Trump Bizarrely Claims His Administration Is ‘Finding Money’ That Nobody Realized ‘Ever Existed’

President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that his administration is “finding” previously undiscovered money in places like “the tariff shelf.”

Trump took questions from reporters in the Oval Office, where one of them asked whether he’s considering renegotiating the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement that was signed in his first term.

“It expires in about a year,” the president responded. “Look, Mexico and Canada have taken advantage of the United States like just about every other country, in all fairness.”

The USMCA actually expires in 2036. Leaders from the three countries are set to meet next year to review the agreement.

Trump then embarked on a strange digression about “finding money” thanks to the tariffs he unilaterally imposed on imports from dozens of countries:

We had a lot of stupid people running [the country]. That’s why we have $38 trillion in debt. But the beautiful thing about the tariffs is we’ll start paying off that debt. The money coming in, they’re finding money in our country now that they never knew existed.

The other day, $30 billion. “Where did it come from?” I said, “Why don’t we check the tariff shelf?” They said, “Sir, that tariff hasn’t started yet. It doesn’t start until January.” I said, “No, it started two months ago.’ They call back, “Sir, you’re right. It was from tariffs.” Now, we have a whole different country.

The president went on to reiterate that he hopes the Supreme Court finds the tariffs constitutional. Last month, several justices – including those appointed by Trump – appeared skeptical of the government’s insistence that the president can unilaterally impose sweeping tariffs.

“I hope the Supreme Court, I pray the Supreme Court understands the importance of the sensible, really, I mean, this would be country-threatening if something happened with regard to that,” Trump added, before calling the parties who sued to end the tariffs “bad people.”

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