Donald Trump’s Debate Lies Should Not Be Given Carte Blanche

Robert Haslag
| Springfield News-Leader

President Biden’s debate performance was disappointing. However, the comments failed to identify Trump’s lies, distortions, and threats. The media’s reviews of Trump left Donald lying unchallenged. And I would have liked to see President Biden fact-check. The mental acuity and age of both candidates demanded equal attention. The media focused on only one candidate.

I can’t identify all of Mr. Trump’s lies, and President Biden was forced to expose lies that were already proven false, leaving him unable to fully address the problems. Without fact-checking, Donald’s lies, as they piled up, just sat there.

Donald claimed that Speaker Pelosi refused Donald’s offer of 10,000 troops. Lie! Donald denied requests from Speaker Pelosi and Leader McConnell for those troops.

Donald claimed that President Biden would raise taxes by a multiple of four. Lie! The only Americans who paid more taxes under Biden made more than $400,000. Only the top 1.8% will do that.

Donald claimed that taxes were the lowest ever under his presidency. Lie! He should have known that individual rates were lower in 2011.

He claimed that America had the fewest regulations on January 6, 2020. Darn it! Removing regulations requires the same process as creating them. The Brookings Institute revealed that of the approximately 260 he attempted to remove, Mr. Trump succeeded only 58 times, or 22% of the time.

Mr. Trump claimed the “best environmental record ever.” Darn it! While Donald insisted he wanted “absolutely impeccable” clean water and air, America’s water and air have been steadily improving for decades thanks to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Donald wants to eradicate both.

Donald claimed that Democrats kill babies after birth. Lie! Every state outlaws infanticide, which is exactly what Donald claimed Democrats support, and no Democrat has condoned infanticide. As for his claims that Democrats kill babies in the eighth or ninth month, Donald was resorting to a Republican trope about late-term abortions, which account for less than 1% of all abortions and only occur with a non-viable fetus when continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life of the mother. Perversion! And why is the birth of a non-viable fetus more important than the life of the mother?

Donald ranted that Biden was flooding the border with murderers and that countries were emptying their prisons. Lie! There is no evidence to support this and the National Academy of Sciences proved that undocumented immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than the general population. And don’t forget that Republicans defeated a bipartisan immigration bill because Donald wouldn’t act.

Donald cries that crime is going up in America. Lie! Violent crime is down in 2021, 2022, and even more in 2023. In 175 cities, the 7% drop in murders between 2022 and 2023 was historic. Trump says murders are highest in “blue cities”. Lie! Murder statistics in Democrat-run cities are dropping faster than the national average. A study of smaller communities that encompass 80% of the population shows similar trends.

Donald claims he had the best economy ever! Lie! If we ignore the disastrous impact of the pandemic, Donald averaged 2.67% growth, a far cry from President Clinton’s 4% growth between 1993 and 2001. Labor force participation rates were higher in both Clinton’s and Biden’s presidencies in the prime working years of 25-54.

Donald bragged about his inflation numbers, especially gasoline. Damn! Gasoline did drop to $1.77 in 2020, but the price was hundreds of thousands of lives and a collapsed economy.

Donald claimed he didn’t have sex with a porn star. Lie! He did. And there was no rigged election in 2020.

Biden did indeed overreact. His Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 lowered the price of insulin to $35, but the average cost for Medicare recipients before the 2022 legislation was $400 a year. Without insurance, however, the cost per shot ranges from $66 to $714. Democratic efforts to lower the cost per dose for all diabetics were defeated by Republicans.

President Biden noted Donald’s infamous “bleach suggestion” during COVID, but Biden said Donald “told” Americans to drink bleach. Wrong! Donald only suggested injecting it. However, 10 million Americans admitted to gargling with bleach, soapy water, and other disinfectants during COVID. Donald may not have ordered it, but they certainly ingested it.

Biden famously called Charlottesville “fine people on both sides.” Wrong! Donald used those words; Donald did not call white supremacists and neo-Nazis “fine people.” The fact is, a neo-Nazi murdered Heather Heyer, and most of the protesters were either neo-Nazis or white supremacists.

Biden boasted that he was the only president this century without any American troops dying in the world. False! Sixteen died between the evacuation of Afghanistan and a drone strike in Jordan. Biden’s numbers are exponentially lower than Bush’s and Obama’s. Donald’s administration saw 65 Americans die from hostile action.

Finally, we examine what the 81-year-old Biden accomplished before the debate. In addition to saving the economy and tens of thousands of lives during the pandemic, he rebuilt America’s industrial base, passed the first major infrastructure bill in four years of Donald Trump’s speech, expanded benefits for veterans poisoned by burn pits, passed the first meaningful gun reform in decades, protected LGBTQ Americans, led the birth of Ukrainian democracy against Putin’s aggression, restored our standing in the world, used executive orders to protect a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, passed incredibly important environmental legislation, and provided health insurance to more Americans than ever before.

As for mental acuity, Donald’s every tirade exposes his difficulty presenting a logical thought, his tendency to ramble about sharks and batteries or whatever, and he’s 78, which means he’s unlikely to finish his term. Donald’s addiction to junk food doesn’t bode well, even if he’s three years younger. We’re faced with a choice between a convicted felon who lies constantly and a man the same age who has consistently proven he can serve. Assuming that serving all Americans outweighs Donald’s preference for the moneyed cliques, President Biden’s 90-minute failure means little compared to his actual accomplishments and agenda.

Finally, Democratic presidents have outperformed Republicans since 1932. Democrats create more jobs, have better economies, reduce deficits, and pass better laws, while Republicans have consistently left their Democratic successors with nearly fatally damaged economies and exploding deficits, most notably Hoover, Reagan, Bush 43, and Donald. Abortion, guns, tax cuts, and gays are all they have. And let’s not forget the Supreme Court. Decisions that affect the next generation depend on this election. Not voting is not fair.

Robert Haslag lives in Nixa.