Trump ups the ante on Tic-Tac routine by offering a larger quantity of stockpiled items for inflation press conference

As Salon pointed out in its previous coverage of events featuring Donald Trump, he regularly uses packs of Tic Tacs — one regular-sized and one tiny — to illustrate a point he often tries to make: In his eyes, the economy thrives under his rule, but goes down the drain when someone else is at the helm — particularly Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris, he says.

At a press conference on Thursday at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that was supposed to be about inflation and the economy, Trump upped the ante, standing next to a table full of pantry items — Folgers Coffee, Froot Loops, a package of raw bacon, etc. — to further bolster a point he never quite got across because he kept distracting himself by saying he was “a big fan of electricity,” ICE agents fight migrants, and Harris is a communist.

Trump once claimed that there was a law in California that said you could rob a store as long as the loot wasn't worth more than $950. He spoke in this vein for nearly 30 minutes before answering a single question from the press. CNN cut off coverage while he rambled on.

Standing next to his groceries, Trump read most of his statements from a folder in front of him and came down hard on Harris, saying she had “very strong communist leanings” and wanted to “end the incarceration of illegal immigrants and release vicious monsters into our communities to rape, maim and murder.”

Before Trump's press conference, the Harris team issued a press release that was widely shared on social media. It said:

Fresh off the NABJ, Florida, and Twitter mishaps, Donald Trump now intends to launch into another self-centered rant full of personal grievances to distract from his toxic Project 2025 agenda, his unpopular vice presidential candidate, and his increasing distance from the reality of the voters who will decide this election.

While these comments will not be made with artificial intelligence, they will certainly lack intelligence.

Abortion bans, increased costs for families, confusion about basic facts, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, blocking border security, and his public display of being unstable, incompetent, and sick will not help him in his faltering presidential campaign.

Tune in and experience the same as always.

In contrast to Trump's efforts at the press conference, Harris will unveil on Friday “the first federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries – setting clear rules of the game to make it clear that big corporations cannot unfairly exploit consumers to make excessive profits on food and groceries,” according to a campaign statement obtained by The Washington Post.

See Trump in action here: