Ex-President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris squared off in their first debate. (Pnoto: ScreenCap)
Fact checkers were busy today in the wake of the presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
As it turns out, Donald Trump’s debate appearance was built on a mountain of lies, 33 in all, according to CNN, far more than one misstatement by Harris. Some of her other statements needed context but were mostly true.
This is how it will be, if Trump is elected president. Nothing he says can be trusted. This is par for the course (no pun intended, well maybe) in the MAGA world.
The three right wing justices Trump put on the Supreme Court all swore under oath that Roe v Wade was settled law. Then, once appointed, turned around and declared it unconstitutional. Trump said they moved abortion to the states where it should be.
But the issue is no more settled today, and the nation is now facing a crisis in reproductive health care. More than 20 states have sharply restricted the medical procedure. Doctors and pregnant women have been turned into a new criminal class.
Yet, in states where abortion has made it onto the ballot, extreme measures have been soundly rejected in favor of Roe-level protections. Trump insists he does not support a national ban on abortion, but was vague if he would veto a bill if it reached his desk.
This is classic Trump equivocation. He weaseled his way through the debate by lying or equivocating on a range of subjects, from immigration, Ukraine and the Middle East to the economy.
He was angry, bitter, demeaning and easily distracted. The level of hyperbole was off the charts. He disparaged the country, said Israel would cease to exist and raised the specter of nuclear war with Russia if Harris wins the election.
Oddly, polls show Trump receiving higher marks on the economy than Harris, but in reality, his handling of the economy was frightful.
The Obama administration handed him a sound economy in 2017 and he ran it into the ditch through his lying about and mishandling of the COVID pandemic.
In what must be a collective case of national PTSD, many potential voters seem to have forgotten the horrors of his economy.
The federal response was disjointed; states were fighting for hospital supplies, doctors and nurses were forced to wear trash bags, more than 1,000 people were dying each day, tractor-trailers were parked outside hospitals as temporary morgues, long food lines snaked for hours, unemployment rose as high as 14% at one point and crashing supply chains emptied grocery store shelves.
Trump brags now about low gas prices and low inflation, but he had nothing to do with that. Prices fell because demand dried up and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero to prop up the economy.
Harris missed a key opportunity to bring all that into focus when she was asked about inflation and higher costs under the Biden administration. Instead she talked about her own economic plans.
Harris should be winning on the economy hands down. The Biden recovery has been nothing short of remarkable.
Inflation was worldwide and widely expected after the pandemic lockdown ended because of pent up demand and supply chain disruptions.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Inflation Reduction Act and Biden’s three other major pieces of longer-term economic legislation to repair infrastructure, boost semiconductor investment, and expand green energy, sparked one of the fastest recoveries in the nation’s history.
The Fed was forced to hike interest rates to cool the economy, and it’s had its intended effect. Inflation is now down to 2.0% as of August, the unemployment rate has been at a 40-year low for three years, gas prices have receded to around $3 a gallon on average and the Fed is about to cut interest rates, a signal that the economy has made a soft landing without a significant recession.
Harris has proposed a reasonable center-left plan to continue lifting the middle class, by expanding housing, lowering healthcare costs and providing tax cuts. Trump’ is falling back on his plan to significantly boost tariffs.
He doubled down on tariffs — promising hikes between 20% and 40% — despite overwhelming evidence from economists and even Wall Street that they will hurt consumers as much as they’ve already devastated Midwest farmers. They have received mult-billion dollar bailouts to counter the loss of soybean sales to China.
Trump doesn’t seem to understand, or acknowledge, that other countries will enact retaliatory tariffs to stem the sale of U.S. goods overseas. The trade deficit mushroomed during his administration.
On critical questions like how he plans to deport 10 million immigrants, he failed to answer. Yes, police and combat troops will be going door-to-door and sweeping people, including U.S. citizens of color off the streets and into a purgatory of detention camps.
The impact will be devastating as he removes tens of thousands of workers from the economy, not to mention the social upheaval in communities across the country.
Trump also plans to slash environmental and health regulations, green energy initiatives and throw tens of thousands of federal workers out of jobs, a cornerstone of Project 2025 and his own Agenda 47..
The 900-page manifesto for the next Republican president would expand presidential power and impose an ultra-conservative social vision on the nation. Read it here.
Trump says he had nothing to do with Project 2025, But his disavowal is thinly veiled. His own “Agenda 47” dovetails with many of its more Orwellian provisions, and the Republican Party platform has adopted many – if not all of its ideas.
Former Trump advisers, including director Paul Dans, who was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management while Trump was president, were instrumental in drafting it.
What’s most troubling of all is Trump’s adamant refusal to accept responsibility — for anything. That is cowardly.
Harris aptly pointed out that Trump is airing the same old grievances that have been debunked over and over, whether it’s the 2020 election or the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. His effort to deflect blame on Nancy Pelosi was pathetic.
He repeated his claim that he offered 10,000 National Guard troops to provide security on Jan. 6, even though it’s been thoroughly debunked by his own administration officials.
His claim that 60 election court challenges were lost on technicalities is also false.
Trump claim that he was just “asked” to give a speech on Jan. 6 and that’s all he did. That’s pure fabrication. He was impeached and is facing criminal indictment for a reason — he orchestrated the event and inflamed the crowd.
Like those lies and others, Trump’s claims are so thinly veiled it’s easy to see right through them.
As the debate progressed, Harris easily steered Trump down a rabbit hole of conspiracies. He became angrier, more disjointed and. at times, incoherent, demonstrating a total lack of self-control.
He became so flustered he blurted out one of the more dastardly bits of disinformation yet to surface in the campaign.
He accused Haitian residents in Ohio of eating cats and dogs, a lie that had been thoroughly debunked almost as quickly as it surfaced in the MAGA-sphere this week.
This lie is so freighted with racism, hysteria and xenophobia that repeating it should be disqualifying on its own. Yet, Trump, last night, and his vice presidential pick, JD Vance, continue to spread it.
On foreign policy, Trump proved to be even more unhinged and evasive.
When Harris challenged him over his weakness overseas, Trump countered by saying he’d been endorsed by Hungarian dictator and Russian meat puppet Viktor Orban.
Orban has suppressed free speech, jail opponents, corrupted elections and turned the country into totalitarian state over which he’s ruled for 14 years. This is Trump’s ideal role model, along with Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He portends nothing less for the United States, if he is elected.
He says he can solve the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a phone call; he refuses to say how but the implication is clear. He will force a cease fire and reward Putin’s aggression and war crimes with the territory he’s conquered by force.
This sends the wrong message to the world and would inflame hot spots like Gaza, Syria, Taiwan, Yemen, Sudan and throughout much of Africa, where conflict is rife.
If elected, he will have fewer guard rails to keep him within the law. He appeared manic and uncontrolled during the debate. He lacks the temperament and the moral character to lead. He is unfit to be president.
Watch the full debate below: