As Salon has pointed out in past coverage of Donald Trump events, he’s developed a routine of using containers of Tic Tacs — one regular-sized and one that’s teeny tiny — to help illustrate a point he often tries to make, which is that, in his eyes, the economy flourishes under his rule and goes to pot when anyone else is behind the wheel — especially Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris, according to him.
In a press conference at Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey on Thursday intended to focus on inflation and economics, Trump kicked up his prop game a handful of notches, standing next to a table full of a wide range of pantry items — Folgers Coffee, Fruit Loops and a package of uncooked bacon, etc. — to further illustrate a point that he never quite made due to frequently distracting himself with talk of being “a big fan of electricity,” ICE agents brawling with migrants and Harris being a communist.
Claiming at one point that, in California, there’s a law that says you can rob stores as long as you don’t rob more than $950 worth of stuff, Trump went on in this fashion for nearly 30 minutes before taking a single question from press, with CNN cutting away in their coverage as he rambled.
Reading the bulk of his statements from a binder in front of him, Trump leaned in hard on Harris while standing next to his groceries, saying she has “a very strong communist lean” and wants to “end detention of illegal alien migrants, releasing vicious monsters into our communities to rape, maim and murder.”
Prior to Trump’s presser, the Harris campaign issued a media advisory that was heavily shared on social media, writing:
Not so fresh off NABJ, Florida, and Twitter glitches, Donald Trump intends to deliver another self-obsessed rant full of his own personal grievances to distract from his toxic Project 2025 agenda, unpopular running mate, and increasing detachment from the reality of the voters who will decide this election.
These remarks will not be artificial intelligence, but they certainly will lack intelligence.
Banning abortion, raising costs on families, confusing basic facts, cutting Social Security and Medicare, blocking border security, and being publicly unstable, unfit, and unwell will not help his struggling campaign for president.
Tune in for the same old thing.
In contrast to Trump’s efforts at the presser, on Friday, Harris is set to unveil “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries — setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries,” according to a campaign statement sourced by to The Washington Post.
Watch Trump in action here: