Trump tried to explain how he plans to make childcare more affordable. It was a word salad

After what were supposed to be remarks on his economic agenda on Thursday, Donald Trump was asked whether he will commit to making childcare affordable, and what “specific piece of legislation” he would support to do so.

A two-minute, 362-word response didn’t appear to come close to answering either question.

The Republican presidential nominee addressed the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, and promised to slash “trillions” in federal spending, gut regulations, increase tariffs on imports and hire billionaire Elon Musk to identify where to make “drastic” cuts across the government.

Then he was asked the following question.“If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation would you advance?”

Trump responded: “Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Senator 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 is. It’s, couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it. In this country you have to have it.”

He went on: “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 gonna 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 gonna have — I, 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 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 gonna 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 we’ll 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.”

Trump’s running mate JD Vance was asked a similar question at a Turning Point Action event in Arizona on Wednesday.

He said the government should “make it easier” for families to effectively act as childcare workers.

“One of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is, maybe grandma or grandpa wants to help out a little bit more, or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more,” Vance told host Charlie Kirk.

“If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we’re spending on daycare,” he added.

Vance suggested lowering hiring standards for childcare workers and removing “ridiculous certification” policies that he claims have “nothing to do with taking care of kids.”

He later clarified his remarks on X, writing that “parents or grandparents might not be able to help, but they might want to, and for those families, federal policy should not be forcing one particular family model.”

Eighty percent of Republicans and 99 percent of Democrats want candidates to have a plan to lower the cost of childcare as families face a growing affordability crisis, according to recent polling.

The cost of childcare — which typically runs families more than $10,000 each year, on average, but is often much higher in certain parts of the country — rose 6 percent from 2022 into 2023, nearly double the rate of inflation, according to the Department of Labor.

One in five women reported that children in their household were unable to attend childcare because programs in their area were “closed, unavailable, unaffordable, or because they were concerned about their child’s safety,” according to a National Women’s Law Center analysis.

Those figures were more acute among Black women and disabled women, who were nearly two times more likely than white men to report that their children could not attend childcare, the report found.