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Five of the most interesting words in Donald Trump’s rhetorical repertoire are, “I shouldn’t say this, but...” While it’s obviously impossible to read the former president’s mind, whenever the Republican uses the phrase, it’s an apparent acknowledgement that he knows the rest of the sentence will be politically problematic, but he’s simply unable to help himself.
As his first year in the White House came to an end, for example, Trump declared, “I shouldn’t say this, but we essentially repealed Obamacare.” He was, of course, lying, but the comments served as a reminder of his anti-health care vision. About a year later, campaigning in Montana, the then-president publicly praised Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a journalist who asked a question the governor didn’t like.
“I shouldn’t say this [but] there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Trump said in reference to the violence.
Six years later, the Republican is still stumbling into inadvertent moments of candor. HuffPost reported:
Former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump on Sunday admitted he ‘hated’ to pay his staff overtime and would instead replace them with other workers to avoid doing so. Trump’s confession came during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, after promising to deliver ‘gigantic tax cuts’ via his pledge to end tax on tips, on overtime and on social security benefits for seniors.”
“I know a lot about overtime,” the Republican candidate boasted. “I hated to give overtime. I hated it. I’d get other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.”
The public comments stood out for a few reasons.
Right off the bat, there are still some political observers who like to pretend that the former president is some kind of ally to working-class Americans. It’s against that backdrop that Trump thought it’d be a good idea to admit that he, as a boss, deliberately took steps to deny his own employees overtime compensation to which they would have been entitled.
What’s more, let’s not forget that the GOP nominee recently endorsed ending taxes on overtime pay, as a way of bolstering his ostensible populist bona fides. But the gambit only served as a reminder that Trump, while in office, was needlessly regressive on overtime compensation. His “I wouldn’t pay” comment only reinforced the obvious fact that his faux populism is a sham.
But just as notably, a variety of analysts have explained that the far-right Project 2025 agenda, written in large part by members of Trump’s own team, would also limit workers’ access to overtime compensation.
With all of this in mind, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign wasted little time in pouncing on the Republican for accidentally speaking his mind.
“Donald Trump is finally owning up to it: He’s built an entire career on screwing over workers,” Harris-Walz spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a written statement. “It’s exactly what he did in the White House — trying to rip away tips and overtime pay for millions of workers — and exactly what he plans to do in a second term. Trump is a scab, plain and simple. He is selling snake oil lies in a desperate attempt to trick voters. He can’t be trusted — workers know it, and voters know it. They’ll elect a champion who has their back by voting for Vice President Harris this November.”