A woman whose question prompted former President Donald Trump to launch into an unintelligible statement after he was asked about affordable childcare called his answer “insulting” on Friday during an interview with CNN.
Trump addressed the Economic Club of New York on Thursday where he laid out his agenda for a potential return to the White House. Trump vowed to slash government spending, cut taxes, and increase tariffs.
However, one question appeared to stump the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee.
Reshma Saujani asked Trump, “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 offered a meandering response in which he mentioned his eldest daughter Ivanka Trump as well as Sen. Marco Rubio.
“It’s a very important issue,” he said. “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.”
Saujani joined CNN’s The Lead on Friday evening where host Jake Tapper asked her about Trump’s response to her question as well as the attention it had received.
“I don’t know if you watched the debate in June, but I tried three times to get him to answer that question,” Tapper said. “You tried a fourth, did you get anything out of that?” Saujani responded:
Kinda, I may have gotten a little bit more than you did because he did answer the question, and what he told us is that childcare expenses are no big deal. The fact that you’re drowning in debt because of them, sorry, but not sorry. And he also told us that no, I don’t have any ideas or a proposal or legislation, and it’s insulting. It’s insulting to parents who are constantly having to choose between funding their daycare and feeding their kids. And the thing is, is like, if you have a plan to solve chalk here, you are not fit to be president.”
During his full response to Saujani’s question Thursday, Trump said:
Well, I would do that, 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. 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 childcare is childcare — 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 childcare, that it’s going to take care — we’re going to have, 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 childcare. I want to stay with childcare. 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 told you about.
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, 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. Thank you.
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