Among the tens of thousands of things that infuriate the living bejeezus out of me is the line you hear from MAGA’s wannabe deep thinkers. It goes more or less like this: “Well yeah, Trump may say some strange things, but I’ll vote for him because I like his policies.”

Upon hearing that several things immediately run through my mind, beginning with, “Policies? Trump? What the f**k are you talking about? The guy wouldn’t know a ‘policy’ from a bucket of fried poultry.” The next thing is a variation on the old line about Newt Gingrich. “Gingrich is the kind of guy dumb people think smart people sound like.” Only in this case its, “By dropping in the word ‘policy’ you’re trying to make me think you’re not as clueless as you otherwise appear.”

With both Trump and Vance talking about the cost of child care yesterday and being asked about their specific policies to drive it down, this is as good a time as any to remind voters than neither of these con artists has given two seconds thought to a serious policy to deal with anything, much less the cost of child care in the USA.

Vance’s inspired notion was to encourage people to drag their aging parents and relatives into the cycle of regular child care. You know, cuz granny and gramps didn’t get enough of daily child care back when they were raising you. But more importantly, MAGA nation, let’s see some bootstrapping out there instead of expecting the government to solve all your problems.

Trump was hit with the same question at an event with the Economic Club of New York. His response is today’s (or at least this morning’s) talker.

Allow me to provide a video link and a transcript of the question and his entirely typical blithering response.

Reshma Saujani, founder of the nonprofit organization Girls Who Code, prefaced her question by noting that childcare outpaces inflation and costs the economy more than $122 billion annually.

“If you win in November,” she wondered, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable, and, if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

(Do note the word “specific.” And feel free to assess “mental acuity.”)

Trump: “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 look, child care is childcare, it’s—couldn’t, you know, it’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 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 childcare, that it’s going to take care.

We’re gonna 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—that I just told you about.

We’re gonna 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 gonna 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. Very good question. Thank you.”

And at this, as you can see in the video, most of the assembled panelists … APPLAUDED!

So I ask again, “WTF?”

How can a culture as advanced in so many ways as the Unites States in 2024 listen to anything Trump and his minions say and ask anything other than WT Actual F?