Maddowblog-Why Trump's on-stage interview on economic policy was such a mess

[LetMyPeopleVote]

For months, Republicans have practically begged Donald Trump to focus on policy, not personal attacks. But he doesn’t talk about policy because he can’t.

Link to tweet

For months, Republicans have practically begged Trump to focus on policy, not personal attacks.

We were reminded yesterday in Chicago: He doesn't talk about policy — especially economic policy — because he can't.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-stage-interview-economic-policy-was-mess-rcna175662

But there’s long been a problem that his party struggles to fully appreciate: 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.

At times, it was difficult to watch. Asked, for example, about the dramatic impact his plans would have on the national debt, Trump said a great many words, none of which answered the question. Asked about Google — a company the former president has threatened to prosecute in response to a conspiracy theory he concocted — the GOP candidate changed the subject......

It’s not as if Trump occasionally has bad days but is otherwise up to speed on economic policy. The night before the event in Chicago, a voter asked him about addressing the price of groceries, and his long, meandering answer was effectively gibberish.

Two days earlier, the GOP candidate effectively admitted that when it comes to proposed trade tariffs, he essentially just makes up numbers off the top of his head. “Until now I’ve said 200[%],” he told Fox News. “I’m using that just as a figure. I’ll say 100, 200, I’ll say 500, I don’t care.”

For months, Trump has been repeatedly asked how he intends to address inflation, and he’s never been able to answer in a coherent way.

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.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Trump Crumbles When Pressed on Economic Policy in Tense Interview

TFG is too stupid to discuss economic policy.

The former president attempted to "weave" his way through an interview with Bloomberg News, but couldn't escape his own policy black hole

Link to tweet

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-crumbles-pressed-economic-policy-bloomberg-interview-1235134459/

Donald Trump continued his preelection economic event tour on Tuesday with a lengthy interview with Bloomberg at the Economic Club of Chicago. It was a total mess.

Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait did not take it easy on Trump, and it quickly became clear that the former president has no conception of the mechanics of or the potential ramifications of the economic platform he’s running on. Bluntly, the former president was incoherent when pressed with real questions about his policies.

Micklethwait spent most of the interview attempting to break Trump out of what the former president repeatedly referred to as “the weave,” his term for his rambling digressions — with ever-decreasing intelligibility — and general inability to focus on a given topic for more than a few seconds during his rallies and interviews.

Micklethwait didn’t weave along with Trump, however, repeatedly working to bring him back on topic and answer the actual questions. The grilling exposed Trump’s total cluelessness with regard to his own economic policy, and led Trump to attack Micklethwait as biased......

When questioned about the specifics of his plan, and if he was aware of its pitfalls, Trump seemed ignorant of basic economic principles, insisting that other countries, not American consumers, would pay for the tariffs.

Micklethwait tried to explain the actual impact. “Three-trillion worth of imports and you will add tariffs to every single one of them, and push up the cost for all of these people to buy foreign goods,” he said. “That is just simple mathematics.”

[malaise]

2. Ha

Last night he was boasting about his great Bloomberg interview. 😂😂