President Trump sat down with Jon Taffer, the hospitality industry guru who has a long-running reality television series, Bar Rescue.* Jon Taffer plays a very gruff, hard-nosed businessman with a heart for families caught up in the problems of successful bar management. He was the right interviewer to engage President Trump on the devastated hospitality industry.

It is a lie that we are all in this together. Anthony Fauci is secure in his six-figure taxpayer-funded salary with awesome benefits including a pension that will let him live the rest of his days in the style to which he has become accustomed. His unscientific medical malpractice in this pandemic has greatly harmed the young people and single moms who depend on food and drink service to others for their living. President Trump clearly declares for the forgotten servers, bartenders, cooks, and kitchen staff. Elitists in the punditocracy have taken the same attitude towards these jobs as they earlier did towards manufacturing. Jon Taffer has asked Joe Biden to also sit down with him for the exact same questions. Biden refuses. This really matters in states like Nevada.

Here is the short sit down interview, officially posted on the Las Vegas ABC affiliate Channel 13 YouTube channel:

If Google/YouTube blocks this professional media company’s video, you can find it embedded in their station’s website, with an accompanying news story that summarizes the interview topics and importance. A key part of the context: President Trump sat down with Jon Taffer in Las Vegas.

The president shared an exclusive interview with Taffer on Wednesday at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. The two covered several current topics when it comes to the problems the Nevada hospitality industry is facing amid the pandemic.

Taffer asked President Trump about his plans to address the problems facing the industry plus his thoughts on domestic travel incentives, a return of payment protection program stimulus, tax credits for restaurants, his commitment to helping airlines and business meal deductibility.

Jon Taffer summarized President Trump‘s four-point plan for bar (and restaurant) rescue in an October 28 Business Insider interview:

Before we get into your interview with President Trump, I was wondering if you could put us in the shoes of most restaurant owners and what they’re going through right now?

It’s very regional: New Jersey is tracking ahead of last year in the restaurant industry because of the closure of Manhattan. Connecticut is also tracking ahead of last year in overall restaurant sales. Texas is getting close to about 70%. And there are other areas of the country that are hurt significantly. So it is a regional question. I just want to clarify that.

Across the board — with the exception of really New Jersey — everybody is significantly down, and the restaurant industry has lost more jobs than any industry in America. We’ve lost more revenue that any industry in America.

[. . .]

Any final takeaways from chatting with the president?

There were four points that he put on the table as commitments from him, as far as his intentions for the industry. The first was to broaden the scope of the employee-retention tax credit. The second was to either extend or reintroduce a PPP program that also covered debt. The third — and this was a biggie — was to reintroduce the business-lunch tax credit and implementing that immediate business-meal write-off. I’m excited about that move. I think that would have a positive impact on the business. And then the fourth thing that he committed to was the domestic-travel incentive program. And that’s a program that would incentivize any type of domestic air travel. And that’s really important to destinations like Las Vegas, Miami, and business markets like New York, Los Angeles.

So those four elements were commitments that I got that now I can understand how the policies toward the hospitality industry will flow in the Trump administration. And I’m hoping that in the next few days, we can either sit down or do a Skype interview with Vice President Biden and ask the same questions.

Joe Biden has given the hospitality industry the back of his hand, counting on union bosses to keep critical precincts in Las Vegas and other urban entertainment centers in line. We will see if the workers rebel against the leftist union bosses as they did reelecting Reagan. Jon Taffer clearly wants to know both candidates’ policy position on his industry, seeking both President Trump and former VP Biden’s commitments on the future of the hospitality industry.

The Future of the Hospitality Industry ft. President Donald J. Trump
October 29, 2020

I am very concerned about our hospitality industry and the closures we are facing. That’s why I reached out to both presidential campaigns to discuss their views on helping our industry. President Donald Trump’s campaign responded to me first.

Here’s our interview.

My team is waiting on a response from Joe Biden’s camp so that I can ask him the same questions.

Beyond the immediate questions of bar and restaurant-specific policy, Jon Taffer noted larger economic policies directly and indirectly affect employment in his industry. Here, again, Joe Biden is purposefully vague and evasive:

And did he demonstrate a good grasp of not just the industry but the policies around it and how things like the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans have worked?

Oh, very much so. The details that he spits out really surprised me. And I did an awful lot of homework to be prepared for the interview, knowing all the various stimulus proposals and all the numbers. He has exceptional recall and knowledge, the way he looks into your eyes and communicates with you. You can see that he has a great comfort in who he is. There’s no question about that.

And if I could say anything that surprised me, it was — I expected him to be cordial, I expected him to be reasonably knowledgeable — but his graciousness and his level of knowledge were impressive.

[. . .]

Oh, wow. My last question for you, sir — since a bunch of our readers are probably familiar with your persona on TV — is now that you’ve had the experience of both speaking with President Trump in person and following his administration like any citizen, what’s your assessment of his presidency at this point? For lack of a better term, would you “shut it down” and try to see what would happen under a Biden administration?

You know, that’s a very difficult question, and it’s a very difficult question because I’m not sure what Biden’s positions are. And I put that on Biden because he has not been very vocal or communicative in this regard.

So when I hear that all the tax cuts are going to go away, but I don’t hear the rest of any kind of a plan, that scares the hell out of me. So I only know bits and pieces of the things that Biden has proposed. I don’t understand his full program.

I’m a business advocate, and I’m talking to you, Jake, trying to protect and support small businesses across America. And I worry, because I don’t understand the full program of Biden. And then I’m concerned that there’s, you know, layers of things that could have a negative impact on business that I don’t understand yet. And when I hear about energy changes and tax raises, and possibly payroll-tax increases — when I hear these types of things, they’re layered on top of each other, and it scares me. Now that might be wrong as an assumption, but my point is, I don’t know. I don’t know what Biden is going to do.

Now with President Trump, he’s been there for four years, so I know. I understand that business taxes are not going to go up. I have a greater understanding of the Trump agenda, which makes me more comfortable. And I’m being nonpolitical in this statement.

President Trump has won over both traditional Republican voters and many from communities, groups, identities that have been ignored by Republicans, including Reagan, while taken for granted by Democrats. We have a moral choice between freedom, individual dignity, and empowerment, on the one hand, and control, group conformity, and dependency on the other. Our actions and inactions in this election will determine which path we are set upon for at least decades to come. Let us make it “The Terry Malloy Election.”

Vote for President Trump and every candidate at every level that will support his agenda, the Republican platform, and get others out to vote.

I found this interview and started digging into news around it thanks to Friday’s Dan Proft Show podcast.