Trump busted for five big lies in his reaction to Biden's reelection announcement
President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is seeking reelection drew an almost immediate reaction from Donald Trump, who released a video Tuesday morning riddled with factual errors, according to an analysis in The Washington Post.
Biden’s announcement, released in a video isn’t perfect from a fact-checking standpoint, The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reports, noting that his assertion that “MAGA Republicans” want to cut social security doesn’t square with the current position GOP leaders hold.
Trump’s reaction to Biden’s announcement, which he released in a video on his Truth Social website, features “one misleading attack after another,” Kessler writes.
Some of Trump’s false claims include his statement that “You could take the five worst presidents in American history, and put them together, and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our nation in just a few short years. Not even close,” is described by Kessler as “rhetorical overkill.”
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Kessler notes a survey of historians conducted by the Siena College Research Institute of the best and worst presidents ranks Trump 43rd (from the bottom), Biden 19th (between No. 18 Ronald Reagan and No. 20 George H.W. Bush). Barack Obama ranked 11th.
Trump says that “Thanks to Joe Biden’s socialist spending calamity, American families are being decimated by the worst inflation in half a century,” an argument that Kessler writes neglects the complicated reasons behind inflation, a global problem for which an American president has little control.
Trump’s statement that “Banks are failing. Our currency is crashing and the dollar will soon no longer be the world standard, which will be our greatest defeat in over 200 years” is another factual miss, according to Kessler, who attributes some bank failures to their failure to prepare for inflationary conditions. The dollar didn’t become the world’s reserve currency until 1944.
Trump statement that “Real wages have been falling 24 months in a row — in other words, under Biden, workers have gotten a PAY CUT each and every month for two straight years,” is inaccurate, Kessler writes, noting that wages have been flat from December 2020 to February 2023, although wages are expected to rise.
Trump’s assertion that “Our cities have been overrun with homelessness, drug addicts and violent criminals, who are being released from jail in mass with no retribution whatsoever, while law enforcement is weaponized against law-abiding conservatives or Republicans, or people they just don’t like” is described as a “mishmash of grievances” and false claims. He notes that although crime in New York has risen since 2020 it remains well below 1980 levels, when the city experienced a prolonged crime wave.