'This Week' Transcript 5-17-26: U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer, Rep. Thomas Massie & Rep. Jamie Raskin
This is a rush transcript of "This Week" airing Sunday, May 17.
A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, May 17, 2026 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And we're joined now by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie.
Congressman, thank you for joining us this morning.
You just heard Congressman Raskin right there saying the Democrats are going to move to block this funding if the deal goes through. Will you vote to block it?
REP. THOMAS MASSIE, (R) KENTUCKY & JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, I think we should change the laws. It's almost impossible to sue the federal government if they infringe on your First Amendment, your Second Amendment, or your Fourth Amendment. And so we should change those laws so that -- to give people standing when they've had their rights violated.
Because people have been wronged, we need to make it easier to get that money. But that's action that Congress needs to take. I don't think you can do that. You can't just take a billion or $10 billion unilaterally with the executive branch.
Congress has the power of the purse.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So to be clear, then, you would vote to block this funding and change the law in other ways?
MASSIE: I don't think there's going to be a vote to block the funding. I would change the law in other ways.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, the congressman just said there would be. I guess we'll find out if there is.
Meantime, you're facing a primary on Tuesday.
In the wake of Senator Bill Cassidy's loss in the primaries yesterday in Louisiana, the president has been up posting on Truth Social throughout the night and into the morning about you.
Just a few minutes ago, he posted this -- I want to show our viewers right now -- “Bad Congressman Tom Massie voted against tax cuts, the border wall, our military enforcement. Actually, he voted against almost everything that is good. The worst congressman in history. Kentucky, vote the bum out on Tuesday. We can’t live with this troublemaker for another two years. He’s a true negative force.”
Your response?
MASSIE: Well, I think that’s going to help my fundraising at thomasmassie.com. Every time he tweets about me, it’s good for, you know, some money coming in because people don’t like that.
And, you know, how did this race become the most expensive race in the history of Congress for a primary? It’s because three billionaires from outside of Kentucky have funneled millions of dollars in here. They’re trying to buy a seat. And so, it’s not just the president’s tweets. I could sustain those without a problem. It’s because Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer have dumped money in here.
In fact, Miriam Adelson has given so much money to my opponent that instead of paying for the ballroom they’re going to need taxpayer money for the ballroom now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, you -- and you’ve actually said this week that this -- that your vote is a referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress. What did you mean by that?
MASSIE: Well, the RJC, AIPAC and Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer, they’re all part of the Israeli lobby. And that’s where all the money comes from. And it will be a referendum on foreign policy, whether Israel gets to dictate that by, you know, bullying members of Congress. And I’m the one they haven’t been able to bully. So, they’re putting all the brunt, the force on me.
But you can tell that I’m ahead in the polls and they’re desperate. That’s why they’re sending the secretary of war to my district tomorrow. That’s why the president’s losing sleep and tweeting about this. That’s why AIPAC has dumped another $3 million into my race this weekend, is because they’re panicked, and they really haven’t been able to gain a lead in this race.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say the president is desperate, but he’s got a pretty good record of defeating people he wants to target in Republican primaries. We saw Bill Cassidy yesterday. We saw what happened in Indiana. How are you going to be able to overcome the president’s opposition?
MASSIE: Well, I have the endorsement of the right to life organizations, the gun organizations. I had four members of Congress come here yesterday and campaign with me. So, my situation is a little bit different.
Plus, I’ve had millions of dollars come in from the grassroots, tens of thousands of donors, to my website, thomasmassie.com. And it’s still coming in. And that’s how we’re going to beat them.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Senate is poised to pass -- trying to pass $1 billion in funding for the White House renovation. That includes the ballroom, the security funding. The parliamentarian has ruled it out of order, but the Senate Republicans say they’re going to fix that. If it comes to the House, will you vote for that funding?
MASSIE: No, I don’t think we should. You know, we were -- we were originally told that the president’s friends were going to pay for this ballroom. And again, one of those was Miriam Adelson. And I think she’s poured so many millions of dollars in my race, they don’t have enough money for the ballroom anymore from her account.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Massie, thanks for your time this morning.
//
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC “THIS WEEK” ANCHOR: We’re joined now by the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Mr. Greer, thank you for joining us this morning.
Let’s pick up where Mary left off right there. What -- how exactly is the president using this arms sales to Taiwan as a negotiating chip? What does he expect in return?
U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE JAMIESON GREER: Well, just remember, the United States has sold arms to Taiwan for many years. It’s also had many times when it -- when it didn’t sell them. You know, President Obama, you know, he had a pause on arm sales. President Bush did. Right now the president’s considering how to move forward on that. The reality is, it’s really important for the United States and China to have a stable relationship. These are two important economies. The issue of Taiwan arms sales is something the Chinese always raise. So, the president’s considering how to approach that.
This is against the backdrop of our reduction of our deficit with China by 30 percent last year, keeping tariffs on them to control those imports and opening their market to American ag. I mean all these things mix in with each other. But when the president makes a decision on national security, it’s really based on American security needs first though.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But what would he want in return for holding off on the arm sales to Taiwan?
GREER: I mean, the most important thing that needs to happen is we need to have no change in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. And the president was really clear about this, there’s no change in American policy on Taiwan. There’s no change there. We expect that situation to be stable. And if President Xi is going to change that, then, obviously, that’s something that would be taken into account.
The president’s very focused on making sure that nothing happens there. This is why, when he talked to the media afterwards, he said, I made no commitments to President Xi on Taiwan and the president will keep his own council on the -- on the arm sales and when and if that happens.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We saw the president, we showed him in Mary Bruce’s piece there, saying that tariffs didn’t come up at all in meeting with President Xi. But the Chinese Ministry of Commerce says that a deal was struck to reduce tariffs. So, was the president telling the truth when he said that tariffs didn’t even come up?
GREER: Of course, he was telling the truth. Yes, of course, he was telling the truth.
So, the way this works, George, is before the leaders meet, people like me and Secretary Bessent and our staff, we meet with our counterparts with the Chinese -- on the Chinese side. And we work out among ourselves a lot of issues so that the presidents don’t have to address it. And that’s why they didn’t address tariffs.
The United States, under President Trump, has had high tariffs on China for quite some time. We are looking at a -- we are establishing what we call a board of trade with the Chinese to talk about trade and non-sensitive goods.
You’ve seen the president, over the past year, pick some goods where he didn’t think tariffs were necessary, things that we didn’t make in the U.S. or grow, you know, bananas, fruits, that kind of thing. He said he was going to tariffs off U.K. whiskey. So, we’re going to have conversations at the Chinese about stuff we should be selling them, ag, and Boeing, and medical devices, and the kinds of things we want to be getting from them, whether it’s consumer goods or low tech or other inputs that we don’t have here. And we’ll talk about the tariff treatment for those things.
But, you know, I don’t want to get ahead of any kind of final adjustments that might be made eventually.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did the Chinese make any commitments to try and open the Strait of Hormuz?
GREER: So, when the president went in, he did not go in asking them to take action in the Straits of Hormuz. He was very focused on making sure that they didn’t provide material support to Iran. That’s a commitment he obtained and confirmed.
The Chinese have a clear interest in having those Straits open. Again, I was in these meetings and that’s what -- that’s what the Chinese said. You know they want to make sure no one is there imposing a toll. The president isn’t seeking to have joint military options with the Chinese. I don’t think the American president’s ever done that. We’re not -- we’re not seeking that.
But obviously, we want to make sure that they’re not getting in the way of anything we’re doing to try to clarify that situation.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you respond to critics who say not much was achieved in this summit? And what were the most tangible specifics to come out of it? What was the most tangible progress?
GREER: Well, I would say there are a handful of times. We’ll have a fact sheet within the next few days to give more details. Some of these are really foreign policy related, where the president and President Xi both agreed that the goal on the Korean peninsula remains denuclearization. They both agreed that they want to have the Straits of Hormuz open and clear with no tolling.
The Chinese, one of the things they’ve already done is, we had a number of meat exporting facilities in the U.S. that had been deregistered by the Chinese. The Chinese have already moved to re-register them. Which means that they can export to China once again. This is -- this is beef. This is chicken.
The Chinese have also agreed to review a bunch of our biotechnology traits (ph), right, where we have certain goods that go to China that have to be approved, you know, scientifically. So -- and we have the 200 Boeings that they’ve agreed to do. This is all on top of the 25 million metric tons of soybeans agreed to last October.
So, there are a variety of very concrete things that are already happening, already going into a place. And most importantly, as the president has said, we have strategic stability with China. This is something that, under the Biden administration, there were no channels of communication that were effective. There was not a lot of concrete progress. That’s a dangerous situation to have between the two largest countries on earth in terms of economic and military power. And so that’s a big win for the president to be able to go over there, have a lot of candid conversations with President Xi, and come to an agreement on some of the biggest issues of the day.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Greer, thanks for your time this morning.
GREER: Thank you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Next, Jon Karl’s exclusive interview with the head of the organization suing the president over the White House ballroom.
We’ll be right back.
Popular Reads
ABC News Live