Reporting from the Trump Bubble

At Tuesday's press briefing, Trump interrupted Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's discussion of the Paycheck Protection Program and made it obvious how much of a moron he is.  Let's go to the transcript:

Steve Mnuchin:   There have been some big businesses that have taken these [PPP]  loans. I was pleased to see that Shake Shack returned the money. . . I asked people just make sure the intent of this was for business that needed the money.  The intent of this money was not for big public companies that have access to capital.

Donald Trump:  Harvard, you might say.

Reporter:  Mr. Secretary, are you going to request that those other companies, because obviously Shake Shack was not alone in being a big company that got money in this. Are you going to request-

Donald Trump:  I’m going to request.

Reporter:  You’re going to ask them to return that money?

Donald Trump:  Yep. Harvard’s going to pay back the money and they shouldn’t be taking it. So Harvard’s going to. You have a number of, I’m not going to mention any other names, but when I saw Harvard, they have one of the largest endowments anywhere in the country, maybe in the world, I guess. And they’re going to pay back that money.

Trump was obviously listening to some idiot on right wing media who didn't realize that Harvard doesn't qualify for a PPP loan and had in fact received a grant under a different program.  Almost an hour later in the press conference, Bret Baier, the dimwitted political editor for Fox News, still hadn't picked up on Trump's error and stuck his foot into his own mouth, asking:

Bret Baier:  I wanted to follow up on what you said about the small business program. Harvard’s going to pay the money back. How confident are you that you can pull back money for that?

Donald Trump:  Look, I don’t like when Harvard that has I think a $40 billion endowment or some incredible amount of money that Harvard gets this money. Harvard should pay that money back. I want Harvard to pay the money back. Okay? If they won’t do that, then we will do something else. They have to pay it back. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. This is meant for workers. This isn’t meant for one of the richest institutions, not only far beyond schools in the world. They’ve got to pay it back. I want them to pay it back.

As expected, Harvard responded that it had never received or sought funds through the Paycheck Protection Program.  It did, however, say that it had  received funding under a separate program targeted at higher education institutions.  Under that program, universities are given grants, of which at least half must be sent  directly to students affected by the coronavirus.  Yale, University of Chicago, and Standard all received funding from the program.  Harvard said it would give all of the $8.6 million it received directly to students, despite being eligible to spend half that on its institutional costs related to the virus.

Undeterred by his stupidity, Trump later doubled down on his mistake, tweeting that Harvard should “give back the money now.”

There was no further comment from either the White House or the Treasury Department-- what could they possibly say without further humiliating the Orangeman?