Opinion | What the debate told us: Biden's facts are no match for Trump's lies – The Washington Post
Trump can shamelessly lie when debate moderators don’t fact-check in real time.
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This week, I look at last night’s debate, pick the distinguished person of the week and share a marvelous art exhibit.
The problem for President Biden during his debate with felon and former president Donald Trump: He looked and sounded his age. He may have had his facts in a row, but in this format, it hardly matters. Unfortunately, allowing Trump to blather lies nonstop without fact-checking plays right into a compulsive liar’s hands.
Biden recited his economic accomplishments, reiterated figures on the debt, pounced on Trump for getting Roe v. Wade overturned (and made the case Trump would sign a nationwide ban on abortion), repeated the details of his border plan and called out Trump for “lies” on veterans and immigration. Biden showed real anger when he repeated Gen. John Kelly’s revelation that Trump called dead military “suckers” and “losers.”
He threw some punches, denounced Trump for threatening retribution against his enemies, declared Trump had “the morals of an alley cat,” hit Trump for praising neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and argued Trump doesn’t understand democracy. He brought up the vice president and advisers who refused to endorse Trump. And he said flat out that the only one on the stage who was a felon was Trump. “And now he says that if he loses again, being the whiner that he is, there’s gonna be a bloodbath?” Biden said. He was most effective when going straight at Trump.
Trump, on the other hand, unsurprisingly lied and lied some more. He claimed Biden had only given jobs to illegal immigrants; claimed the world now did not respect the United States; claimed illegal immigrants were on Social Security and Medicare; pretended that other countries pay tariffs; claimed babies are killed after birth; insisted “everyone” wanted abortion brought back to the states; claimed Biden “opened” the borders; and insisted we have “no borders.” On immigration, Trump dreamed up illegal immigrants in luxury hotels. He denied saying that military personnel who died are “suckers” and “losers.” He bizarrely insisted NATO went broke — over and over again. (He still doesn’t understand that our European allies support NATO through their own defense budgets, not by “paying up.”) Most appalling, he claimed Biden encouraged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He even claimed credit for Biden’s effort to lower insulin drug prices.
As the debate continued, Trump began to show the extent of his break with reality (e.g., saying former House speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down National Guardsman — an appalling lie.) He defended the Jan. 6 mob (after trying to avoid a question), insisted Biden was a criminal and refused to say definitively he would accept the results of the election. Biden got stronger, more incensed as the debate went along. He will not, however, silence questions about his age.
The debate format allowed Trump to present a nonstop stream of nonsense and lies. Biden was compelled to play whack-a-mole. It is humanly impossible to bat them all down in a situation such as this, but Biden did a workmanlike job, gaining ground as the 90 minutes ticked by (e.g., pointing out the economy was “flat on its back” when Biden took over).
Trump can shamelessly lie when moderators don’t fact-check in real time. The format simply does not work with an inveterate liar. But at points, Trump showed his true colors and his utter inability to answer straight policy questions (e.g., he could never answer a question on child care or on opioids). One is left somewhat despondent that millions of Americans will nevertheless vote for him.
Anthony S. Fauci’s memoir, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service,” provides a timely refresher on the career of a scientist who saved millions of lives here and around the globe. “When Fauci was appointed chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, he expanded funding for AIDS research and scandalized his conservative colleagues by establishing a program dedicated exclusively to the disease,” The Post’s review recounts. “Later, he pushed the George W. Bush administration to enact the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved millions of lives by distributing AIDS treatments around the globe.”
Fauci weathered conflicts with Trump and attacks from Trump’s unscrupulous MAGA allies. But it was his roles in the rapid vaccine development and as a public health educator that Americans should remember. USA Today’s Susan Page writes, “Fauci became the nation’s communicator in chief, a hero to many Americans as a straight talker even when his candor put him at odds with the nation’s commander in chief.” (As for Trump, Fauci told USA Today, “Anybody who just egregiously doesn’t tell the truth worries me. … I think there would’ve been a lot more people taking vaccines if he actively promoted vaccine.”)
One attribute stands out in his long career. In a CNN interview, he said:
When so many go into public life for all the wrong reasons, Fauci stands as the perfect counterexample. He served for all the right reasons. It wasn’t about him; it was always about others’ lives.
The National Portrait Gallery, my favorite D.C. museum, not only features beautiful art but also documents the American presidency, the Civil War, environmentalism, the West and protest movements (“The Struggle for Justice”). The special exhibit now on display, “Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939” is among its most fascinating.
The women depicted in paintings, photographs and sculpture fled to Paris in the early 20th century to break free from gender norms, racism and cultural homogeneity. Some names are familiar (e.g., Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, Isadora Duncan). Others (e.g., painter Romaine Brooks, writer and literary salon organizer Natalie Clifford Barney, Harlem Renaissance painter Loïs Mailou Jones, nightclub owner Ada “Bricktop” Smith) are less well-known — a reflection of gender bias, not of their artistic excellence. In documenting the women’s vibrant social and intellectual connections, the exhibit reveals how an artistic community produces more than the sum of its parts.
Because of race, gender, sexual identity or creative bent, these women did not “fit” in early 2oth-century America. By going abroad and engaging with one another, they reinvented themselves and refashioned American art, interior design, dance, theater and literature. The exhibit is extensive but leaves you wanting to learn more about these talented women.
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