On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump traveled to South Carolina to give appointed Republican Sen. Darline Graham a boost ahead of her primary runoff election, and at their joint rally, the president assured the audience that he and his allies have “turned this country completely around.”

“Jobs are up, inflation is down,” the Republican added.

If this were true, it would certainly be worth bragging about — but it wasn’t true at all. Job growth has slowed sharply since Trump’s second term began, and inflation is higher now than when he returned to the White House. His description of the economic status quo turned reality on its head.

But shortly before Trump left for the Palmetto State, he chatted briefly with reporters, one of whom asked about the bond market, which led him in an even more absurd direction.

“The yields have come back up since [Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s initial intervention in the bond market],” a reporter reminded the president. “Have you talked to him about another type of intervention? Is that something he will be doing?”

Trump replied, “We have many types of intervention. That’s one. The ultimate intervention is our military, and if we have to use that, we will.”

It’s not exactly groundbreaking to note that the incumbent American president routinely makes bizarre declarations, but even by Trump standards, this was utterly baffling. The Q&A quickly moved on, but the idea that he could somehow deploy the U.S. military to intervene in the bond market is obviously insane. It’s not even theoretically possible, unless the Republican intends to have armed service members literally attacking bond traders.

But since that’s (hopefully) an implausible scenario, we’re left with a different kind of problem: Trump’s comments betrayed his economic illiteracy. He raised the specter of military intervention in the bond market because, in all likelihood, he has no idea what the bond market is.

Despite his lengthy career in the private sector, and despite the fact that he’s led the executive branch of the world’s preeminent superpower for nearly six years, Trump routinely says things that suggest he’s never taken an Economics 101 course.

He’s struggled to understand the gross domestic product (GDP). He’s struggled with the difference between quarterly and annual growth. He’s flunked arithmetic on foreign investment rates. His entire approach to the economics of trade tariffs has been largely incoherent.

If this were simply a matter of dishonesty and deception, it would be easier to understand. After all, Trump’s reputation as a prolific liar is well deserved and has been earned over the course of many years.

But his comments about “the ultimate intervention” being “our military” when asked about bond yields are a qualitatively different kind of problem: The president, in a rather literal sense, just doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to economic policies he really ought to understand.

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