During a Tax Day roundtable in Las Vegas on April 16, 2026, Trump read from prepared remarks about tax cuts for “restaurants, dry cleaners, corner stores” — then stopped and asked: “What is a corner store? I've never heard that term. I know what a corner store is, but I've never heard it described... A corner store. Who the hell wrote that, please?”
Later in the same event, discussing tax deductions: “So when rich people do something, they always look for deductions, right? It's always deductions. And middle class and middle-income people, poorer people, they don't get — they don't think in terms of deductions.”
The “deductions” comment reveals a fundamental misunderstanding: lower-income households don't itemize deductions because they lack sufficient deductions to exceed the standard deduction — not because they “don't think” about it. Trump framed a structural economic reality as a personal failing of poorer Americans, while promoting a tax bill where the corporate cuts are permanent but the individual worker benefits expire in 2028.
This follows a documented pattern. In 2025, Trump repeatedly called “groceries” an “old-fashioned term,” described it as “a bag with different things in it,” and asked “who uses the word?” during meetings with foreign leaders.
Don Lemon noted the irony that a New York City native was unfamiliar with the term “corner store” — a fixture of the city Trump claims as home.