Appearing before the Economic Club of Chicago in Illinois, a combative and often rambling Donald Trump tripled down Tuesday on his proposals to hike tariffs on goods brought into the U.S. from other countries, again saying they would help the economy despite the vast majority of economists saying such plans would spike inflation.
Why Trump's on-stage interview on economic policy was such a mess
Trump doesn't talk about policy because he can't. The former president has never been able to speak coherently about governing, and with three weeks remaining before Election Day, nothing has changed.
The Atlantic's David Graham summarized the Republican's appearance at the Economic Club of Chicago this way: "When Donald Trump speaks about the economy, he sounds like a child."
China gives us billions of dollars via tariffs. American auto workers take imported cars out of a box and stick the pieces together. These are very light paraphrases of statements he made today at the Economic Club of Chicago, in a sometimes combative interview with the Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait.
Trump didn't seem to know what the chairman of the Federal Reserve does. He spoke a great deal about trade tariffs, but struggled with the details. He talked about reserve currencies, but didn't seem to know what they are. When the conversation turned to small businesses, the former president talked about Apple - prompting his host to explain that Apple is not a small business.
I can appreciate why Republican officials keep urging their nominee to focus on policy, but they're effectively asking squirrels to do trigonometry: If Trump could talk about the substantive details of governing and policymaking, he would. But he can't, so he doesn't.
Steve Benen
#5 | Posted by TonyRoma
Like @Kaylan_TX on the Twitter machine, you always bring the receipts, Tony!
... Trump Says Experts Are All 'Wrong' on His Tariff Proposals ...
Trump's Interview Remarks on Economic Policy, Fact-Checked
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