President Donald Trump’s most recent New York Times interview may have been full of bombshell quotes — but that doesn’t make it easy to understand.
On a Thursday segment about the many takeaways from that interview, CNN host Brianna Keilar and political editor-at-large Chris Cillizza dissected a particularly difficult-to-understand excerpt of the interview in which Trump claimed 21-year-olds pay $12 a year for health insurance.
They cited the now-infamous quote from the transcript of the 50-minute Times exclusive, in which Trump talks in circles about healthcare.
“So preexisting conditions are a tough deal,” Trump told the Times. “Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of.”
“All of those are English words that I recognize,” Cillizza quipped. “Put together, it’s sort of out of context, out of touch, and it doesn’t make any sense.”
Urging viewers to read the excerpts from the interview, Cillizza went on to say that Trump is “all over the place,” switching from the way Russians handle the cold to Napoleon and, somehow, the economy.“He’s steering it in these different ways,” Keilar said.
“‘Steering it’ is a kind way of saying what he’s doing,” Cillizza rebutted. “I think he’s just riffing.”
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