By Steve Benen A few months ago, after a monthly unemployment report reached the public, a reporter asked Donald Trump about his jobs plan. “My plan for jobs is to drill baby drill, bring energy down,” the former president replied. That didn’t make any sense — oil drilling does not have a meaningful impact on unemployment — but the Republican didn’t seem to care. The exchange came to mind anew during Trump’s latest Fox News appearance. HuffPost reported on a question the GOP candidate heard from a voter at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. “Out of eight children that I’m a father and a stepfather to, five of them are struggling, and I’m giving them part of my income on a regular basis,” said one voter, who had a “Trump 2024” patch on his vest. “How are you going to make the economy — not just the food and electricity — but bring down the rent prices, the housing prices, so that these kids can survive without their parents’ help?” After initially mentioning how popular he believes he is among those at the event, the next words out of Trump’s mouth were, “We are going to drill baby drill; we’re going to bring down the cost of energy. Energy’s what caused the worst inflation, I think, in the history of our country.” The comments were widely derided, and for good reason: Trump heard a good question, and he responded with a nonsensical answer. Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing that while recent inflation rates imposed a real burden on millions of Americans, the problem wasn’t close to being the worst inflation in American history. What’s more, the former president’s indifference to the substance of governing is the stuff of legend — it was the basis for much of my first book — and his latest rhetoric doesn’t help matters. Asked about his jobs plan, Trump pointed to oil drilling. Asked about housing affordability, Trump again pointed to oil drilling. It seems like only a matter of time before he starts saying “drill baby drill” in response to questions about health care and education, too. I realize the GOP nominee isn’t literally going to say, “I don’t have an actual policy agenda,” but he’s implicitly making that point clear. But perhaps most important of all is Trump’s apparent ignorance about the status quo when it comes to energy policy: We’re already drilling. In fact, the United States during the Biden-Harris administration has not only produced more energy than any other country on the planet, energy production in the United States under Biden-Harris has also reached an all-time high. And it’s not just oil. U.S. production of natural gas, solar, wind generation, and battery storage have also all reached record highs under the incumbent Democratic administration. The country, in other words, is already doing the one thing Trump sees as the magical solution to domestic challenges, leaving us with a straightforward question: Does he not know the truth, or is he counting on voters not to know the truth?