Trump Whines About Kids Having Too Many Pencils In Wild Tariffs Rant
Donald Trump continues to insist that America’s children deserve less.
“I don’t think a beautiful baby girl that’s 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls,” the president said when asked about the prices of goods rising due to his unprecedented tariffs on Chinese imports. “They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”
“A young lady, a 10-year-old girl, a 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls,” he continued. “She can be very happy with three or four or five.… Let’s not waste a lot of time on a stupid question.”
Trump: "I don't think a beautiful baby girl that's 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls ... they don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have five." pic.twitter.com/H9nBN0Eh2q
The president said something similarly tone deaf less than a week ago.
“[China] made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion and one with Biden, selling us stuff,” Trump said, referring to the gargantuan Chinese import market in the United States. “Much of it, we don’t need. Ya know, somebody said, ‘Oh the shelves are gonna be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
This is all part of a tariff normalization campaign from the Trump administration, as they dismiss the legitimate fears that ordinary people have about costs for common goods rising. These asinine comments about pencils and dolls are well beside the point.
The former leader of the Proud Boys claimed that he spoke with Donald Trump on Saturday night, and that the president “loves” him.
Enrique Tarrio, the convicted ex-chief of the far-right hate group, was one of the nearly 1,600 people who received clemency from the president for his actions on January 6, mere hours into Trump’s second term. But that was apparently not the last time that Tarrio would interact with the president. Instead, Tarrio and his mother, Zuny Duarte, were ushered to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where a member had personally invited them to dine, reported The New York Times.
“He called me and my Mother over while we were at dinner and said he was sorry for what Joe Biden did to all J6ers,” Tarrio posted on X. “He knew the hardships me and my family faced for [three] long years.”
“He knew how many times they moved me. And he said he is working on making things right. I thanked him for giving me my life back,” Tarrio continued. “He replied with … I Love You guys.”
“To the J6ers he wanted me to send y’all a message,” Tarrio wrote. “He said … Thank you.”
Tarrio’s presence at Mar-a-Lago was made all the more strange considering that he would have had to be personally screened by the Secret Service before entering the Florida resort.
By Monday, Trump had not denied the exchange, and a White House spokesman contacted by the Times did not respond.
Tarrio was one of four Proud Boys to be convicted of seditious conspiracy for his actions on January 6. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison—the longest sentence received by any Proud Boys member—for effectively planning the attack on the Capitol to keep Trump in power after his 2020 loss. Tarrio served less than two years before Trump’s pen set him free. Since then, Tarrio has sparked a podcast and a Proud Boys–oriented crypto coin, and has become a far-right social media influencer.
In an interview with Alex Jones in January, Tarrio promised “retribution” against people who worked on prosecuting January 6 cases.
Donald Trump blew his top on Sunday night after being skewered by prominent Republican political strategist Karl Rove on Fox News.
During an appearance on Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy, the former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush slammed Trump on several areas, including the president’s recent admission that as a result of his tariffs “children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
“He sounds like Mr. Scrooge, and the ordinary American is like, ‘Wait a minute, I thought you were on my side, I didn’t think you were on the side of saying I need to do with less! You got plenty of money, I gotta make mine stretch as far as I can,” Rove said.
Trump didn’t take kindly to Rove’s feedback.
“I don’t need to have Karl Rove of FoxNews to tell me what to do. The guy’s a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
It’s been almost a month since the president announced a 90-day pause on his so-called reciprocal tariffs (while an across-the-board 10 percent tariff remains in effect), and he has yet to announce a single deal. Last week, Trump claimed he’d struck 200 trade deals, but there aren’t even 200 countries in the world.
Rove didn’t just criticize Trump‘s “really problematic” defense of his tariffs. He also criticized Trump for posting a “deeply offensive” AI-generated picture of himself wearing papal clothes and sitting on a throne, and for his attacks on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration has claimed without © New Republic
