[octothorp]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

Donald Trump was asked today if he would commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable, and if so, what specific legislation he would advance.

This is an unedited transcript of his response:

Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so, uh, 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 child care is. Couldn't, you know, there'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. Uh, those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we're talking about, including child care, that it's going to take care.

We're gonna have - I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with, uh, 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 child care. I want to stay with child care, 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, uh, that I just told you about.

We're gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care, uh, 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 going to 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.

I think this is actually a good example for the discussion about media bias. Take AP's coverage of this:

Trump suggests tariffs can help solve rising child care costs in a major economic speech

excerpt: Trump was asked at his appearance before the Economic Club of New York about his plans to drive down child care costs to help more women join the workforce.

“Child care is child care, it’s something you have to have in this country. You have to have it,” he said. Then, he said his plans to tax imports from foreign nations at higher levels would “take care” of such problems.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-eco...b2c349b07222b8

There is nothing in the article that is inaccurate. There's also nothing that conveys just how little of an understanding he seems to have of the issues related to the question that was asked. They're doing a huge amount of heavy lifting for Trump in editing that down to something that sounds reasonable, if simplistic. We're used to news articles taking complex topics and giving us quotes that put it in layman's terms, and it would be easy for someone to get that impression from this article that this is what is happening here, if you only casually followed American politics.

And I've got no right answer on how you cover this if you're a reputable news outlet like AP. You can't editorialize about how rambling and incoherent the whole answer is; you can't include the full text, which fails your duty to actually make the subject understandable to a reader.