Signals that Donald Trump is losing his grip flash across our screens nearly every hour, but what arrived just the other day was new, different and historically significant. The moment occurred at a White House luncheon that was supposed to be private, and Trump's aides quickly attempted to hide the incriminating video of his remarks.

They were too late.

The president sounded at first as if he were merely discussing a disfavored federal program with White House budget director Russell Vought. "I said to Russell, 'Don't send any money for day care because the United States can't take care of day care.' That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of day care. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people."

Those particular facts would in no way prevent the United States government from providing or helping to provide day care services for our children, at it has done for decades through Head Start and other programs. But Trump said he now wants to direct that program's small cost to a purpose he deems more urgent.

"We're fighting wars," he continued. Or at least a war (which isn't going well). "We can't take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it too."

Not only is war a more compelling purpose for government spending than day care but — as Trump explained in a stunning departure from a century of public policy — defense is in fact the only legitimate purpose of government.

"It's not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country." He went on to express his disdain, never before stated so bluntly, for the popular and vital programs that he brushed aside as "all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place. ... You have to let states take care of them."