Donald Trump can't answer a simple question that's one of the fundamentals of his campaign

Donald Trump has described his slogan, "Make America Great Again," as the "whole theme" of his presidential campaign.

But earlier this week, one of his rivals, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) attacked him for that message with a speech in which he argued the slogan implies the country is "not great."

Business Insider asked Trump at his press conference on Thursday whether he means to imply the country is not great now and if he thinks any other country is better.

Trump didn't directly answer the question and instead said "our country could be doing much better." He then proceeded to list a litany of issues.

"We have deficits that are enormous. We have all bad trade agreements. We have an army that the head said is not prepared. We have military that needs help in — especially in these times. We have nuclear weapons that, you look at '60 Minutes,' they don't even work. OK? If anybody saw that report, the phones don't work. They're 40 years old, they have wires that are no good," Trump said. "Nothing works. Our country doesn't work. Everybody wins except us. We need victories in this country. We don't have victories any more."

None of this directly answers the question about the implication of Trump's central campaign message. We tried again and asked him to give a simple yes or no answer about whether he thinks the country is great. Once again, Trump did not directly respond to the question.

"Our country will be great again, but right now our country has major problems," he said.