Trump Wanders Through Bizarre Riff About Not Buying Pencils or ’37 Dolls’ Amid Affordability Crisis

President Donald Trump wandered through a bizarre riff on pencils and the oddly specific avoidance of purchasing “37 dolls for your daughter” as he defended his policies amid the affordability crisis that prompted him to go on tour.

Trump has been fighting a battle over “affordability” since the Election Day bloodbath, insisting concerns over prices are a “con job,” and repeatedly claiming he’s already solved the issue. After a raft of new polls showed Trump getting clobbered on the economy, he decided to take to the road to spread his message.

His first stop was beautiful Mount Airy Casino Resort on Tuesday night, where he spoke for over 90 minutes to a raucous crowd.

Going into his second hour onstage, Trump defended a policy he’s taken a beating on during the cost crisis — his aggressive tariffs. The president conceded the effects on goods like dolls, but simply advised Americans to stop buying dozens of them:

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And with our historic tariffs, steel production is roaring back. We’re building steel mills all over the country, and U.S. Steel is coming back at a level never thought possible before.

And I was up. And I was up here and with the workers and with Selena. Do you know Selena? Does everybody know? And with some other people.

We were up with some great people, and we spent the whole day, and they were determining whether or not they want to make which one of the deals. I went to the workers, I said, which one do you like? We picked the right one.

I as I said before, billions, billions of dollars they’re spending. And the steel workers are doing phenomenally better.

I think you’re gonna do better than you’ve ever done before. You were losing all of your steel. If we didn’t have tariffs, you would have no steel–. We wouldn’t have one steel mill anywhere in the United States.

And that would be really bad for, Scott, national security. We need the one thing you need, you need steel.

You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. That’s under the China policy. You know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two, you know. They don’t need that many.

But you always need, you always need steel.

You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.

So we’re doing things right, we’re running this country, right.

Watch above via The White House.