As we approach the 2024 Presidential Election, the recent debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris revealed an underwhelming performance from Trump as well as Harris’ tendency to misrepresent the truth.
The debate, which was held on ABC News, provided both candidates with the platform to advance their visions for the future of America — this moment was especially crucial since the prospects of a future debate are currently unclear.
Going into this debate, Trump had two golden opportunities. First, to routinely ask the question, “Are Americans better off now than they were four years ago?”, and to emphasize Harris’ ability to get legislation passed given her influential role as Vice President. If she truly believes her platform will enhance the lives of the American people, then why has there not been progress made during the last three and a half years? Trump should have communicated these questions more effectively.
Trump, in his defense, was constantly sidetracked and deviated from the central themes of the conversation since the moderators displayed bias and favored Kamala. This was evidenced by David Muir and Lindsey Davis exclusively fact-checking the former President. There were no corrections on Harris’ many lies.
Some of the notable mistruths from the Vice President include her flip-flop on the issues of guns and fracking. She originally opposed both of these, yet now claims she is in support of them. Furthermore, she perpetuated the lie that has been discredited by right and left-wing sources that Trump allegedly claimed white supremacists are “very fine people”. This has been disputed as it is an out-of-context quote where in the full statement, Trump added that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists should be “condemned totally”.
Another significant falsehood Harris explicated was her claim that no members of the United States military are currently on active duty in a combat zone in any war zone. There are 2,500 U.S. military troops in Iraq and more than 900 military personnel in Syria. Even as recent as this past January, three American soldiers were killed and 34 were injured by Iranian-backed militia groups.
While there were many more, Harris’ final glaring misrepresentation of the truth was her claim about President Trump’s unemployment record. Harris took Trump’s unemployment rate at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic out of context and claimed that Trump left the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. The truth is Trump slashed this rate throughout the rest of his presidency to 6.4%. A more accurate outlook of Trump’s success is his unemployment rate before COVID, 3.5%.
The consistent theme here is Kamala’s multitude of lies went unchecked, meanwhile, Trump was constantly interrupted and fact-checked. When the purpose of a debate is to be an open dialogue for candidates to amplify their ideas for the tens of millions of viewers, moderators should apply the same standard to each candidate.
Only fact-checking Trump creates the perception in the mind of the viewer that Trump struggles to ever tell the truth while portraying Kamala as someone who is always honest. While it is undecided whether or not there will be a future debate, Trump should not attend any in the future unless the circumstances are fair.
