Culture

Trump Bizarrely Claims He Is “Least Racist Person in the Room” During Debate


 

There were no surprises at Thursday’s presidential debate, just more of the same racism and lies from Donald Trump, contrasted with Joe Biden’s matter-of-fact understanding of the issues facing the country.

One of the strangest moments of the final debate of 2020, which was hosted at Tennessee’s Belmont University, came when moderator Kristen Welker pressed the candidates on issues of racism, challenging Trump on his opposition to Black Lives Matter. Trump responded that his first impression of the movement was that it “was a terrible thing” because, he claims, he heard protesters criticising police.

“I am the least racist person in the room,” he said, adding that he couldn’t see the audience “because it’s so dark.”

Even aside from calling Mexicans “rapists” and banning travel from Muslim countries, Trump’s well-documented racism goes back decades: from advocating for the death penalty for the “Central Park Five,” all of whom were innocent, to refusing to allow contestant Kwame Jackson to win The Apprentice because he is a “Black f*g,” as Trump reportedly told his attorney.

Trump also said he’s done more for Black people than any president other than Abraham Lincoln, which is equally absurd. Positive gains in Black employment began during Obama’s presidency, not Trump’s, and during the COVID-19 recession, Black unemployment has been worse than average. Black and Latinx people continue to be overrepresented in low-income categories and are dying at twice the rate of white people due to the public health crisis that Trump worsened.

Throughout the debate, Trump was barely able to get out a single truthful sentence. He said that the coronavirus is “going away” when, in fact, it’s getting worse in all but a handful of states as the country enters a third wave of cases. As Biden noted, current estimates suggest that a half-million Americans will die by year’s end.

Trump also falsely claimed that a vaccine is “coming” and that “it’s ready.” It’s not. Three vaccines are in trials, but two of those trials were recently halted due to unexpected illnesses, with no sign that they’ll resume. He also said that 99.9% of young people recover from the virus, but that’s not true either. The death rate is about 2.6%, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else fully recovers; in fact, many people have lingering symptoms that have lasted for months with no sign of going away.

And yet again, Trump took credit for banning travel to China — which never actually happened. The government tightened a few restrictions, but tens of thousands of people continued to travel between the U.S. and China during the crisis.

His lies extended beyond just the pandemic, with Trump claiming that Biden received millions of dollars from Russia, which is also untrue. Trump lied about the Robert Mueller probe, claiming that Mueller examined his tax returns and found “nothing wrong.” In fact, Mueller did not look at Trump’s taxes, and his report indicated that there is strong evidence Trump is guilty of obstructing justice.

And the president said that the U.S. has the cleanest air and water in the world, while calling China and India “filthy.” In fact, the U.S. is 16th in the metric, according to the Environmental Performance Index.

But despite Trump’s frequent attacks on the community, there were no questions about LGBTQ+ issues raised during the event — an ongoing theme of this year’s presidential debates. This year has seen a worsening of the epidemic of violence against Black transgender women, and at a Democratic forum a year ago, Elizabeth Warren read the names of recent trans homicide victims. At last night’s debate, both candidates were silent on the issue, although Biden has an extensive plan to address LGBTQ+ equality.

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.



READ NEWS SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.