Donald Trump’s recent public appearances have featured a mishmash of barely coherent ramblings, fascistic pablum, and wild rants about President Joe Biden. On Friday, MSNBC’s Steve Rattner spent a few minutes debunking three of Trump’s main attacks against Biden. He used data available to the public to create some clear graphs, for the visually inclined.
On Trump’s claims that America’s streets are crime-riddled, Rattner pointed out that across the board, crime is “below any place it was during the Trump administration.” As for Trump’s continued “drill baby, drill” refrains concerning oil and energy independence, Rattner explained that “[we] have had record energy production under the Biden administration.” What about Trump’s assertion that his administration was just about to fix the deficit before he was booted from office? “He in fact, added more debt than any other president in history,” Rattner confirmed.
Here’s a breakdown of Trump’s cowpie claims.
Lie No. 1: Crime is out of control under the Biden administration.
While many Americans have been hoodwinked into believing that crime is rising, the facts are that crime rates are down almost entirely across the board. A note for the xenophobic Fox News viewer: There are numerous studies that show crime rates among immigrants are always lower than among American-born citizens.
Lie No. 2: The United States is not energy independent and the Biden administration has mismanaged our oil and gas production.
Since the 2005 shale boom, America has been steadily moving toward energy independence. Under the Biden administration, energy production has reached record highs. Whether or not we will take the steps necessary to become a world leader in renewable energy remains to be seen.
Lie No. 3: Trump was going to pay off the national deficit by the end of his first term, and the Biden administration is increasing the deficit exponentially.
Biden’s proposed budget includes deficit reduction spending. The Trump administration oversaw one of the largest debt increases compared to U.S. economic growth of any president in our country’s history—and unlike George W Bush, Trump didn’t even start two wars in order to do it.
Trump’s seeming inability to tell the truth about anything is nothing new. When the twice-impeached former president was in office, news outlets were forced to dedicate serious resources in order to fact-check just about every claim that came out of his mouth, and The Washington Post counted a total of more than 30,000 lies.
The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell joins Kerry to discuss the State of the Union and what President Biden needs to do to soundly defeat Donald Trump in November.
