The former president and his running mate gave nearly equally confusing answers when asked separately this week how they would make child care more affordable.
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Speaking at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, former President Donald J. Trump gave a rambling answer when asked what he would do to lower the cost of child care.
A question lobbed from the stage of the Economic Club of New York on Thursday about what, if anything, he would do about the cost of child care should have been right in former President Donald J. Trump’s wheelhouse.
But instead of a crisp, camera-ready reply from a seasoned three-time presidential candidate, Mr. Trump unspooled two of the most puzzling minutes of his campaign.
His answer was a jolting journey through disjointed logic about how the size of his tariffs would take care of all the nation’s children, which only raised a new, more complicated question about why he remains unable to provide straightforward answers about policies he would prioritize in a second term.
“Well, I would do that,” he said when asked if he would commit to supporting legislation to make child care more affordable, and how he would seek to do so.
“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,” Mr. Trump continued, referring to the pair’s previous push for paid family leave and expanding the child tax credit. “It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about that — because the 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 going to take care.”
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