The absurdity of Donald Trump

[Undertoad]

It's fine. Trump doesn't parse the word "entitlements" like vox.com does; and in the context of the conversation, he doesn't parse it at all, before he's on to his answer.

Everybody who was watching understood that, too.

See, the game where Trump's words are carefully parsed for the least charitable take is a LOSING game. Here's the secret, if you want to know how Trump's supporters listen to the interview:

Stop parsing words and just listen for the emotional appeal.

I know how much you enjoy parsing, and how much the media enjoys it. You get to read vox.com articles and get your dopamine fix. The media gets their "Trump bump" of clicks and ratings. It seems like winning. But the words are not the important part. Pay attention to the emotions. The emotions of vox.com are negative, loser emotions. The emotions of Donald Trump are winner emotions.

Furthermore, you should parse a conversation like a conversation, and a joke like a joke, if you want to understand. That's the part of Trump that is immediately appealing; that's how he expects to be parsed. Old-school politicians speak slowly, carefully, measured, studied, stiff and teleprompted, facts at the ready, so that nothing they can say can be parsed incorrectly. The problem is, nobody in our everyday world talks like that. If they did, we wouldn't trust them!