Donald Trump's Moments Of Truth

 Last night was the first debate in the 2024 cycle between presumptive nominees Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It was not a good night for Biden. If we're being honest if anyone else had been on that stage with Trump and given the same answers Biden did we'd be talking about how handily they won the debate. As it is many of us are worried that this is the choice of candidates we have. The most unfortunate aspect is that Biden's performance has the focus all on him, and no one is paying attention to the stream of lies that came from Trump. But even more than the lies, there were more telling moments of accidental truth that came out last night that flew under the radar thanks to Biden's mumbling and thousand yard stares.

The first came when Trump was talking about abortion. He said he would not make abortion medication illegal. He was talking about  the difference in opinion about limits, and he stated, that "we have to get elected". I have seen no one comment on this. He just admitted that his stance on abortion has nothing to do with good policy, with morality, with case law, it's predicated on trying to mollify enough people to get him elected. It obviously means nothing to him either way, so why should we believe for a moment that he won't change his mind when it becomes politically expedient for him to do so?

Another moment came during talk about Ukraine. Trump mentioned off-handedly that Putin had told him that his goal was to take back former Soviet territory. This seems like a really big deal to me, but again no one is talking about it. Presumably this happened during their hours long off the record meeting when Trump was in office. What else did Putin say? Did he lay out a game plan? What was Trump's response? We'll never know because no one was allowed to be there and take notes. But a dictator feeling comfortable discussing his plans to take other countries by force with a man running for "leader of the free world" seems notable, and I believe should be a major area of focus for follow up questions.

Then came Trump's comment about illegal immigrants taking "black" jobs. I finally did hear a reporter last night ask Lara Trump what makes a job a "black" job, but she is not the one they should be asking. Since illegal immigrants tend to get the most menial and physically intensive jobs, it seems clear to me at least that these are what Trump considers "black" jobs. They'll spin it as some attempt to be compassionate to the minority communities, but it seems to me to be racism laid out plain for all to see. Speaking of which, that brings me to the half truth, Trump's comments about Charlottesville. He was right that Snopes "debunked" that he called neo-Nazis very fine people by specifically excluding them in his remarks. But the uncomfortable (for him) truth is that it was a neo-Nazi rally. As such, if you eliminate them from the equation who is left on that side to be "very fine"? I sincerely doubt there were a lot of moderates taking part in a neo-Nazi rally. If they showed up, I think the swastikas and burning torches probably convinced them to leave.

But you probably won't see or hear much about these points because all anyone will be talking about is Joe Biden, and when the media do call out Trump it is for the less subtle and less insidious statements he makes. I think there absolutely needs to be a conversation about whether Joe Biden is the right man to face off against Trump, but I don't think that should be an excuse to let Trump slide when he reveals to us exactly who he is.