How generous of Fox News to give Donald Trump a platform on Sunday morning for a nice campaign interview! At least in this segment, though, Chris Wallace didn't let Trump squirm away from his lies, instead forcing him to confront them in real time.
During a segment on crime, Trump went off on the crime rate in cities run by Democratic mayors. Think Portland. Or Atlanta.
Trump leaned in to Chris Wallace and said, “It’s because they want to defund the police — and Biden wants to defund the police."
Wallace shot back, "Sir, he does not."
Trump immediately invoked Bernie Sanders' name by pointing out that a compact was signed with him on certain policy issues. “Look, he signed a charter with Bernie Sanders --” Trump began.
“And it says nothing about defunding the police,” came the retort.
“Oh really? It says abolish. It says — let’s go. Get me the charter, please,” Trump called to an aide offstage to bring him a copy of the charter.
And from there, what we learn is what Wallace says happened. He went through the charter page by page, found many things he disagreed with, but could not find any reference in it to defunding the police.
So that there's a record of facts attached to Trump's lie, let's start with the crime rate, which is higher in 2020 than 2019 because of aberrant circumstances, like a pandemic causing record unemployment because Trump doesn't give a damn about the public health and isn't managing it well. Domestic violence, racial unrest, and stress over this godforsaken virus are all factors which may be why crime is rising.
In 2019, crime rates were dropping. This isn't a partisan issue. It's a societal one.
