Watch: Trump Goes on Truly Incoherent Rant When Asked About Childcare

Donald Trump couldn’t come up with a meaningful answer when asked about how he would make childcare affordable Thursday.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the Republican presidential nominee gave a long, meandering answer to the question and didn’t even mention children or any possible solutions to the issue, even though he was asked what specific legislation he would pass.

“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, childcare is childcare. It’s something you know you have to have it, in this country you have to have it,” Trump’s answer began, before he went off on a tangent about economic numbers.

“We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare 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,” Trump added, still failing to actually answer the question.

Trump’s incoherent answer was somehow worse than the one his running mate, J.D. Vance, gave Wednesday at a Turning Point Action event in Arizona when asked a similar question. Vance told conservative pundit Charlie Kirk that he would suggest people turn to their family members to help with childcare, or, if family members were not available, to loosen education requirements for childcare workers.

Aside from the fact that these answers indicate that the ostensibly pro-family Republican Party has poor solutions to making childcare less expensive, they also show Trump’s increasing cognitive decline. He was asked a straightforward question on how he would make childcare less expensive and the specific legislation he would pursue to make that possible. Trump either had no interest in a coherent answer or wasn’t capable of providing one. Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign had a quick response.

“Billionaire-bought Donald Trump’s ‘plan’ for making child care more affordable is to impose a $3,900 tax hike on middle class families,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement. “The American people deserve a President who will actually cut costs for them, like Vice President Harris’ plan to bring back a $3,600 Child Tax Credit for working families and an expanded $6,000 tax cut for families with newborn children.”

Is Trump capable of presenting, or even understanding, substantive policy ideas? His apparent mental state says he is not, and media coverage seems to gloss over discussions about his condition. Perhaps the upcoming debate with Harris next week will finally expose him in front of a national audience.

X owner, Tesla chief, and SpaceX executive Elon Musk could pick up another role should Donald Trump win in November: leading a government efficiency task force.

The task force would have the authority to audit federal spending and regulations, and came at the recommendation of Musk himself, Trump said in remarks Thursday to the Economic Club of New York.

“At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement—that’s nice, a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing, he knows what he’s doing! It’s very much appreciated—I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump told the subdued crowd of business executives. “We need to do it. Can’t go on the way we are now.”

According to Trump, the commission would develop a plan to “totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” aiming to slash trillions of dollars from the federal budget while promising not to alter government services. He did not identify any specific programs that could be slashed to save the cash, making budget experts from both parties very wary of the ambitious promise, according to The Washington Post’s White House economics reporter Jeff Stein. The commission as a whole represents an apparent dig at spending under the Biden-Harris administration.

Musk and Trump have grown closer since the tech billionaire formally endorsed the Republican presidential nominee after an assassination attempt in July. That same month, Musk pledged to give $45 million a month to a pro-Trump super PAC (a promise he later walked back.) The pair also shared a long, sprawling talk on X in August (the details of which may have violated FEC regulations.)

Ahead of Trump’s speech, Musk took to X to confirm that he would be open to such a role.

“I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises,” Musk wrote in a post. “No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”

Musk had already previewed his potential federal job on Tuesday, tweeting that he “can’t wait” to take on a cust-cutting role. “There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go,” he warned.

But regardless of his enthusiasm, Musk’s previous attempts to rein in spending at his companies don’t bode well for the government should he take on such a role. After acquiring Twitter, Musk laid off roughly 75 percent of its staff—a decision that infuriated investors and ended up tanking the social media behemoth’s value by 90 percent, in Musk’s own words.

MAGA Republicans are more than happy to excuse the right-wing influencers at the center of a Russian propaganda scheme.

Right-wing influencers like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson all worked with Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based firm that the Justice Department revealed Wednesday was secretly funded by Russian state media employees in “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” The indictment charges two Russia Today employees with providing nearly $10 million to the media company that often spouted Kremlin talking points.

In response to the charges, the pundits and their allies are saying they just didn’t know any better. In fact, they’re the real victims.

“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived,” Pool wrote.

Johnson echoed the line, writing, “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.”

Even Representative Matt Gaetz bought their argument. “Tim and Benny were deceived, as the indictment clearly lays out,” he wrote just hours after news of the indictment.

Propagandist Ben Shapiro also came to the rescue, stating that Pool, Johnson, and Rubin “aren’t the issue” because “they were apparently deceived by the company founders, who were allegedly taking Russian cash.”

Donald Trump too boosted the talking point, as he posted a clip of conservative columnist Michael Shellenberger on Fox News arguing that “this is really small ball stuff” and “two of the influencers that were targeted did not know it was Russian money.” (If that is the case, wouldn’t it be true that the rest did?)

It’s hard to believe that the members of Tenet Media “didn’t know” anything about the scheme. In fact, you can watch Pool describe nearly exactly what he engaged in, during a podcast conversation: 

Let’s see if playing clueless works out for them.

Donald Trump’s trial over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election resumed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, and it was off to a rough start as Judge Tanya Chutkan repeatedly shot down arguments from his legal team.

Trump’s team hid behind the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity two months ago, claiming that Trump could not be prosecuted over his “official acts” as president. Instead, Chutkan declared she would treat Trump like any other criminal defendant.

Trump attorney John Lauro tried to argue against special counsel Jack Smith’s legitimacy in one instance, citing the fact that Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump’s classified documents case by ruling that Smith’s appointment was not legitimate. Chutkan again readily dismissed their argument.

Lauro tried to cite Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to support his argument but was forced to correct himself by Chutkan.

Lauro then tried to challenge prosecutors’ proposal that Trump’s team file a brief on the immunity issue by the end of September, calling it “extremely prejudicial.” Lauro also tried to claim Trump’s conversations with his vice president, Mike Pence, were “official acts,” only for Chutkan to rebuff him. Lauro also invoked originalism, which the Supreme Court’s conservatives adhere to, in his claim that Trump’s conversations with Pence were covered by the Supreme Court ruling. Chutkan shot down that line of thinking.

If Trump’s trial continues to proceed like it has on Thursday, then the former president and convicted felon is going to have a tough time. Smith already put together a superseding indictment taking into account the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, and Chutkan looks like she won’t be favoring Trump, unlike Cannon in Florida. We may have a long and brutal federal trial coming soon.

Donald Trump may have already completely screwed himself in his January 6 trial.

The federal election interference case, which resumed Thursday, was considered practically dead after the Supreme Court granted the former president wide-ranging immunity in July. But in the last week alone, Trump has managed to compromise that shoo-in all on his own by outright confessing to losing the 2020 election—a first-of-its-kind admission that legal experts believe could be used against him in court.

Trump “is forever trying his cases in the court of public opinion, where there are no rules of evidence, no rules of procedure and no rules of law,” argued former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. “What he apparently doesn’t realize is that every word out of his mouth is admissible in a criminal trial. This is where the rules of evidence come into play—and where they will work to Trump’s extreme disadvantage at trial.”

That could include an eyebrow-raising soundbite from the Republican presidential nominee, who earlier this week admitted on the Lex Fridman podcast that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden “by a whisker.”

That admission infuriated some members of Trump’s longtime fanbase, including white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who lamented having his money frozen and becoming “the most canceled man in America” for advancing the January 6 riot for what was—now by Trump’s own admission—a complete lie.

“So what was the point? Like, what’s the point of any of it? You lost in 2020? Seriously? What are we even doing anymore?” Fuentes said on his web show, figuring out the charade in real time. “You’re a loser. You just lost. Then you lost to Joe Biden. You deserve to be charged!”

“So why did we do Stop the Steal? Why did anyone go to January 6th? Why is anyone sitting in jail? Why did anything bad happen to anybody?” Fuentes continued, torching Trump for ushering his supporters toward the Capitol that day, resulting in more than 1,000 arrests. “Why did that need to happen? If you’re just going to walk it all back and say, ‘Oh, I lost.’”