The White House ridiculed Donald Trump over his lengthy incoherent response to a question about child care in which he suggested that increasing tariffs on foreign imports could solve the issue of rising child care cost.
Trump addressed the Economic Club of New York on Thursday and was asked by one member, Reshma Saujani, founder of the nonprofit organization Girls Who Code, if he would commit “to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable.
The response was a 2 minute word salad in which Trump did not outline any specific legislation but seemed to suggest that tariffs would solve the unrelated issue of child care cost.
“I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about because childcare is childcare, you have to have it in this country, you have to have it,” Trump said. “But when you talk about those numbers compared to the type of numbers 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.”
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including childcare, that it’s going to take care,” he continued. “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 childcare. I want to stay with childcare, 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.”
Trump went on to say that child care is not that expensive and with the money he’s bringing in from tariffs, “we’re gonna 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.”
“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,” he concluded.
The response left several viewers, including at the White House, baffled.
“If you have any idea what the hell that answer means, you’re a better detective than I am, because these tariffs that he wants to apply across the board would amount to a $4,000 tax increase on working families,” White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a Friday interview on MSNBC.
Bates also pointed out that economists have warned that tariffs would raise the price of goods, including those needed for child care.
“If you’re buying a crib, if you’re buying bibs, this is going to impact all kinds of products that every single American family needs,” he said, adding that “MAGA-nomics means giant tax giveaways for billionaires and for big corporations.”
