President Trump’s economists, and sometimes Trump himself, often remind me of the late TV celebrity Art Linkletter, who used to have a segment on his television variety show called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” Linkletter would ask children questions, and some of their responses were inadvertently hilarious, which shocked Linkletter and made his audience laugh.

That’s increasingly what we’re seeing from some of Trump’s economists when they try to defend the president’s tariff and trade policies.

Take, for example, Stephen Miran, the head of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers. The Harvard-trained economist recently tried to explain to Politico reporter Victoria Guida why the president’s tariff policies could result in little or no price increases for U.S. consumers and businesses.

According to Guida, “At the center of his [Miran’s] argument is the idea that the U.S., as the dominant buyer of the world’s goods, will ultimately have enough leverage to make foreign trading partners eat the cost of tariffs…” Guida adds, “Foreign manufacturers will have to lower their prices to accommodate tariff rates, Miran believes.”

Miran apparently thinks that, to be competitive with manufacturers in other countries, some companies will lower their prices so........

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