With an estimated net worth of between five and seven billion dollars and a penchant for coating every surface in the White House with what he claims to be 18-karat gold leaf paint, President Donald Trump isn’t exactly an expert on cost-cutting.
But after the uber-wealthy ex-real estate developer claimed that record-high toy prices caused by his tariffs are just fine because young girls “don’t need 37 dolls” and can make do with “two or three” instead, his top spokesperson was left scrambling when asked to defend the eyebrow-raising remarks.
Asked to defend Trump’s claim that Americans can “give up certain products” and limit toy purchases because tariffs have caused prices to go upon the 80 percent of toys on the U.S. market that are imported from China, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt first told reporters at a Friday press briefing that the president’s comments were meant as an exhortation to buy more expensive American-made ones instead.
Leavitt first claimed Trump’s intent when commenting on how many dolls a hypothetical young girl needs was to encourage parents to buy American-made dolls.
“Maybe you’ll pay $1 or two more, but you will get better quality, and you’ll be supporting your fellow Americans by buying American and that’s what the President was saying,” she said.
But when The Independent pressed her on whether it is appropriate for one of the wealthiest men in the country to be lecturing cash-strapped parents of young girls on how many dolls their daughters need to own, Leavitt irately pivoted to recasting Trump’s wealth as a positive while declining to address the substance of the question.
“Do you think the people in that room in Pennsylvania who the President was speaking to don’t know the President’s a billionaire? I think that’s a very well established fact,” she said.
Leavitt continued her monologue by claiming that Trump’s status as a billionaire was part and parcel of why voters chose to return him to the White House in last year’s election over then-vice president Kamala Harris.
“Actually, I think it’s one of the many reasons they reelected him back to this office, because he’s a businessman who understands the economy and knows how to fix it, and he’s doing it right now, just like he did in his first term,” she said.
Despite Trump’s claims to have lowered costs of living for Americans since returning to the White House in January, voters are not happy with his performance on affordability issues thus far.
According to a recent Gallup poll, only 36 percent of voters approve of his performance as president, giving him the lowest rating of his second term. A Politico poll released this week showed 46 percent of respondents saying the cost of living in America is worse than they can remember at any point, including 37 percent of voters who pulled levers for Trump last year.
Nearly half of respondents also said they blame Trump — not Biden or Harris — for the economy’s current condition.
But at the same time, Trump continues to tout his own record, such as it is.
In an interview with Politico this week, he told correspondent Dasha Burns that he gives himself an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus” when she asked him to grade his own record on the economy thus far.
And at the same time, Trump has dismissed Democrats’ focus on “affordability” heading into next year’s midterms as a “hoax” while claiming that “prices are way down” and accusing Democrats of having “caused” the high prices that persist nearly a year into his second term in office.
