Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, are struggling with women voters, and it’s not a new problem for them. In 2020, Trump lost them to Joe Biden by 15 percentage points (57% to 42%), according to exit polls. And here’s a fun fact: Despite winning married women by 4 points (51% to Biden’s 47%), Trump lost women with children by 13 points (43% to 56%).
To address these issues, you might expect Trump to offer—at the very least—warmed-over pablum when asked how to make child care affordable. Instead, he offered yet more proof of his mental collapse.
On Thursday, at a supposed economic address in Manhattan, Trump was asked, “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?”
And here is Trump’s entire, unedited answer:
Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down. You know, I was somebody—we had Sen. 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, couldn't—you know, it’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 going to take care. We're going to 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 say, 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 going to 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 will 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.
It seems that some in the media—such as Sahil Kapur of NBC News, who tweeted out a full transcript of Trump’s garbled response—are waking up to Trump’s cognitive travails. But where are the dozens of front-page New York Times stories about it, like those they ran after President Joe Biden’s awful debate performance?
In fact, New York Times reporter Michael Gold sane-washed the answer for Trump:
After his speech, Donald Trump was asked how he might address rising child care costs. In a jumbled answer, he said he would prioritize legislation on the issue but offered no specifics and insisted that his other economic policies, including tariffs, would “take care” of child care. “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.”
What in Trump’s full answer suggests he would actually “prioritize legislation on the issue”? The question asked if he would prioritize it, but in his word salad, he never committed to any such thing. And there is no chance that legislation to meaningfully address the steep costs of child care would be considered in a second Trump presidency, much less passed.
Gold went out of his way to make Trump’s aside about tariffs sound semi-coherent, as opposed to the nonsensical pivot it really was. Or, to put it another way, Gold made it sound as if Trump gives a damn about child care when it’s clear from his answer here—as well as his current policy platform and his priorities during his administration—that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it. He barely even knows how to talk about the issue, helpfully confirming for us that “you have to have [child care] in this country.”
Question: Will you prioritize legislation to make child care affordable?
Trump: Child care exists. Very good question. Thank you.
The New York Times: Trump commits to prioritizing child care, paid for by his proposed tariffs on foreign goods.
And The New York Times isn’t alone. Here’s the Associated Press:
This is absurd. The political press has to do better.
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