The former president says that his style is to “weave” from one subject to the next. Others see something more worrisome in his ramblings.
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Former President Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Atlanta on Tuesday.
One of the truisms of Trump World is that being viewed as boring is a sin more deadly than being wrong.
On the campaign trail, former President Donald J. Trump often takes that to mean he must go off-script and veer off message. His critics say such detours are a troubling sign of his incoherence and raise questions about his age and cognitive health. Many of his supporters and allies see his circular way of speaking, which he calls “the weave,” as entertaining and not alarming. The partisan debate over the implications of Mr. Trump’s meandering speech has only intensified in the final stage of the race.
Here are four examples of Mr. Trump’s rambling from just this past week.
Schoolchildren asked him about boyhood heroes. He ended up at the border wall.
It was a softball question, from a 10-year-old. Mr. Trump’s response was more of a knuckleball.
A group of children asked Mr. Trump questions on Friday on “Fox & Friends.” Asked to name his favorite president when he was a child, Mr. Trump at first cited one who was elected when he was 34 (Ronald Reagan). Then he ventured onto surprising terrain, including every child’s favorite subject, the revised NAFTA trade deal known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
DANIEL: President Trump, I’m Daniel. And I’m 10. And I’m from Tennessee. What was your favorite president when you were little?
DONALD TRUMP: So I liked Ronald Reagan. I thought he was, um, look — I did not love his trade policy. I’m a very good trade — I have made some great trade deals for us — the U.S.M.C.A. That wasn’t his strength, but he had a great dignity about him, Ronald Reagan. You could say, “There’s our president,” more than any of the others. Really, any of the others. Uh, great presidents — well, Lincoln was probably a great president. Although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled? You know? I’m a guy that — it doesn’t make sense we had a civil war.
BRIAN KILMEADE, “Fox & Friends” co-host: Well, half the country left before he got there.
TRUMP: Yeah, yeah. But you’d almost say, like, why wasn’t that — as an example, Ukraine would have never happened and Russia if I were president. Israel would have never happened. Oct. 7 would have never happened. As you know, Iran was broke, they wanted to make a deal. I told, “Anybody buys any oil from Iran, it’s, you’re, you’re finished, you know, you can’t deal with the United States.” Nobody was buying oil from Iran. They came, they wanted to make a deal — now they have $300 billion in cash. Biden has been — and her, she’s, I don’t know if she was involved in it, but she’s, she’s terrible. Hey, look, remember this, she was the border czar, she never went there.
She was border czar and the Border Patrol, the one thing you have to remember, the Border Patrol gave strongest endorsement that anybody has ever seen: He’s the best there is, there has never been — he’s the greatest president, the greatest at the border, and she’s terrible. That was their policy. And these guys are great, by the way. These are great — you know them well from the show. We got the best endorsement and that really says it all. And I think the border is the bigger thing than inflation and the economy.
You know, I watch your polling where it says the economy and inflation are No. 1, 2. And then it says — always says, like, the three — I think the border is bigger. I got elected in 2016 on the border. I did a great job. I couldn’t even mention it after that because nobody cared because I did — it was fixed. We had a great border. Then they blew it, and I have to do it again. The difference is, it’s much worse this time. Because they are allowing millions of people into the country that shouldn’t be here.
LAWRENCE JONES, “Fox & Friends” co-host: Mr. President, we’ve got a fun one —
TRUMP: But we’ll fix it.
JONES: We’ve got a 6-year-old from Massachusetts and he wants to know about your favorite animal.
Asked about inflation, he roamed to his annoyance with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s college experience.
On Tuesday, John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of Bloomberg News, asked Mr. Trump about the dollar and whether his policies would drive up inflation. Mr. Trump produced a verbal novel, the first chapter of which touched more on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s undergraduate studies than on macroeconomics.
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