty stupid—even stupider than he looked when he said wind turbines cause cancer, or that we should use nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes. Sure, he could put the health of the economy before his infantile obsession with “winning,” but that would require an emergency personality transplant. And that’s seemingly left the president with little choice but to describe fictional phone calls with Beijing and claim that a trade deal is all but in the bag.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit, Trump said Monday that China is ready to resume negotiations, which it indicated in a call Sunday night. “China called last night our top trade people and said, ‘Let’s get back to the table.’ So we will be getting back to the table and I think they want to do something,” Trump said from Biarritz. “They have been hurt very badly but they understand this is the right thing to do and I have great respect for it. This is a very positive development for the world. I think we are going to have a deal.” Indeed, that would be a positive development for the world, if it had actually happened.

But according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, the phone calls did not in fact take place. “Regarding the phone call in the weekend, I am not aware of that,” he said at a news briefing on Monday afternoon, adding, “I can tell you clearly that I haven’t heard of such a thing.”