Millionaire and Forbes magazine publisher Malcom Forbes once famously said that the person who “dies with the most toys, wins.” But with his tariff policies driving up the cost of Christmas presents this holiday season, President Donald Trump appears to be taking the opposite view.
The president was two-thirds of the way through a stemwinding rally appearance in Pennsylvania intended to highlight his economic record on Tuesday when he began defending his use of tariffs as necessary to protect the American steel industry, even if it raises prices in other sectors.
“You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. That’s under the China policy … every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two … they don’t need that many. But you always need steel,” he said.
Continuing, Trump opined that Americans “don’t need 37 dolls” for their daughters. “Two or three is nice, you don’t need 37, so we’re doing things right. We’re running this country right,” he added.
It was a surprising message of austerity from a man whose net worth is estimated between five and seven billion dollars, and who has stocked his cabinet and administration with millionaires and billionaires while coating surface after surface in the White House with what he claims is 18-karat gold paint — to say nothing of the $300m gilded ballroom he is constructing on the site where the historic East Wing stood before he ordered it demolished two months ago.
Since returning to office, he has invoked never-before-claimed emergency powers to impose a series of import taxes by executive fiat on goods from America’s largest trading partners, including China, where a full 80 percent of toys imported into the U.S. are manufactured.
The result has been a sharp increase in prices paid by consumers this holiday season, a reality that is at odds with his claim that his administration has successfully brought the cost of living down from levels that made inflation a major factor in last year’s election.
In an interview with Politico published Tuesday morning, he claimed his record on the economy should be graded as “A-plus-plus-plus-plus” despite polling that shows only an approximate third of voters approve of his efforts to bring prices down during his first ten months back in the White House.
And when he spoke at a casino in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania that evening, he recited canned lines about an “amazing … transformation of our country” since his return to the White House and claimed “prices are way down” in part due to his administration’s green-lighting of oil exploration across the country.
But in a way, his claim that “two or three” dolls would be sufficient for young girls is consistent with his view that things have improved when comparing his remarks on Tuesday to what he said at an April cabinet meeting when he dismissed concerns that the massive import taxes he had unveiled at an April 2 event he dubbed “liberation day” could lead to shortages or higher prices.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to defend the remarks at a press briefing on Thursday, telling reporters that 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.
While Leavitt refused to respond to questions on the propriety of Trump’s comments, members of the U.S. Senate largely panned the remarks as out-of-touch and heavy-handed — when they responded to questions.
One member of the upper chamber, GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a staunch Trump defender, wasn’t interested in weighing in on the matter, telling The Independent “that’s a stupid question”as he entered an elevator on his way to a vote.
When asked to respond to the president’s call for parents to possibly limit doll purchases when approached while returning to his orifice. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a fellow Republican who has a 5-year-old daughter, quipped that he wished someone would say the same to her.
Asked how many she has, Hawley replied: “It’s a lot more than three. I don’t know, I’d have to spend a lot of time counting.”
Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, a Democrat who is also the senior pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, told The Independent that “parents in Georgia who are trying to make their lives work don’t need shopping advice from the President of the United States.”
“They need him to do what he said he was going to do, and address the affordability crisis, which he now calls a hoax,” Warnock said.
Pressed further on how many dolls his young daughter has, he replied: “You’ll have to ask my daughter.”
Another parent of young girls, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, said Trump’s call for doll austerity shows how he is “completely out of touch with the American people and how they’re struggling.”
She suggested Trump was advocating “rationing” of dolls and asked: “What is this, the Soviet Union?”
Duckworth later added that her daughters ”certainly have a lot of dolls” and said it was “up to parents to decide how many they have, not the President of the United States.”
Her Democratic colleague, Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, was even more blunt when asked to opine on the president’s remarks on Thursday.
“Kids don’t need dolls and presidents don’t need golden frickin jets gifted from Qatar,” he said.
