At a closed-door Easter lunch at the White House on April 1, 2026, Donald Trump — unprompted, unrequested — launched into a speech about child care. He told the room he had personally directed his budget chief Russell Vought to send no federal money for daycare. He said the federal government cannot afford it. He said states should pay for it and should raise their own taxes to do so. And he described the entire category of child care programs as one of the "little scams" the federal government had been running. This is the same man who, less than 18 months earlier, was telling women voters he understood how hard it was to afford daycare and that it was something America simply "has to have."
"It's a very important issue. In this country, you have to have it... when you talk about the kind of numbers I'm talking about — by taxing foreign nations at levels they're not used to — child care, relatively speaking, is not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we'll be taking in."
"I said to 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... 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. All these little scams that have taken place, you have to let states take care of them."
He Said It to Women Voters. Specifically.
This was not an abstract policy position. Trump made the child care pitch in front of women voters — on purpose, during early voting — because his campaign was worried about the gender gap. In October 2024, he participated in a Fox News town hall with an audience made up entirely of women voters. One of them talked about how difficult it was for her family to afford day care. Trump was sympathetic. He talked about understanding the burden. He talked about making child care more affordable. He sold it.
At the Economic Club of New York in September 2024, one voter asked what Trump would do to help cover the cost of child care. He said it was "very important," that in this country "you have to have it," and specifically suggested that tariff revenue would be so substantial that paying for child care wouldn't be difficult compared to the numbers coming in. He repeated versions of this pitch at a Fox News women's town hall during early voting.
The Tariff Revenue That Was Going to Pay for It Was Struck Down as Illegal.
There is an extra layer of irony here that deserves its own sentence. The tariff revenue Trump said would make child care affordable — those same tariffs were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in February 2026. Courts found Trump had no legal authority to impose them under emergency powers. So the money he promised would cover child care never materialized, partly because his plan for generating it was unconstitutional. And now he's calling the whole thing a scam and telling states to figure it out themselves.
He told women voters child care was something America "has to have." Eighteen months later he called it a "little scam" and told states to raise their own taxes to pay for it. Both are on tape.
What “States Should Pay for It” Actually Means.
Trump's framing is that states can handle child care if they just step up. The reality is that states do not have the funding capacity of the federal government. The federal government currently spends approximately $30 billion per year on child care programs. Some states have made significant progress — New Mexico became the first to offer universal child care regardless of income, and California has expanded programs substantially. But child care shortages exist even in those states, because the structural economics of the child care industry — low wages, thin margins — require sustained investment that most states simply cannot sustain alone without federal support. Telling states to raise their own taxes to cover it is a way of guaranteeing that child care access remains wildly uneven across the country, and that families in poorer states — who can least afford daycare — get the least help.
“We’re Fighting Wars.”
That is the reason he gave. We're fighting wars. We can't afford daycare. This from the man who on the same week proposed a $1.5 trillion defense budget — the largest such request in decades. The federal government apparently has enough money to fight a war in Iran and request historic Pentagon spending, but not enough to help American families pay for childcare. Trump didn't frame it as a priority choice. He framed it as an affordability problem. It is not an affordability problem. It is a priority choice. He made it. On tape. At Easter lunch.
Sources
- MSNBC / MaddowBlog: Full recap of Trump's April 1, 2026 Easter lunch remarks vs. his 2024 campaign statements on child care, including direct quotes from both.
- The Hill: Trump suggests states raise taxes to pay for child care; says the federal government cannot afford to fund child care for all 50 states.
- Washington Post: Trump backs off campaign promises to protect Medicare and help with child care; previously said he was committed to making childcare more affordable.
- CNN: Trump's Easter lunch remarks — calling daycare among the "little scams" the government had been running — set up as a "choice" between war funding and daycare funding.