Obamacare architect and former U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus went on CNN International earlier this month and said President Trump’s rhetorical attacks on China make him “a little bit like Hitler.”
Fmr ambassador to Beijing and senator Max Baucus likens the reaction to Donald Trump’s China rhetoric today to Nazi Germany: “A little bit like Hitler in the 30s, that a lot of people knew what was going on was wrong but they didn’t stand up and say anything about it.” pic.twitter.com/m8jqt16VJ1
— Hala Gorani (@HalaGorani) May 6, 2020
The segment was about how “President Trump is continuing to blame China for the coronavirus outbreak” and how “China is fighting back.” The host then said, “Well, here’s what former U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus has to say about the Trump administration’s escalating rhetoric towards Beijing.”
She then cuts to a taped interview in which Baucus calls Trump a little Hitler-y.
It caught Baucus’s interviewer a little bit off guard, but this is Baucus’s shtick right now. The senator-turned-ambassador-turned-consultant makes his money on Chinese companies and U.S. companies doing business in China. Going on TV to bash Trump for criticizing China surely wins him points with the communist government in China that controls the biggest businesses.
“Former ambassador Max Baucus has given at least four different interviews to Chinese propaganda outlets in the last two weeks,” Yuichiro Kakutani at the Washington Free Beacon reported, “repeatedly comparing the U.S. rhetoric about China to both the McCarthy era and Nazi Germany.”
Here’s his bio from the Chamber of Commerce website:
“Ambassador Baucus currently lives in Bozeman, Montana, where he and his wife, Melodee Hanes, have formed a consulting firm, Baucus Group LLC. Ambassador Baucus provides consulting services to American and Chinese businesses and serves on the Board of Directors of Ingram Micro and the Board of Advisors to Alibaba Group.”
Of course, we don’t know Baucus’s motivations in his defenses of China against Trump. But following his career, it’s easy to see a very transactional streak. When he got to write tax bills, they happened to include dozens of special carveouts, and nearly all benefited his revolving door of ex-staffers, who are all now prodigious fundraisers for him.
Baucus, while chairing the Senate Finance Committee, once founded a joint fundraising committee with his House counterpart, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel. The two had no “joint” interests other than writing tax law. So it was transparently a piggy bank for business interests to pay for favorable tax treatment efficiently.
In 2013, I wrote about his shadiness in letting lobbyists shape Obamacare:
“The Obama White House, early in the process, directed drug lobbyists to deal directly with Baucus, the New York Times reported. The most important meeting may have been on April 15, 2009, featuring top drug lobbyists, Baucus’ chief of staff, Jon Selib, and Obama’s top adviser, Jim Messina — the industry’s point man in the White House and an acolyte of Baucus.”
“Tellingly, the meeting took place at the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The drug lobby made out like bandits in the final Obamacare bill and ran millions of dollars in ads supporting the legislation and defending Democratic senators whose reelections were jeopardized by their yea votes.”
But still, maybe it’s not for self-enrichment that Baucus is rushing to Beijing’s defense here.
Nevertheless, CNN ought to have disclosed that Baucus is no mere former ambassador to China but is also paid by some very large, regime-connected Chinese corporations.
