Trump dolls remarks 'really damaging messaging': Marc Short

President Trump risks alienating people if he keeps talking about dolls, Marc Short, who was a top aide to then-Vice President Mike Pence during Trump's first administration, said during a Monday appearance on CNN.

Trump, a billionaire businessman and former reality TV star, has faced backlash for repeatedly saying in recent days that children can get by with fewer dolls this year if his sweeping tariff policies drive up living costs for families.

"I think it's really damaging messaging," said Short, who now co-chairs the conservative Advancing American Freedom, Pence's policy and advocacy organization. "I think everybody understands he's very financially wealthy, but beginning to tell the American people how many dolls or how many pencils they can have, I think, suggests a little bit of an elitism perspective."

Trump doubled down on his thoughts about dolls — and added his opinion on pencils — during an interview at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I don't think that a beautiful baby girl needs — that's 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls," Trump said. "I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China."

"I'm just saying, they don't need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don't need to have 250 pencils; they can have five," he added.

Retailers have been voicing concerns for weeks about the impact Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs will have on prices and the availability of goods, but the president said Wednesday that his economic policies would require "a little bit of time" to work out.

He broached the talk of dolls during a Cabinet meeting later that day.

"Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls," Trump said. "Maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally."

Short praised Trump's policies on energy and jobs but said the administration should shift its messaging on tariffs.

"I think the administration would be better off if they had a more concerted effort to tell the American people — hey, look, we are asking the world to be united here because we're trying to take on China," he said.

Short argued the administration has not made it clear why the steep tariff hikes have been imposed.

"In some cases, they've said it's to focus on China; in some cases, they've said we're trying to lower trade barriers across the globe; and they've talked about Canada and Mexico and European allies as enemies," he said. "In some cases, it's been to say we're trying to address fentanyl, and in some cases, it's been to say we're going to get rid of trade deficits across every trading partner we have."

"And so, the messaging hasn't really been concerted," he added. "If you begin getting to the point that people now expect some of these economic disruptions, I think a lot of Americans are going to say well, 'What is the intended purpose here — why are we being limited to the number of dolls or a number of pencils we can buy?'"