J. D. Vance (image at left), Trump’s 2024 running mate, is a prodigious liar.
The most egregious of Vance’s lies is “telling stories” about Haitian immigrants that are untrue, racist, and caused bomb threats and school closures. But Vance also drastically flip-flopped on Trump, trading his soul for personal political gain. He is dishonest.
Tim Walz couldn’t top Vance’s lies if he tried, but CNN just fact-checked him on two speech lines (story here). This follows criticism of Walz for exaggerating his military service, and raises a question of whether Walz is an habitual liar.
Fact-check #1: Walz claimed Trump “is asking for a nationwide abortion ban.”
CNN takes issue with this, and says “Walz’s claim is false.” But I’m not so sure.
CNN said, “Trump is not ‘asking for’ a nationwide abortion ban. Trump has said since the spring that he wants abortion policy to be set by each individual state, not set by the federal government for the whole country. Trump also promised last week to veto any federal abortion ban that Congress passed.”
Okay, but should you go by what Trump is saying right now? His party wants a national abortion ban, and nearly every Republican running for office wants one, so voters would be crazy to trust a colossal liar like Trump to go against his party on this hot-button issue. A case on point: Trump says Florida’s 6-week abortion window is “too short,” but will vote against expanding it (see story here).
Whether Trump means what he says, or is pulling the wool over voters’ eyes, is a legitimate campaign issue; especially given the probability that he is. Walz is entitled to tell voters not to believe what Trump says about a federal abortion ban. The most you can criticize Walz for here is the wording of his statement.
He could have more clearly said, “Despite what Trump says, he’ll sign a federal abortion ban.” That’s a valid argument, given Trump’s track record. But Walz himself says he isn’t a great debater or perfectly articulate.
Fact-check #2: Walz said … when (Trump) left office, we had more people unemployed, percentage-wise, than the Great Depression.”
Walz is wrong this time. Unemployment peaked at 24.9% in 1933 (see chart here) and 14.8% in 2020 (see chart here), so it never got close to Depression levels during the pandemic. It was the highest unemployment since the Depression (see story here), far exceeding the Eisenhower recession of 1958-1959, the Reagan depression of 1982-1983, and the Bush subprime deregulation disaster of 2007-2008..
But blaming it on Trump is disingenuous. The pandemic began before he took office, the shutdowns were orchestrated by public health officials, and unemployment had subsided to 6.4% by the time he left office.
Trump didn’t acquit himself especially well during the pandemic, and he and other Republicans if anything pushed to reopen the economy too soon, but calling him responsible for Depression-level unemployment is not only exaggerating but also a bad rap. Walz deserves pinocchios for this one.
But voters don’t have a choice between squeaky-clean and dishonest veep candidates. Vance is a much more dangerous liar than Walz is. In politics, as in life, perfect is the enemy of good. We can’t have perfect, so let’s take good, or at least better, or least worst if you prefer.