Donald Trump has revealed an alarming lack of policy knowledge. So has Bernie Sanders.

Even populist politicians should know a little something about policy

The know-nothing candidates.
(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images, REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Donald Trump completely beclowned himself in a recent interview with The Washington Post. Even by his standards, it was a pretty embarrassing display of policy ignorance — though it probably played little or no role in his double-digit loss to Ted Cruz in Tuesday's Wisconsin primary.

But it should have. This was perhaps the low-light: At one point, Trump promised to pay off the entire $19 trillion national debt by the end of his second term as president. But doing that — while also keeping promises to cut taxes, increase defense spending, and leave Social Security and Medicare untouched — would require Trump to somehow juice the economy so that it grew by a magical 25 percent a year, according to the newspaper's analysis.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.