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Yesterday, at the Economic Club of New York, one member asked Donald Trump a very specific question about his policy priorities:

“If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

Trump’s reply was not only not specific; it was incoherent. After a little throat-clearing about how “important” an issue child care is, he seemed to turn to a discussion of his nebulous idea to increase tariffs on foreign imports, although even that is hard to ascertain.

Trump said:

But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that—because, look, child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t—you know, there’s something … You have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.

But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.

Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have—I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country—because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.

But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.

We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.

  • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    This is no different than he has been since he came down that escalator, this is how all his answers sound when they’re about things he is ignorant of. Have we forgotten “look having nuclear” or countless other examples?

    • edric@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, this is isn’t a “new level” of incoherence, it’s always been like that. It’s just being amplified more now that his opponent isn’t having age-related issues.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        4 months ago

        It is a new level of a news organization directly acknowledging how much word salad he spews instead of treating it as normal.

        • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          Or filtering, paraphrasing and interpreting his rambling to the point that people watching at home think he is actually knowledgeable about these topics.

  • InternetUser2012@lemmy.today
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    4 months ago

    Dementia DonOLD the weird racist rapist with 34 felonies that can’t complete a coherent sentence is losing it more by the day. It’s getting pathetic and embarrassing. He needs to drop out and seek treatment.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    4 months ago

    But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.

    He still thinks tariffs are paid by other countries as opposed to American citizens. Completely unfit to govern.

    • tardigrada@beehaw.orgOP
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      4 months ago

      I get your point, but we shouldn’t forget that cheap products are often cheap because people elsewhere pay the price through low salaries, and sometimes no salaries at all. Not that I think that Trump would care about these people (or any people), but tariffs are a bit more complex than what Trump describes here as we know.

  • ulkesh@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    And did the person follow up with “you didn’t answer my question at all, and you sound like you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”? Because if not, that is what is wrong with America — letting bullshit just sit there without calling it out as bullshit.

  • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
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    4 months ago

    I love reading Trump quotes, and then it cheers me up even more to think that their are Americans who eat this gibberish up like gospel.

    Fuck I’m glad I’m not American

    That last paragraph reads like something he’s rehearsed for when he gets lost on topic though.

  • Kanda@reddthat.com
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    4 months ago

    I mean politicians do this all the time without being senile, and in Norway the reporters just nicely say that it didn’t answer the question. The roughest reporters will try several times to get a real answer, which always leads to a loop where the politician just repeats the answer prepared by their PR people over and over

  • leaky_shower_thought@feddit.nl
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    4 months ago

    It’s about: Make America great again.

    …and title drop. most 'mericans do love to fall for this trope.

    typical trump style though. just talk big and hopefully people just get distracted how big he talks with zero content.