This is Perfectly normal quote of the daya feature that highlights a statement from the news that exemplifies this how very normal everything has become.

“I am the father of IVF.” —Donald Trump, speaking at a town hall event on women’s issues on Fox News.

It took about 45 minutes for Donald Trump’s town hall in Georgia on women’s issues to focus on reproductive health. The pre-recorded event, which aired Wednesday on Fox News’ The Faulkner Focus with Harris Faulkner, had covered in-depth illegal immigration and “migrant crime,” as well as transgender athletes, energy production, inflation, and the government’s response to hurricanes. When the issue of abortion rights finally came up, Trump stuck to his established argument: He simply supported what “all” the “major” legal scholars thought was best, namely leaving the decision to the states. He even said he thought some states’ abortion laws were “too strict” and should be “redesigned.” It was an attempt to moderate his party’s weakest issue — and hopefully erase voters’ memories of him advocating a national abortion ban and punishing women who have abortions. (Trump recently said he would veto a national abortion ban.)

The conversation then turned to in vitro fertilization. When Faulkner indicated that IVF would be the subject of the next question, Trump interjected: “Ah, I want to talk about IVF.” The crowd laughed politely and Trump said – three times – “I am the father of IVF.”

It was a strange statement, considering IVF wasn’t exactly one of his favorite topics. In fact, he only expressed his support for IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court, citing the fetal personhood language in Alabama law, ruled in February that frozen embryos must legally be considered children. When IVF centers were subsequently closed in the state, there was a huge national outcry and the Republican Party tried to recover. Trump stated that he supported IVF access; more recently he has floated the idea of ​​having the government or private insurers cover the costs of the treatments.

After the “father of IVF” comment, an audience member asked about Trump’s position on IVF and what he would say to women concerned that abortion bans could jeopardize their access to fertility treatments. In response, Trump said that “we are really the party for IVF” and that “the Democrats were trying to attack us, and we are more into IVF than they are.” It is possible that this reference refers to his dubious claim that he could make IVF free.

It’s clear to anyone who can remember anything before this election cycle that his claim is absurd: fall over Roe v. Wade— something Trump has long campaigned on and often taken credit for — is what endangered IVF in the first place. His entire party is involved in the threat to IVF. This year, Senate Republicans twice blocked Democrats’ efforts to enshrine IVF rights, criticizing the bills as unnecessarily sweeping.

But there’s another reason to question his new self-appointed title: He appears, by his own admission, not to have known what IVF was before the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. This is how he started his answer to the IVF question:

So I got a call from Katie Britt, a young, just fantastically attractive person from Alabama. She’s a senator. And she called me saying, ‘Emergency, emergency!’ because a judge in Alabama had ruled that the IVF clinics were illegal and should be closed down – a judge ruled. And she said, ‘Friends of mine came up to me and they were, oh, they were so angry. I didn’t even know they were going.” You know, they were – it’s fertilization. I didn’t know they were even involved – no one talks about that. They don’t talk about it. But now that they couldn’t, she said, “I was attacked.” In a way ‘I was attacked’. And I said, “Explain IVF real quick.” And within about two minutes I understood. I said, “No, no, we are completely in favor of IVF.” Within an hour I came up with a statement, a very powerful statement with a number of experts, really powerful.

It’s a bold strategy to answer a question about access to reproductive health care by first describing a female senator as “fantastically attractive” and then admitting to a lack of prior knowledge about its existence. (He’s certainly doing better than some other members of his party; last week, Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake repeatedly called the treatment “UVF.”) But history shows that boldness often works for him. We’ll have to wait and see if he’ll throw out any fun new nicknames at the town hall for Latino voters that airs Wednesday night.