Vice President Kamala Harris has made some cooking videos over the years, but her presidential campaign had to acknowledge Thursday that no one puts together a word salad quite like Donald Trump.
During an appearance before the Economic Club of New York, the former president and 2024 Republican nominee was asked whether he’ll make affordable child care a priority if he wins reelection in November.
Trump’s response can only be described as ― well, just look at the transcript below. It’s long, but it’s the only way to appreciate the bizarreness of the whole thing, especially because he never really answered the question.
Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. 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 gonna 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 going to take care.
We’re gonna have — I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with 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, 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 going to 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. Thank you.
Perfectly clear, right? Naturally, the Harris campaign posted a clip of the exchange to let Trump’s words speak for themselves.
Not surprisingly, many people on X, formerly Twitter, couldn’t make heads or tails of Trump’s comments.
And some critics called out The New York Times for making it sound like Trump’s rambling was actually a halfway coherent statement.