Getty Trump: I never said wages are too high

Donald Trump on Thursday clarified his comments from Tuesday night's GOP debate about wages being too high, saying the blowback has been misguided.

The billionaire businessman was asked during the Fox Business debate about whether he was sympathetic to protesters who have been pushing for the minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour.


“I can’t be…and the reason I can’t be is because we are a country that is being beaten on every front,” Trump said on Tuesday night. “Taxes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world.”

But on Fox News’ “Special Report” Thursday he insisted that he never said wages were too high, just that the minimum wage should not increase.

“I didn’t say that. Bret, we were talking about the minimum wage, and they said ‘should we increase the minimum wage?’ And I’m saying that if we’re going to compete with other countries we can’t do that because the wages would be too high,” Trump said after host Bret Baier asked him about his comments.

“I was referring to the minimum wage,” Trump continued.

The business mogul said that people say they want to increase the minimum wage because it sounds good politically and even though it’s hard for him to say, he had to stand strong on not raising the minimum wage because “our country is losing businesses.”