Trump’s 2020 campaign tested ‘outlandish’ idea of giving Americans ability to sue China in court, book says

Among other ideas tested were expelling Chinese scientists, researchers and technicians

Donald Trump arrives for a rally at the I-80 Speedway on 1 May 2022 in Greenwood, Nebraska (Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign allegedly tested using a number of “outlandish” ideas, including a potential policy to allow Americans to sue China in court and expel Chinese scientists, a new book has claimed.

According to This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, written by two New York Times journalists, Mr Trump’s top aides tested the public’s reaction to expelling Chinese scientists from the US, reported the Insider.

It also poll-tested sending the National Guard into US cities in times of social unrest.

“John would send me these emails that went on for pages with these crazy f****** questions. I’d say to him: ‘Where are you getting these questions from?’” Mr Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio told the book’s authors Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns. The report is unclear about who Mr Fabrizio was referring to as “John”.

The specific wording on the question about expelling Chinese scientists was stated in the book as whether one “would favour or oppose requiring all Chinese scientists, researchers, and technicians that are Chinese citizens to leave the US”.

The polling was conducted during Mr Trump’s 2020 campaign for reelection and when the Covid pandemic had started raging across the US and other countries, leading to hate crimes and baseless accusations against Chinese citizens and those of Asian origin.

The 2020 poll test was similar to Mr Trump’s 2015 campaign proposal banning Muslims from entering the US.

The decision to follow through with the policy had sparked condemnation and nationwide protests. The Trump White House revised the policy multiple times before the Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 decision.

The questions came from a “fluid” group of official and unofficial aides of Mr Trump, according to the book’s authors, who described the polling questions as “outlandish” and “provocative”.

The cohort of aides included former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, former Clinton ally Dick Morris and White House adviser Stephen Miller.

Mr Gingrich told Insider that the reporting on the questions “doesn’t sound right” and denied to go into detail about the ones he was involved with.

“In April polling, a majority of likely swing-state voters opposed cracking down on Chinese students and researchers. But, through the spring and summer, the far-out proposals only kept coming from Trump’s fluid circle of formal and informal advisers,” the authors wrote.