During Donald Trump’s remarks at an Easter lunch reception at the White House, the president wasn’t asked for his position on helping American families cover the costs of day care, but he took some time to pontificate on the subject anyway.
“I said to [Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought], ‘Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care.’ That has to be up to a state,” the Republican said. “We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We’re fighting wars, we can’t take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it, too. They should pay.”
Trump: “The US can’t take of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We’re fighting wars. Medicaid, Medicare — they can do it on a state basis. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. But all these little scams that have taken place, you have to let states take care of them.”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-01T22:47:32.437Z
He went on to say that it’s just “not possible” for the federal government to help defray the cost of day care, adding, “You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”
Taken at face value, the rhetoric probably didn’t strike many observers as surprising. The setting might have been unusual, but that Trump made the case for investing in wars instead of day care at an Easter Lunch reception is largely consistent with the president’s MO.
It is, however, worth taking a brief stroll down memory lane and looking back at the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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