Trump is sloppy. He doesn't seem to know where he stands. He engages in loose talk.

Those bad habits of his were on full display this week when, harkening back to language from Nazi Germany, he endorsed a unified "reich" and flip-flopped on his position on access to birth control. It's a pattern, and a troubling one. And he didn't take responsibility for any of it.

The post on the unified "reich" was in a description of what would happen if he were elected. In the video posted Monday and taken down on Tuesday, the Trump campaign highlighted fake headlines supposedly heralding his accomplishments, including "BORDER IS CLOSED — 15 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS DEPORTED" and "ECONOMY BOOMS." Twice in the clip, text appears beneath the headlines that reads: "Industrial strength significantly increased ... driven by the creation of a unified Reich."

Reich? As in Hitler's Third Reich, the most common usage of the term that technically means regime?

"Is this on his official account? Wow!" Biden responded. "A 'unified Reich'? That's Hitler's language, that's not America's."

The Biden campaign said in a statement that Trump's post "is part of a pattern of his praise for dictators and echoing antisemitic tropes. He's a threat to our democracy and Americans must reject him and stand up for our democracy this November."

That was Monday. The campaign later explained that the video, which was also posted to Trump's Instagram account as well as Truth Social, was made by a supporter while Trump was in court not testifying.

On Tuesday, Trump did an interview with a Pittsburgh radio station about access to birth control. Asked if he would support restrictions on access, he didn't say no.

"We're looking at that," Trump said, seeming to follow on to Justice Clarence Thomas' suggestion in his concurring opinion in the Dobbs case, which overruled Roe v. Wade, where he wrote that the Supreme Court should review its 1965 decision recognizing that married couples had a right to birth control. "I'm going to have a policy on that very shortly," he said. "And I think it's something that you'll find interesting, and it's another issue that's very interesting, but you will find it, I think, very smart. I think it's a smart decision."

The interviewer pushed Trump on whether he was suggesting that he might in fact support restrictions on access to birth control.

He still didn't say no.

"You know, things really do have a lot to do with the states, and some states are going to have different policy than others," Trump responded.

Later on Tuesday, as the backlash to his interview intensified, he posted on social media that he would "NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL" but left open the possibility that states might do so, an echo of his position on abortion access, where he has advocated leaving everything up to the states and attacked reports based on his interview as "a Democrat fabricated lie."

What exactly was the Democrat-fabricated lie?

Asked a question to which the answer should have been a simple no, he dodged and ducked and termed it "interesting." There was no trick and no lie. He still did not say whether he supported the 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which took away from the states the power to restrict access to birth control.

Is that so hard?

It's a real issue. Griswold, another holy grail in Supreme Court precedent, was part of the foundation for Roe. Is it also in jeopardy?

The administration did pounce, as it rightly should have.

"It's not enough for Trump that women's lives are being put at risk, doctors are being threatened with jail time, and extreme bans are being enacted with no exceptions for rape or incest," the Biden campaign said in a statement. "He wants to rip away our freedom to access birth control too."

The Trump campaign has refused to further clarify his position.

So goes another week in Trumpland. Sloppy is perhaps too kind; dangerous is more like it. The question is why people put up with such bad habits from a man who so desperately needs to know better than this. Every word a president says matters. Not this one. Dangerous is what he is.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Hal Gatewood at Unsplash