I’ve got a pretty full review of last night’s presidential debate sitting at the American Spectator’s front page, and you’re welcome to head on over to check it out. This consists of some leavings from the cutting-room floor of that piece, plus a few extra observations.
The Trump campaign put together a list of 33 false or misleading statements Biden made as he feebly stumbled his way through the debate. President Trump clearly won it, though perhaps not in as dramatic a knockout fashion as his camp might have liked and certainly not in a way reminiscent of the classical beauty of, say, Ronald Reagan’s debate victories over Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter.
Probably the clearest distillation of the debate came in this rather hilarious short exchange…
https://streamable.com/dvbus5?fbclid=IwAR1wfYN50N00h90F7xw6yN9GjW0h9Es7C-fR4SgsnYzy1LQJhzRB73vFPJE
While Trump perhaps stumbled over a few instances in which his interruptions actually bailed Biden out from saying something stupid or disqualifying, and if there is a second debate he might very well leave Biden more free to make his own gaffes, the confrontational, relentless style he showed off last night was still more of an asset than a hindrance.
As I said on Facebook this morning…
https://www.facebook.com/MacAoidhBR/posts/10221356993126795?__cft__[0]=AZWREbnbHJMK1P4YNfuHwPIm3ArtGCjJ6II6JrunX6UIg0OsULzJFY1kAvsa5ER0DtyWmgiM0U0L00bbCoZUDElJw8MQhUYyl_UnLdoCxZxgaYdp4dytbzY-41ENVOSNplw&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
In case you missed that part, here it was…
It was a pretty classic example of why you need to be obnoxious in a presidential debate today. And if you’ll notice, Chris Wallace jumped in to bail Biden out at the end by attempting to shut off a discussion of the documented corruption of Hunter Biden and Burisma, of Rosemont Seneca’s $1.5 billion Chinese private equity deal, of the $3.5 million Biden took from the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.
The idea that none of this stuff is a valid line of inquiry, when it directly speaks to Joe Biden’s corruption, is more offensive than anything Trump’s brusque style might have produced last night and Trump was right to harp on it as often as he could.
Not to mention that the clip begins with one of Biden’s abject lies, which is that Trump called dead soldiers and Marines “losers” and “suckers” in refusing to travel to the military cemetery at Belleau Wood. Some two dozen people who were in a position to know have gone on the record to say that those quotes, which surfaced in an anonymously-sourced piece by the Democrat propagandist Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, were fabricated and did not happen.
That was only one of 33 falsities Biden subjected the public to last night. Here’s the full list, courtesy of the Trump campaign…
Correct The Record: Biden Makes 33 False Or Misleading Claims At The Debate
Biden lied, exaggerated, misled, and was flat-out wrong nearly three dozen times BIDEN: “I’m not opposed to the Justice.” FACT: Biden and Harris have both publicly opposed Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, despite glowing reviews from the legal community and her colleagues. · Biden put out a statement in opposition to Judge Barrett’s nomination.
BIDEN: “There’s a hundred million people with preexisting conditions and [their insurance will] be taken away as well.” FACT: Biden’s claim has been called “misleading,” and President Trump has said he will always protect Americans with pre-existing conditions. · Just last week, President Trump signed an Executive Order making it the official policy of the federal government to protect those with pre-existing conditions.
BIDEN: “So the thing that should happen is we should wait. We should wait and see what the outcome of this election is, because that is the only way the American people get to express their view, who they elect as president and who they elect as Vice President.” FACT: History is on the side of filling the Supreme Court vacancy now, and Joe Biden previously said the President had an obligation to name a nominee, even in an election year. · There have been 29 prior Supreme Court vacancies in American history during a Presidential election year, and in all cases, the President nominated a Justice.
BIDEN: “We expand Obamacare and we increase it. We do not wipe any and, one of the big debates we had, with 23 of my colleagues trying to win the nomination that I won, were saying Biden wanted to allow people to have private insurance still. They can. They do. They will.” FACT: Biden’s public option will crowd out private health insurance plans. · Biden’s government-backed “public option” will crowd out private health insurance plans, destroying the health care that 180 million Americans rely on.
BIDEN: “He’s been promising a health care plan since he got elected. He has none, like almost everything else he talks about. He does not have a plan. He doesn’t have a plan.” FACT: President Trump has a health care plan. · On September 24, President Trump unveiled his America First Health Care plan, outlining the key policies and reforms the President supports, including protecting Americans with pre-existing conditions.
TRUMP: “You agreed with Bernie Sanders to the manifesto and now you’re disavowing it.” BIDEN: “There is no manifesto.” FACT: There is a manifesto, and Biden’s campaign worked with Sanders’ associates to write it. · In July, the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force released a 118-page document filled with far-left, radical policies the Biden campaign has embraced.
BIDEN: “What did he do? He went in, and he, we were insisting that the Chinese, the people we had on the ground in China should be able to go to Wuhan and determine for themselves how dangerous this was. He didn’t even ask [Chinese President] Xi to do that.” FACT: The Trump Administration first tried to get American officials into China in early January; Biden didn’t call for sending experts into China until February 25, 50 days later. · This often repeated claim by Biden has been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers.
WALLACE: “But you and Senator Harris are saying you can’t trust a scientist.” BIDEN: “No, you can trust a scientist. She didn’t say that.” WALLACE: “She said they would be ‘muzzled and suppressed.’” BIDEN: “Well, that’s what he’s going to try and do.” FACT: President Trump has listened to scientists and public health experts every step of the way. · Dr. Fauci has said on multiple occasions that he has never been muzzled.
TRUMP: “But he wants to shut it [the economy] down.” BIDEN: “No.” FACT: Biden and his campaign have admitted that he would potentially shut down the economy again. · In August, Joe Biden openly said that he was prepared to shut down the country again.
WALLACE: “The president says it’s a V-shaped recovery, you say it’s a K-shaped recovery. What’s the difference?” BIDEN: “The difference is millionaires and billionaires like him in the middle of the Covid crisis have done very well.” FACT: President Trump is leading an unprecedented economic recovery that is benefitting all Americans. · The economy has added back 10.6 million jobs over the last four months, half of all the jobs lost due to the pandemic.
BIDEN: “He’s been totally irresponsible the way in which he has handled the social distancing and people wearing mask, basically encouraging them not to.” FACT: President Trump has strongly advocated that Americans wear masks, and he has worn one himself many times. · In March, President Trump recommended that people could use a scarf as a mask.
BIDEN: “[The Trump Administration has] done nothing to help small businesses. Nothing.” FACT: President Trump’s Paycheck Protection Program was undeniably successful in keeping Americans employed and small businesses afloat during the pandemic. · The Paycheck Protection Program has provided $525 billion to over 5.2 million U.S. businesses, protecting more than 51 million jobs.
BIDEN: “He pays less tax than a schoolteacher … This guy paid a total of $750 in taxes.”” FACT: President Trump has paid millions of dollars in taxes in 2016 and 2017. · President Trump paid millions in taxes during years that The New York Times falsely claimed that President Trump only paid $750 in federal taxes.
BIDEN: “The economy is busted.” FACT: Before the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump built the greatest economy in American history, and he is working to bring it back. · Through the first three years of the Trump Administration, the U.S. economy saw nearly 7.3 million new jobs, higher growth, and a record setting stock market.
BIDEN: “We inherited the worst recession short of a depression in American history. I was asked to bring it back. We were able to have an economic recovery that created the jobs you’re talking about. We handed him a booming economy.” FACT: Biden oversaw the slowest recovery since the Great Depression, leaving behind millions of hard-working Americans. · Joe Biden’s economic recovery was a once-in a century failure: he’s even said so himself.
BIDEN: “My economic plan would create 7 million more jobs than his in four years” FACT: Biden’s economic plans would destroy jobs and shrink the economy. · According to the Tax Foundation, Biden’s tax plan would destroy 585,000 full-time jobs.
BIDEN: “My son did nothing wrong in Burisma.” FACT: Multiple State Department officials expressed alarm about Hunter Biden’s financial dealings at the time, concerned over the clear conflict-of-interest.
BIDEN: “[President Trump] said there were very fine people on both sides.” FACT: This is an often-repeated Biden lie; President Trump specifically condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville. · Fact checkers have debunked Biden’s claim and said that President Trump condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis. TRUMP: “[Hunter Biden] got $3.5 million dollars.” BIDEN: “That is not true.” FACT: The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee recently released a report saying that Hunter Biden’s firm did in fact receive $3.5 million from the wife of the Mayor of Moscow. Advertisement · Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Thornton, received a $3.5 million wire transfer in 2014 from Russian billionaire Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.
BIDEN: “Even before COVID, manufacturing went in the hole.” FACT: Half a million manufacturing jobs were created during the first three years of the Trump Administration. · The economy added 510,000 new manufacturing jobs between President Trump’s Election and February 2020. · During the Trump Administration’s first 37 months, manufacturing production grew at a rate 11 times greater than the last 37 months under the Obama-Biden Administration.
TRUMP: “I think it’s a party issue. You can bring in a couple of examples but when you look at Chicago, what’s going on in Chicago where 53 people were shot and eight died … If you look at New York where it’s going up like nobody has ever seen anything. Numbers are going up 100, 150, 200% crime.” BIDEN: “Republican cities.” FACT: A vast majority of the most violent cities in the U.S. are cities run by Democrats. · 17 out of the top 20 most violent cities in the United States are Democratic-run cities, including Chicago and New York.
BIDEN: “His own former spokesperson said, ‘you know riots and chaos and violence help his cause’ … Kellyanne Conway said that.” FACT: Biden misquoted and misconstrued comments from former Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. · Conway was responding to a question about something Biden supporter Pete Buttigieg said, falsely blaming President Trump for the violence occurring in Democrat-run cities.
BIDEN: “Look, what I support is the police having the opportunity to deal with the problems they face. I am totally opposed to defunding the police officers.” FACT: As Vice President, Joe Biden oversaw cuts in federal funding for state and local law enforcement, breaking a pledge to increase funding. · Biden said “yes, absolutely” when asked if he would redirect funding away from police to other government programs like housing. · Federal funding for state and local law enforcement fell during the Obama-Biden Administration.
BIDEN: “The fact is that I’ve gone head to head with Putin.” FACT: Biden has a record of being weak on Russia. · The Russia “reset,” which Biden was the first Obama official to publicly propose, was a failure.
TRUMP: “…for cocaine use. And he didn’t have a job until you became Vice President.” BIDEN: “None of that is true.” FACT: As was widely reported, in 2014 Hunter Biden was discharged from the military for cocaine use. · USA Today: “Biden, who had no prior military experience, was one of six officers commissioned nationally into the Navy Reserve public affairs division … Biden, 44, was discharged from the Navy Reserve in February.”
BIDEN: “The way you talk about the military, the way you talk about them being losers and being ah- and just being suckers.” FACT: At least 14 officials who were on the trip to France with President Trump have gone on the record to refute the anonymous sources and allegations in The Atlantic article. · Sarah Sanders, former White House Press Secretary: “The Atlantic story on @realDonaldTrump is total BS. I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion – this never happened.” WALLACE: “You propose $2 trillion in green jobs, you talk about new limits, not abolishing, but new limits on fracking. Ending the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity by 2035 and zero net emission of greenhouse gases by 2050. The President says a lot of these things would tank the economy and cost millions of jobs.” BIDEN: “He is absolutely wrong.” FACT: Biden’s energy plan would cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. · Biden admitted he would willingly “sacrifice” “hundreds of thousands” of fossil fuel jobs in pursuit of his anti-energy agenda. · Prior estimates show eliminating oil, gas, and coal from the U.S. energy grid would cost anywhere from $4.5 trillion to $5.7 trillion, with an average cost of $35,000 per household.
BIDEN: “That is not my plan. The Green New Deal is not my plan.” FACT: Joe Biden has embraced the Green New Deal in all but name. · Biden’s own climate plan on his website cites the Green New Deal as a “crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face.”
TRUMP: “What he did is he said, he called the military ‘stupid bastards.’” BIDEN: “That is not true.” FACT: In March 2016, Biden called service members “stupid bastards” during a speech at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. · After airmen didn’t applaud at one of Biden’s lines, he insulted them by saying: “Clap for that you stupid bastards.”
BIDEN: “You don’t have to solicit the ballot, it’s sent you—it’s sent to your home. What we are saying is, they are saying it has to be postmarked by Election Day. If it doesn’t get in until the seventh, eighth, ninth, it still should be counted. He’s just afraid of counting the votes because of the outcome.” FACT: Biden is wrong that states with mass vote by mail require postmarks; Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court explicitly said ballots, even those without postmarks, will be assumed to be valid. · The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently ruled that ballots received up to three days after Election Day, even if they’re not postmarked, must be counted.
BIDEN: “[Judge Amy Coney Barrett] thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional.” FACT: Judge Amy Coney Barrett has not expressed a view about the Constitutionality of Obamacare or about the current case pending before the Supreme Court.
BIDEN: “We have a higher deficit with China now than we did before.” FACT: The trade deficit with China is falling and “fell sharply” in 2019.
BIDEN: “The fact of the matter is violent crime went down 17%, 15%, in our administration.” FACT: Fact checkers have said this claim is “overstated,” and violent crime rose by more than 4 percent during the last two years Biden was Vice President. · Meanwhile, the FBI recently announced that violent crime has fallen during the first three years of the Trump Administration. |
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