Trump: 'I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody.'

Question

Reddit title claims trump said the quote above.

Answer 1

The claim that Trump said "I don't think about Americans' Financial situation. I don't think about anybody" is true. A primary source that I found was through a PBS article with a video of Trump saying that he does not care about Americans financial situations and only cares about the war he is waging. Some of the secondary sources that I found include an article from The Guardian, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Fox News. All of these articles quote Trump as saying either that "I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody" or responding to if he thinks about Americans financial situation with "Not even a little bit". All of the articles also criticize the president and his followers for these comments, and how it shows that the president does not care or think about his citizens, word for word. Most of the articles also talk about how Trumps approval ratings have continued to drop lower and lower as his presidency, and this war, continue. They also brought up how Trumps continued dismissal of cease fire agreements is not helping his image or his approval ratings, because he is passing up opportunities to help the Americans he is supposed to serve. Fox News does include responses from Trumps supporters where they try to spin what he said into a more positive light, but are failing to dismiss it as bad audio, cutting off the presidents words, or other ways in which his words could have been misinterpreted. The Fox News article does recognize that none of these tactics are successful and talks about how Trump definitely said the wrong thing. Some potential biases or interests that my sources may have is that many of them are left leaning news articles who may have their own political ideology, but I have also included an article from Fox News that says similar things to my other sources. All of the evidence that I have cited supports the claim that Trump said he does not care about Americans financials and the only evidence I found that tried to undermine this claim were responses and comments from Trumps supporters trying to dissuade frustrations over the presidents comment. I was unable to contact the original poster. 

Answer 2

I found that the quote is true with real video footage; however, I think that the quote is misleading in the original reddit post because although he did say those words, he said it in the context of negotiations with Iran. It is important for journalists to create titles and claims that give full context. 

I found this article by PBS News that shows the full video of the question asked and both the interviewer and Trump spoke in context of negotiations with Iran. I chose this article out of all of the news publications that reported on the quote because it was minimally biased and showed the full clip.

The video is the full question and answer so the video PBS News provided is not biased, however, PBS is generally considered slightly left leaning. I believe there was minimal bias in this article. They only mention two points: gas and groceries costs spiking since start of Iran war and poll results (that was created by PBS) that 63% Americans believe that its trumps fault. The poll, like many polls, are inherently biased but gas and grocery costs spiking has been reported by the right (Fox News), the left (CNN), and nonpartisan sources (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). 

The problem with the original poster is that every source that reported on Trump's quote mentioned the conversation Iran in the actual title (NBC News, The Guardian, PBS News) and the other popular news publications mentioned it in the blurb below the title (The Washington Post, Fox News). The original poster on Reddit not only didn't mention Iran anywhere around the quote/title but also didn't post the relevant clip. They posted a news report by MS News that doesn't even show the clip of the quote and discusses mostly inflation. 

Original poster did not respond to questions.

Answer 3

Researching I found that is was true that he said that quote, regarding the war of Iran. investigating deeper on NBC News, president D Trump states that is fairly understandable for americans to pay a little more for gas in order for the US to achive their grater goals, refering specifically to the conflict in Iran. Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/president-defends-remarks-americans-finances-iran-war-perfect-statemen-rcna345418