Fact-Check Of 1st Presidential Debate Humiliates Trump & GOP

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Donald Trump did his best to blow the presidential debates apart Tuesday, leaving the moderator Fox’s Chris Wallace stunned and ineffective. It was 90 exhausting minutes of POTUS’ rapid-fire barrage of interruptions. So, was anything Trump said true? Let us fact check, shall we?

Trump World, according to the LA Times:

‘We guaranteed preexisting conditions.’

Reality:

‘The 2010 Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — includes the provision that bars health insurance companies from refusing to cover people with preexisting medical conditions. Trump has been calling for the entire law to be eliminated, and his administration is allied with conservative states on a lawsuit to kill it. The case is now before the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments the week after the election.’

2. Lie: Biden called Trump’s China travel halt “xenophobic.”

Trump World:

‘I closed it, and you [Biden] said, “He’s xenophobic.’”

Reality:

Whenever challenged about his mishandling of the coronavirus crisis, Trump points to one of his earliest decisions — restricting travel from China, where the pandemic began. However, it was not the ironclad ban that he describes. The Jan. 31 order applied only to mainland China, not Hong Kong, and it allowed tens of thousands of Americans there to return to the U.S., where screening of arrivals was spotty.’

The LA Times reported that Trump also said:

‘Although the travel restrictions bought some time before the pandemic worsened here, public health experts say Trump squandered that by failing to prepare widespread testing and tracing to detect and isolate outbreaks.’

The next day Biden tweeted:

‘[W]e need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.” He did not mention the ban or travel from China.’

3. Lie: The economy is back:

Trump World:

‘We’re doing record business.’

Reality:

‘Trump often claims that the country is quickly rebounding from the coronavirus crisis, which forced tens of millions of people out of their jobs. He calls it a “V-shaped” recovery — sometimes upgrading it to a “super V” — suggesting a steep decline followed by a fast ascent…Trump has frequently dismissed the need for social distancing or masks, and he’s holding rallies where supporters are crowded together, most without protection.’

4. Lie: Trump claimed he paid millions to federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.

Trump World:

‘I paid millions of dollars.’

Then, POTUS said, according to CNN:

 ‘I don’t want to pay tax.’

 

Reality, the LA Times continued:

 

‘… Trump broke with a decades-long tradition of White House candidates releasing their tax returns. He said again in the debate that he cannot make his returns public because they are under audit. But the Internal Revenue Service has said audits do not preclude taxpayers from releasing their own returns.

‘The New York Times reported this week, based on leaked copies of Trump’s returns, that the president paid only $750 in federal income taxes for the year he was elected and for his first year in office — a startlingly low amount for someone who claims to be a billionaire.’

5. Lie: Mail-in ballots lead to widespread voter fraud.

Trump’ World:

‘This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen.’

Reality:

‘[H]e’s baselessly claimed that U.S. elections are rife with fraud and rigged against him… [People have] concerns about contracting the coronavirus at crowded polling places. The president says the ballots could be forged by anyone, including a foreign country, but local election officials say that would be impossible given safeguards such as bar codes on envelopes.’

The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.