During an all-women town hall appearance on Fox News Wednesday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was asked about his plans to lower child care costs for American families—and gave a predictably baffling nonanswer.
“You never heard of Ivanka, right?” Trump asked, before touting “the largest tax cuts in the history of our country” and then lying about how his daughter badgered him until he created child tax credits.
Trump’s tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited the richest Americans and large corporations—two groups that do not have to worry about the cost of child care. The child tax credit, meanwhile, was already in existence when Trump took office in January 2017. That credit was expanded to wealthier families, but not to the people who needed it the most.
This prevaricating is nothing new for the king of dis- and misinformation. Trump has been asked for months about how he plans to help American parents who aren’t billionaires, and repeatedly offered up nothing in response.
“What would you do to make child care more affordable?” CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Trump during his June debate against President Joe Biden
Trump’s response was complete jibber jabber.
“Just so you understand—we have polling, we have other things that they rate them the worst because what he’s done is so bad and they rate me—I’ll show you, I will show you,” he babbled. “And they rate me one of the best. Okay? And if I’m given another four years, I will be the best. I think I’ll be the best.”
There was plenty of deja vu during a phone-in interview with Fox News.
“I would like to know what kind of programs or policies he could implement to reduce the parental stress,” a MAGA voter asked. Trump responded by talking about—you guessed it—Ivanka.
“Child care is a No. 1 priority and I have no choice because I have a daughter named Ivanka. And maybe you never heard of my Ivanka, but I have a daughter named Ivanka, and that’s all she talks to me about is child care for the people,” he rambled. “And she was the one that got it started. And Marco Rubio helped a lot, and a lot of the Republican senators. We put in a great child care and we’ll be expanding that, and that will help you a lot.”
To be clear, the “paid family leave” program that Sen. Marco Rubio and then-adviser Ivanka Trump worked on would have forced Americans to use their Social Security benefits to cover said leave, effectively delaying their retirement. That’s not really the relief Americans are looking for.
If these nonanswers aren’t sufficient, maybe his absolutely incomprehensible response at the Economic Club of New York in September will be illuminating.
No matter your economic policy leanings, whatever Trump was blathering about there isn’t a solution to the issue of child care costs. As for Trump’s so-called child care mastermind, Ivanka: Anyone seen her lately? The answer is nope, as Trump’s daughter has not been campaigning for daddy during this election cycle.
Meanwhile, Trump’s opponent Vice President Kamala Harris has offered up a variety of actionable solutions that include expanding the popular child tax credit and strengthening the Child Care & Development Block Grant program that helps subsidize costs for Americans.
Trump’s Republican Party is on board with having zero solutions for reducing the burden of rising child care costs. In August, despite much performative hand-wringing over the need to help working American families, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have expanded the child tax credit.
It’s time for voters to block Trump from the Oval Office, once and for all.
