Throughout his talk with The Economist, Trump alternates between statements, mostly about trade and economics, that are plainly untrue and those that are meaninglessly empty.

Trump says, “I was going to terminate NAFTA last week, I was all set, meaning the six-month termination,” but then says he received calls from the leaders of Canada and Mexico. “And they both asked almost identical questions. ‘We would like to know if it would be possible to negotiate as opposed to a termination.’ And I said, ‘Yes, it is. Absolutely.’ So, so we did that and we’ll start.” Trump continues to suggest in interviews that his decision to renegotiate rather than pull out was a novel idea, but in fact he had been saying since the campaign that he would first try to renegotiate, and failing that would withdraw.

Asked what would constitute a more fair NAFTA, Trump cannot say. He tries to dodge the question, saying how big it would be and recounting again his decision to renegotiate rather than withdraw. Finally, he settles for a tautological answer. What would be a fair NAFTA? “We have to be able to make fair deals.” Oh.

Trump, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, continue to claim falsely that China ceased devaluing its currency recently. “As soon as the president got elected they went the other way,” Mnuchin says. In fact, China stopped devaluing in 2014.

In describing his decision not to take a hard line with China, the president continues to treat the idea that the U.S. cannot provoke Beijing and also expect its cooperation on North Korea as a revelation, rather than a banal truism of international diplomacy.

Trump admits that he might need Democratic support to pass a tax plan: “Um. Little bit,” he says. But when The Economist presses him on how he would obtain it, he changes the subject: “I think the Democrats are going to like it. We may align it with infrastructure, which they like. They like it as much as the Republicans like it. We need infrastructure in our country. This country has wasted $6 trillion in the Middle East. Wasted. Like taking it and throwing it right out that window. Right in to the Rose Garden. See that beautiful Rose Garden? Look at those very nicely dressed people.” That doesn’t come remotely close to answering the question.

Discussing his tax proposal, Trump simply rejects the universal consensus that the wealthy would benefit most from cuts. “Well, I don’t believe that. Because they’re losing all of their deductions, I can tell you,” he says. Once again, when pressed on details, Trump heads off in a different direction. “I get more deductions, I mean I can tell you this, I get more deductions, they have deductions for birds flying across America, they have deductions for everything,” he said. Soon he’s reverted to talking about how short his tax plan really is: “You know when we put out that one page, I said, we should really put out a, you know, a big thing, and then I looked at the one page, honestly it’s pretty well covered. Hard to believe.” Indeed.