Trump Botches IVF Policy Roll Out With Extremely Weird Speech (2024)

Donald Trump seemed well and truly out of it during a chaotic, self-aggrandizing speech in Potterville, Michigan, on Thursday.

Trump spoke at a private messaging event at Alro Steel, where he was meant to speak about the economy—but flanked onstage by a few dozen workers dressed in hard hats and neon vests, he barely mentioned the economy at all.

Having walked onstage more than half an hour late, Trump appeared shaken, and incoherently skipped through different talking points, repeatedly diverting to heap compliments on himself.

“We will bring back the American Dream, bigger, better, stronger, and just better, bigger, better, we love the American Dream,” Trump said in his opening remarks, appearing to immediately lose track of what he was saying. “You don’t hear about the American Dream. When was the last time you heard about the American Dream?”

Trump immediately began attacking his opponent, Kamala Harris. “The only good thing that she’s uh—flip-flopping,” Trump said, stammering. “She’s the greatest flip-flopper—things that she’s never even thought of. She probably goes back to her room and gets sick to her stomach when she says what she has to say.”

Trump also diverted to criticize his former opponent President Joe Biden for “laying on a beach, sleeping all day long” as he vacations in Rhode Island this week. “No seriously, who the hell wants to sleep—and who wants to sleep in public?” Trump said incredulously. “He’s sleeping!”

The weak attack is especially weird coming from Trump, who reportedly fell asleep multiple times during his hush-money trial in New York.

During his rambling speech, Trump debuted a new blatantly false claim about Harris.

“Did you know that she was the leader of Defund the Police?” Trump asked, at one point.

“I said, ‘Why do I have to make a speech?’ All I have to do is say that ‘She was the leader of the Defund the Police movement,’ and then I say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much,’ and then leave, because when you hear that,” Trump said laughing.

Trump then went from criticizing Harris to complimenting himself. “With me, I make a speech, I speak for two hours, everybody loves it,” Trump said. “I got thousands of people, by the way, outside trying to get in.”

“They never said Trump’s a great speaker, I don’t even want that, but I must be a great speaker right? We got thousands of people!” Trump said.

The event was not open to the public, but a crowd of more than 100 people gathered outside. Trump later claimed that there were people “as far as the eye could see” gathered outside of the event.

“But no, I don’t care about that,” Trump said, suddenly serious. “I care about uh, winning for our country. I care about making America great again.”

Brian Pannebecker, swagged out in an Auto Workers for Trump T-shirt and visor, was called on stage at one point to criticize electric vehicle mandates. Pannebecker reportedly once called former President Barack Obama “a race hustler,” and was possibly behind a review praising KKK Grand Wizard David Duke’s memoir. Pannebecker has previously been invited on stage to speak at rallies in Waterford Township, Michigan, in February, and again in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in July.

Back behind the mic, Trump made lengthy remarks about trucks, complained about being the most persecuted American president in history, and whined about Harris’s interview with Dana Bash scheduled to air Thursday evening. Finally, he got to his big announcement—which he had more or less spoiled in a pre-speech interview with NBC.

Trump announced that under his administration, the government would pay for IVF treatments—or mandate insurance companies to pay, but he didn’t seem clear on which. He also did not acknowledge that his administration’s policies and the Supreme Court justices he appointed are the reason IVF is currently under attack from his own party.

“Because we want more babies, to put it nicely,” Trump said.

“And for this same reason, we will also allow new parents to deduct major newborn expenses from their taxes. So that parents that have a beautiful baby … will be able … so, we’re pro-family, nobody’s ever said that before,” Trump said, sounding confused.

“I’ve been in favor of IVF right from the beginning,” Trump claimed, after months of waffling on his position ever since fertility treatments became a political liability for Republicans earlier this year.

“They have ads like I’m against it, it’s just the opposite. By comparison, they’re against it. But I’m totally in favor of it,” Trump said.

Not dwelling on his major announcement for long, Trump quickly changed subjects to inflation and the so-called “migrant invasion.” Although he mentioned he would soon be concluding, he carried on complaining about several different issues including an altercation Monday, in which Trump’s staffers reportedly shoved an employee at Arlington National Cemetery who was trying to prevent them from illegally filming after a memorial for 13 service members killed during the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Trump’s response was nothing short of extreme.

Donald Trump’s campaign team apparently does not want his microphone on when it isn’t his turn to speak in the next presidential debate.

Brian Fallon, a senior adviser to the Kamala Harris campaign, posted on X Thursday afternoon that Trump’s staff asked ABC News, which will be hosting the first presidential debate on September 10, to ignore Trump’s comments and keep the microphones off when it’s not his turn to speak. If ABC doesn’t enforce muted mics as a debate rule, the Trump team will reportedly pull out of the debate, Fallon said.

“We find the Trump’s team’s stance to be weak, and remain in discussions with ABC on the final rules,” Fallon’s post said.

Trump said earlier this week that he was fine with debate microphones being on, but added that the rules he agreed to were the same as his first debate in June against President Biden, where the mics were muted. Earlier reporting also noted that Trump’s team was the one to push for muted mics again this time around. If true, Trump’s staff might be trying to save the Republican presidential nominee and convicted felon from himself.

Unlike his debate with Biden, Trump will be verbally sparring with a former prosecutor almost 20 years younger than him. At the last debate, Trump appeared sharper and more alert than Biden, raising concerns about the president’s ability to win reelection and ultimately resulting in his withdrawal from the race. Biden’s campaign pushed for muted microphones at the time, probably hoping to give Biden an advantage.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump, but he’s still going to be on the ballot in North Carolina, hurting Trump’s prospects in the state.

The state’s board of elections voted 3–2 on Thursday to keep Kennedy on the ballot, saying that it would be too difficult to remove his name, as many ballots have already been printed. The board’s executive director, Karen Brinson, said North Carolina has already printed close to 1.73 million ballots in over 60 counties, with special ballots being prepared for overseas military members and the disabled.

Kennedy had asked the state to remove him from the ballot, but the board’s Democratic majority thought otherwise, overruling the two Republican board members. Last week, Kennedy said he was seeking to withdraw his name from battleground state ballots while staying on in other states, hoping to divert votes away from Harris and boost Trump.

North Carolina is only the latest battleground state that won’t drop Kennedy from their ballots. Election officials in Michigan and Wisconsin announced Tuesday that their states won’t remove him. According to polling averages from The Hill, Kennedy’s presence on both Wisconsin and Michigan’s ballots gives a slight boost to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

The quixotic ex-candidate is already part of Trump’s presidential transition team, helping to craft policy and select staff members should the Republican presidential nominee win in November. The move has drawn the ire of at least one major GOP donor in Eric Levine, who described Kennedy as “an anti-vax kook who sees conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed.”

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp doesn’t think that Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in his state was a big deal, calling it a “distraction” in a Fox News interview.

Speaking to Fox & Friends on Thursday, Kemp was pressed by Steve Doocy to explain what happened between Trump and himself to resolve enmity between the two.

“Well, look, there was a little distraction, obviously, on their side when it came to Georgia. To me, that’s in the past,” Kemp said. “I have been saying that guys, literally for over a year now, that I was going to support our nominee, that we had to win Georgia, the road to the White House runs through Georgia. And I still believe today, we cannot afford four more years of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.”

Trump attacked Kemp at an Atlanta rally earlier this month for refusing to overturn the 2020 election, saying, “He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very average governor. Little Brian, little Brian Kemp. Bad guy.”

Trump also attacked Kemp’s wife, Marty Kemp, for saying that she wouldn’t vote for Trump, and would instead write in her husband’s name on the presidential ballot in November. At the time, Kemp responded on X, telling Trump to “leave my family out of it” and to stop engaging in “petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past.”

Kemp didn’t vote for the convicted felon and Republican presidential nominee in June’s primary elections in Georgia, but has endorsed Trump for November. However, Kemp’s office has said that the governor will be looking into ethics violations from three new pro-Trump members of the state’s election board, signaling that he may once again thwart Trump’s efforts to interfere in Georgia’s voting process.

Trump infamously told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have” in January 2021. The Trump team’s efforts to stop democracy in the state resulted in felony charges for election interference against the former president and 17 co-defendants. The case is currently stalled thanks to Republican efforts to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as prosecutor, even though she originally filed the charges.