Donald Trump took to his struggling Truth Social platform after attending his $250 million fraud trial on Thursday in New York City. He waxed nostalgia over his four years in office while omitting anything resembling the truth. Sure, the former President does this consistently, but the truth is like kryptonite to his lint-licking supporters. We're living in strange times where Donald J. Trump could eat a baby alive on television, and his supporters would start asking for recipes for baby back ribs.
We've covered the twice-impeached President reminiscing about how the U.S. had "the greatest economy in our history" under his watch in 2020. That same year, we scrambled for provisions at the grocery store, where shelves remained empty. Most of us remember 2020 as the one year we'd like to forget. The pandemic hit, and His Highness sprang into action by refusing to recognize that we were in serious trouble as refrigerated trucks doubled as mobile morgues. But sure, the best year ever.
Trump claims that three years ago the "economy was booming" and the country was "safe" even though the U.S. was being ravaged by a potentially deadly virus.
"Just three years ago, our economy was booming, the world was safe, and America was strong," Trump insisted. "Annual incomes went up by more than $6,000 under the Trump administration, and they went down by about $6,000 under the horrible Biden administration — the worst in the history of our country."
"The 30-year mortgage rate reached a record low of 2.65%. We had no inflation. We had gasoline down to $1.87 per gallon. … Under Crooked Joe Biden, the economy is in shambles and the world is going up in flames," he added. "Real incomes have gone down by $7,400 per family. … Cumulative inflation is nearly 20%. … We have war in Europe. We have wars in the Middle East. And we are stumbling into World War III."
Trump gets away with pummeling the truth with his tiny fists because his supporters believe anything he says without any evidence to back up his wild-eyed claims. Like, about inflation, for example. He knows, or he's just throwing letters from a Scrabble board onto a wall while quoting whatever is thrown across the room. Inflation comes from increased production costs or increased demand for products, like when THERE IS A PANDEMIC, FOR EXAMPLE. HOLY SHIT, THIS ISN'T HARD. Sorry, I'll let go of the caps lock key now.
In Trump's favorite year, 2020, the GDP fell by 8.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020, making it the most significant single-quarter contraction in over 70 years. Trump then bungled his response to the Covid-19 pandemic and continued to campaign, literally dancing while Americans were dying. So, with a guy that severely damaged, you can see why he thinks he did a bang-up job on the economy in 2020. And why he thinks gasoline prices were important even though we couldn't go anywhere as we sheltered at home. He left office with the worst job numbers since Herbert Hoover, but sure, the best year ever.
(Editor's Note: Chris Hayes lays waste to everything Trump lied about in the video at the top.)
