Asked about the budget deficit, Trump answers about Canada

Two deficits walk into the Oval Office. The president can only see one of them.

Tuesday, at the fraud bounty event, a reporter asked a straight budget question: could all the fraud and waste the administration says it’s cutting make a difference to the deficit next year? Trump: “Absolutely, a tremendous difference.” So far so good.

Then he explained how. “I’m cutting back the deficit with these countries where we do business.” Canada, $90 billion. Mexico, $175 billion. The European Union. He’s cutting them “way back to the old days.” Those are trade gaps, sir. What Americans buy from other countries versus what we sell them. They don’t come out of the Treasury, and cutting them doesn’t put a dime back in.

The deficit the reporter asked about is the federal one, and the government’s own numbers put this fiscal year’s at close to $2 trillion. Not a typo. Trillion.

The man running the world’s largest economy, at an event about catching people who mix up money, mixed up the two most famous deficits in economics. You can’t make it up. You don’t have to. It’s on tape.