Five Things You Should Know Before You Watch the Debates
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Cancel any football-watching plans you have on Monday night: The first Presidential Debate is happening in full force and it will be glorious. Putting aside the fact that Presidential Debates tend to be more spectacle than substantive, it will definitely be a history-making event, and not just for all the obvious reasons. Americans in large numbers view both Clinton and Trump unfavorably, but still plan to watch the debate in equally large numbers: Some even say the ratings for Monday night could take a glancing blow at the Super Bowl’s numbers.
Given the importance of the event, one should be prepared. So, here are five things to know about the debates before they start.
1 . Both candidates lie, but Trump lies a lot more.
Polls regularly show that Clinton’s biggest struggles are with honesty and integrity. In a recent CNN poll, only 36% of voters said Clinton could be called “honest and trustworthy,” while 44% said the same about Trump. But when you compare their actual statements, Trump is far and away the bigger fibber.
Trump lies about things big and small, important and unimportant, embarrassing and flattering; if it in any way forces Trump to admit to some sort of wrongdoing or fault, he falls back on telling an outright lie. Politifact — a fact-checking website — lays out both of their files on the candidates below, and Trump takes the “Pants on Fire” (their nice way of saying “huge freaking lie”) award by an almost comical number. According to their ratings system, Trump has told eight times as may lies as Clinton.
It’s not just Politifact coming up with these numbers either. Factcheckers from the Washington Post, Factcheck.org, and Politico (whose research showed that Trump tells a misstatement about once every five minutes) all noted Trump’s peculiar difficulty with the truth.
Part of Trump’s problem is that he allows harmless and almost stupid fibs— like his statement that he saw thousands of people cheering on rooftops on New Jersey on 9/11 — to become big, news cycle-consuming lies by refusing to admit that he was wrong (and he definitely was). Trump’s other problem is that he repeats outright falsehoods so often he wears out his interviewers, who apparently give up on trying fact-checking him. For instance, Matt Lauer somewhat infamously allowed Trump to repeat his lie that he did not support the War in Iraq, a claim that has been debunked almost as often as Trump has said it.
The Iraq War claim is frequently visited by reporters and fact-checkers, but even more ridiculous is Trump’s claim that he opposed the War in Libya; Trump is actually on video supporting the invasion.
You may feel like these things don’t matter, and that’s fine. But it’s important to keep this in mind when you’re watching the debates and you hear Hillary say, “Mr. Trump is lying.” Chances are, she’s actually telling the truth; her team has been meticulously preparing for Trump’s misstatements and plan to call him out on them. There’s been a large discussion in the media about how the debate moderators are going to fact-check Trump, with some saying they won’t and others basically saying YOLO. Right now, it seems like they will leave the fact-checking to the candidates themselves, which can get confusing for the viewer. But keep this in mind: While you may feel like Clinton lies more than Trump, the objective Truth is that Trump beats her on the Pinocchio scale, and it isn’t even close.
2. Both candidates have shady Foundations, but only one engages in illegal activity.
Over the past couple weeks, one of the biggest stories in politics continues to be the steady stream of insane revelations about Trump’s charity, the Trump Foundation. While we already knew that Trump used his charity organization for nefarious means, such as stealing money from War Veterans, we didn’t really know the extent of its activities until David Fahrenthold started digging deep. His findings: Trump used charity money to pay off his own legal bills (apparently Fahrenthold also has a big story coming out tomorrow).
This isn’t subtely skirting the laws or pulling some fancy accounting tricks to change the rules for yourself…this is explicitly illegal activity. However, it’s not totally outside the norm for Trump; after the election, Trump will go on trial for fraud over Trump University.
This is wholly different from the complications arising from Clinton’s foundation. While there have been stories suggesting there’s some shady activity going on, most of the investigations have come up with nothing.
Again, you may feel like that the Clinton Foundation is shady, but only Trump’s Foundation has actually engaged in illegal activity. Both will probably be discussed during the debate on Monday night.
3. Yes, #Benghazi, but only one candidate insulted prisoners of war.
The Clinton Campaign’s ad is powerful enough to just be watched on its own:
4. You may not like Hillary’s foreign policy, but at least she can read a map.
There’s really no nice way of saying this: Trump is utterly, hopelessly, irredeemably clueless about domestic issues. However, he fairs far worse when it comes to foreign policy.
Trump has had quite a few greatest hits: Among them, his statement that Vladimir Putin was not going into Ukraine (despite him already being there); his ridiculous plan to “take the oil” in Iraq; his calls to torture our enemies; and his total incoherence on trade policy.
The thing is, many people think that because Donald Trump has built a successful real estate empire, he possesses the intellectual fortitude to be President. But running the world’s most important government — let alone its largest economy and most powerful military — is a lot different than running a business.
Last year, Donald Trump was interviewed by conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, who asked Trump a series of foreign policy questions:
HH: I would thought that today, this is our sixth interview, I’d turn to some of the commander-in-chief questions. Are you ready for that?
DT: Okay, fine.
HH: Are you familiar with General Soleimani?
DT: Yes, but go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me.
HH: He runs the Quds Forces.
DT: Yes, okay, right.
HH: Do you expect his behavior…
DT: The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by …
HH: No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.
DT: Yes, yes.
HH: …is the bad guys.
DT: Right.
In case you’re wondering, General Soleimani is one of the most dangerous men in the world. He is the leader of the Quds Force, which is a terrorist group that is actively attacking Americans around the world, including a (failed) plot to bomb embassies in Washington, D.C. So, you read that correctly: Donald Trump, who wants to be leader of the free world, did not recognize the name of their leader and then confused them with an ally.
It didn’t stop there. After Hewitt pointed out that he wanted a Commander-in-Chief who knew who “Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi…” When Trump couldn’t identify a single name that Hewitt cited, he responded that Hewitt was asking “gotcha” questions…and then proceeded to complain about Hewitt on TV, calling him a “Third-Rate Radio Announcer” (Hewitt has said he supports Trump). Let that sink in: The man who claims that he will be the only one able to take on ISIS, cannot even identify their leader when he is named (that would be al-Baghdadi).
In contrast, Clinton has sat down for long interviews in front of foreign policy experts who ask tough questions. Compare Trump’s inability to even identify our enemies with Clinton’s response to a question about a specific tactic in Syria (not a general question about ISIS):
ZAKARIA: When you were secretary of state, you tended to agree a great deal with the then-secretary of defense, Bob Gates. Gates was opposed to a no-fly zone in Syria, thought it was an act of war that was risky and dangerous. This seems to me the major difference right now between what Obama’s administration is doing and what you are proposing. Do you not — why do you disagree with Bob Gates on this?
CLINTON: Well, I believe that the no-fly zone is merited and can be implemented, again, in a coalition, not an American-only no-fly zone.
I fully respect Bob and his knowledge about the difficulties of implementing a no-fly zone, but if you look at where we are right now we have to try to clear the air of the bombing attacks that are still being carried out to a limited extent by the Syrian military, now supplemented by the Russian air force. And I think we have a chance to do that now. We had a no-fly zone over Northern Iraq for years to protect the Kurds, and it proved to be successful — not easy. It never is, but I think now is the time for us to revisit those plans.
I also believe, as I said in the speech, that if we begin the conversation about a no-fly zone, something that, you know, Turkey discussed with me back when I was secretary of state in 2012, it will confront a lot of our partners in the region and beyond about what they’re going to do. And it can give us leverage in the discussions that Secretary Kerry is carrying on right now. So I see it as both a strategic opportunity on the ground and an opportunity for leverage in the peace negotiations.
Toss aside some of the little things, like using Nazi soldiers in a campaign graphic or saying that the wives and girlfriends of the 9/11 hijackers were flown back to Saudi Arabia (all but two of them were unmarried), and you’re still left with a candidate who is completely unfamiliar with the basic tenants of foreign policy. Clinton is able to give answers to specific questions about military tactics. Trump — if he doesn’t wander off on a tangent about “the wall” in the middle of his answer — cannot even form a coherent sentence.
You may disagree with Clinton’s policies, but you cannot say she is uniformed. Which is probably why foreign policy experts — from both parties — are overwhelmingly supporting Clinton.
5. Clinton’s policies are liberal; Trump’s make no sense.
While Clinton is more traditionally conservative than Trump on issues like foreign policy, make no mistake: Hillary Clinton is a liberal. She supports liberal policies and promises to enact them when she is president.
Trump — who was a registered Democrat as recently as August 2009 — still doesn’t have a concrete ideology. Over the years, he has flip-flopped on nearly every issue, from immigration to the Iraq War. Obviously, you could say the same thing about a lot of politicians.
Where Trump stands out is that he has flipped on almost all of his policy issues (at least once) since he started campaigning last year. To reverse and then re-reverse yourself on some of your biggest issues — immigration, trade, etc. — is unprecedented; we’ve heard of politicians doing 180°, but we rarely hear about the elusive 360°, or the even rarer 1080°. Jane Timm did intrepid work and compiled a big list of his changing positions and policies. Here is a small sampling:
Again, there are probably dozens of videos out there of Hillary Clinton reversing herself on old positions that she held years ago. Politicians will do that; the last Republican nominee did it, the last Democratic nominee did it, and so will the next batch of nominees. But Trump has shifted his positions on various issues throughout his campain and has done it so often, it is sometimes impossible to even tell what position he’s currently holding on any given topic.
If you’re a Trump fan, you’re probably going to hate this piece. If you’re a Clinton fan, you’re probably going to criticize me over my lukewarm support for the only viable candidate in (what is essentially) a two-candidate election. Guilty as charged. But here’s my thing: The average American should know that even though these are two supposedly well-qualified individuals on a stage discussing important policy issues, there’s a lot more going on underneath the surface, and this is a small and hopefully coherent sampling.
