Donald Trump continued his pre-election economic event tour on Tuesday with an in-depth interview with Bloomberg at the Economic Club of Chicago. It was a total mess.

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait didn't make things easy for Trump, and it quickly became clear that the former president has no idea of ​​the mechanics or potential impact of the economic platform on which he operates. Frankly, the former president was incoherent when asked real questions about his policies.

Micklethwait spent most of the interview trying to break Trump out of what the former president repeatedly referred to as “the web,” his rambling ramblings – with increasingly less intelligibility – and general inability to focus on any given topic for longer focus, called a few seconds during his rallies and interviews.

However, Micklethwait didn't sit well with Trump and kept trying to get him back on topic and answer the real questions. The criticism exposed Trump's complete ignorance about his own economic policies and led Trump to attack Micklethwait as biased.

Here are the most notable moments from the toughest round of political questioning Trump has faced in recent memory.

Trump is informed about tariffs

The central pillar of Trump's economic plan is sweeping tariffs on all imported goods, with penalties apparently increasing depending on how much he dislikes the country. Economists have warned that such a policy could have a devastating impact on American consumers, who would be saddled with higher costs for all imported goods.

Asked about the details of his plan and whether he was aware of the pitfalls, Trump appeared ignorant of basic economic principles and insisted that other countries, not American consumers, would pay for the tariffs.

Micklethwait tried to explain the real impact. “Three trillion worth of imports, and you're going to put tariffs on every single one of them and drive up the cost of buying foreign goods for all those people,” he said. “It’s just simple math.”

Trump responded that he was “always good at math” and that high tariffs – and therefore costs – would force companies to relocate production to the US.

“This is going to take many, many, many years,” Micklethwait said, to which Trump responded that sufficiently large penalties would make the move immediate, as if companies could simply set up manufacturing plants, orchards, wineries, factories and the like.

The former president also stressed that his tariff proposal would not result in the loss of trade-dependent jobs because companies relocating to the U.S. would not be subject to the tax. “All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and there are no tariffs,” he said.

Trump gets frustrated and beats up the interviewer

Micklethwait's attempts to keep Trump on topic earned him no mercy from the former president, who hates few things more than being contradicted.

When Micklethwait called on Trump to direct a report from The Wall Street Journal Estimating that his economic proposals would add more than $7 trillion to the national debt, the former president resorted to his standard playbook: beat up the interviewer.

“What means The Wall Street Journal knowledge? “You were wrong about everything, and by the way, you were wrong,” Trump replied, crossing his arms and curling up in his seat.

“You have been wrong about this all your life,” he added.

Trump responds to a question about Google by complaining about the Virginia election

A theme of the interview was that Trump completely avoided giving clear answers to the questions Micklethwait asked him. The most glaring example came when Micklethwait asked Trump whether he thought the Justice Department should break up Google.

Trump responded with sighs and tirades about Virginia's voter rolls. “The question is about Google, President Trump,” Micklethwait replied. Trump then went on a rant about how Google was unfair to him and didn't show users positive stories about him.

Trump claims immigrants will kill a bystander when asked what effect deportations will have on the job market

When Micklethwait realized that Trump's plan to deport 11 million illegal workers would have a major impact on the American economy – since many illegal migrants are employed – Trump immediately turned to crime.

“Last week it came out that 125,000 people are terrible criminals of the highest level,” Trump said, repeating a false claim that more than 13,000 undocumented immigrants convicted of murder had been released into the country by the Biden administration. “We had the best numbers but now we have the worst numbers and here's the problem, we have some of the worst criminals in the world coming in,” he added.

“The issue I asked you about was the idea that if you reduce immigration – any economist will tell you – when you have fewer people, you have a smaller economy,” Micklethwait interjected after Trump had spoken for several minutes had complained about murderous migrants. Trump continued, at one point singling out a member of the audience by calling her a “beautiful woman.”

“They're going to look at you – a beautiful woman down there – they're going to look at you and kill you,” he said.

An angry Micklethwait noted that the crime rate has actually gone down under Biden.

Trump responds to a question about how he would reduce government spending by talking about Air Force One

At one point in the conversation, after speaking at length about missiles, Trump repeated his earlier claim that he would nominate billionaire Elon Musk to his administration and entrust him with cutting wasteful spending and regulations. When Micklethwait asked him to give an example of how he would reduce waste, Trump pointed to the Air Force One conversion.

Trump can't say how he would help small businesses

Trump's tariff proposal could be disastrous for small businesses that rely on imports. Micklethwait noted that when Trump imposed a tariff on Chinese imports while he was in office – a tariff that was smaller than what he is proposing for a second term – he helped Apple deal with the impact by giving them a deal. Micklethwait then asked Trump how he would help companies that aren't that big. Trump was unable to provide an answer and repeatedly brought up how he had helped Apple, despite Micklethwait's efforts to get him to reach out to small businesses.

Trump does not deny that he has spoken to Putin since leaving office

Journalist Bob Woodward reports in his new book War that Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin several times since leaving office. Trump's team denied this, but Trump himself declined on Tuesday, telling Micklethwait that he would not comment on it but that it would be “a wise thing” if he actually spoke to Putin.

Trump mocks auto workers

Trump argued that his tariffs would encourage Mercedes-Benz to build in the US, arguing that they now build everything in Germany and their cars are only assembled in the US. He doesn't seem to have much respect for the autoworkers on these “assemblies” plants. “You take them out of a box and put them together,” Trump said. “We could leave it to a child.”

Trump says the January 6 insurrection was filled with “love and peace.”

Trump again tried to rewrite history about January 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol. He said Tuesday that it was a “peaceful transfer of power,” accused Micklethwait of being biased against him for asking the questions and reiterated that he believes the 2020 election was “lopsided.”

“It was love and peace,” Trump said of Jan. 6. “Some people went to the Capitol and a lot of strange things happened there, with people being waved into the Capitol by police,” he added, nodding to conspiracy theories that the federal government helped orchestrate the insurrection to trap Trump and his supporters in to put in a bad light.

Trump claims his ramblings are strategic

At one point, after Trump spent several minutes going through several trains of thought in response to a question about the U.S. dollar's status as an international reserve currency, Micklethwait tried to intervene in his ramblings. Trump was not happy.

“You have to be able to finish a thought because it is very important,” Trump said.

“They went from the dollar to (Emmanuel Macron),” Micklethwait replied.

The former president claimed that his speaking style was called “the fabric” and that “all these different things happen.”

Okay, then.