Author’s note: This is the analysis of one round of the 2024 Presidential debate between Biden and Trump. It is linked from a more comprehensive article.
Question: Why should voters trust you to solve this crisis?
TRUMP: Look, we had the safest border in the history of our country. The border – all he had to do was leave it. All he had to do was leave it.
Non-responsive. The question is why voters should trust him to solve the crisis, not why Biden can’t.
Hyperbole. As always, it was best when Trump was around and the worst when he wasn’t. The problem is, there’s no simple metric for a safe secure border. We might accept the border was more secure under Trump, but in the history of our country? Discuss that question with Native Americans.
It’s also factually incorrect. The current surge started during the last year of Trump’s term, and was sparked by factors other than Trump’s or Biden’s policies (including social and economic havoc in South and Central America). In addition, government records showed the number of immigrants making across the border increased by 50 percent during his term.
He decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists. We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now. All terrorists, all over the world – not just in South America, all over the world. They come from the Middle East, everywhere. All over the world, they’re pouring in. And this guy just left it open.
Red herring and besides the point. Immigrants have always come from all over the world. That doesn’t make them bad.
Not only does he repeat the claim, but, once again, he escalates the claim. Now it’s terrorists from all over the world crossing the Mexico/US border.
The claim that Biden just left the border open is a gross exaggeration. The fact that Biden softened some Trump policies is not opening them. His administration continues to turn back migrants including increased fencing, surveillance, and on-ground patrols, with more walls, detention centers, and expulsions coming.
It is also a logical fallacy of division, assuming that what is partially true is true in all circumstances. Looser borders is not open borders.
And he didn’t need legislation because I didn’t have legislation. I said, close the border. We had the safest border in history. In that final couple of months of my presidency, we had, according to Border Patrol – who is great, and, by the way, who endorsed me for president. But I won’t say that. But they endorsed me for president.
Brandon, just speak to him.
But, look, we had the safest border in history. Now we have the worst border in history. There’s never been anything like it. And people are dying all over the place, including the people that are coming up in caravans.
Red herring. Whether border control requires legislation or executive order doesn’t explain why voters should trust him to solve the immigration crisis.
Misses the point. Legislative solutions are more permanent, and not subject to the whims of changing administrations.
We have a huge brain fart that the press glossed over in their coverage of the debate. Perhaps as big as “we killed Medicare.” Let’s dissect it:
“We had the safest border in history. In that final couple of months of my presidency, we had, according to Border Patrol – who is great, and, by the way, who endorsed me for president. But I won’t say that. But they endorsed me for president.” Trump never completes the first thought. He was about to cite the border patrol, and then never does. He segues to “they’re great, the endorsed me.”
He immediately says, “But I won’t say what I said.” Except then he says exactly that. I won’t call it a contradiction because he’s clearly lost his train of thought.
“Brandon. Just speak to him.” This is an absolute non sequitur, as was “We killed Medicare.” The reference is clearly to Biden’s nickname with the Alt Right, Brandon (as in “Fuck you, Brandon!”), but why we would speak to Biden/Brandon isn’t clear.
People dying all over the place is another red herring, and a gross exaggeration. It’s also 1) misleading (the fallacy of ambiguity). He’s conflating migrant deaths en route to the border with deaths caused by US Border Policy, and 2) hyperbole. Migrants aren’t dying all over the place. Between 1988 and 2023 8,000 immigrant deaths have been documented. Doubtless there were more, but that’s hardly all over the place.
Trump’s claims about legislation v. executive action begs the question. When Biden’s legislation initiatives were rebuffed by House Republicans hoping to keep the immigration issue in Trump’s pocket, Biden did an end run and used executive action exactly like Trump did.
Round 5a. Deportation
Question to Trump: Will you deport every undocumented immigrant in America, including those who have jobs, including those whose spouses are citizens, and including those who have lived here for decades? And if so, how will you do it?
TRUMP: Can I get one second?
(Biden) said we killed three people. The people we killed are al-Baghdadi and Salamani (sic), the two greatest terrorists, biggest terrorists anywhere in the world. And it had a huge impact on everything; not just border, on everything.
Although this is a rebuttal to a Biden comment, we see the same Trump strategy.
Hyperbole. Al-Baghdadi and Soleimani were among the most wanted terrorists, but the biggest anywhere in the world? Bigger than Osama bin Laden who engineered the World Trade Center attacks(taken out by the Obama/Biden administration)?
“A huge impact on everything, not just the border” is more hyperbole and a gross exaggeration. That their deaths had an impact on the U.S. Mexico border is doubtful. Everything? More doubtful. I’m not even sure we can measure that. This is another causation fallacy.
He’s the one that killed people with the bad border, including hundreds of thousands of people dying, and also killing our citizens when they come in. We – we are living right now in a rat’s nest. They’re killing our people in New York, in California, in every state in the union, because we don’t have borders anymore. Every state is now a border.
And because of his ridiculous, insane and very stupid policies, people are coming in and they’re killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen. We call it migrant crime. I call it Biden migrant crime.
Back to the killer immigrant argument, but exaggerated even more. Now it’s “hundreds of thousands” of deaths in every state of the union.
Every state is now a border is not only hyperbole, but nonsense. If it was true, we’d have border patrol agents stationed between New York and Massachusetts.
It’s also a lie. Criminal arrests of noncitizens for homicide did rise significantly during COVID (122), but dropped again after the pandemic subsided (52). Furthermore, statistics don’t distinguish between arrests for murder of US citizens, and arrests for murder of other immigrants. Two hundred homicides are a far cry from hundreds of thousands. In fact, studies indicate migrants are less likely to commit violent crimes.
Biden migrant crime is an ad hominem. Especially since statistics don’t show when arrested noncitizens crossed the border, or even if they crossed the US-Mexico border.
They’re killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen before. And you’re reading it like these three incredible young girls over the last few days. One of them, I just spoke to the mother, and we just had the funeral for this girl, 12 years old.
This is horrible what’s taken place. What’s taken place in our country, we’re literally an uncivilized country now.
Now he’s just playing to emotion. Who doesn’t empathize with the deaths of young girls?
Fallacy of division. Three homicides, while tragic, don’t show a nation-wide problem.
His claim that the three murders occurred over the last few days is a lie, or at least a gross exaggeration. The deaths occurred within the last year, and the other two victims, Lakin Riley and Rachel Morin, were adults. (Morin was 37.)
The statement that this is an uncivilized nation is an unfounded assertion, especially when coming from a man who encouraged a riot and advocates violence against his perceived enemies.
He doesn’t want it to be. He just doesn’t know. He opened the borders nobody’s ever seen anything like. And we have to get a lot of these people out and we have to get them out fast, because they’re going to destroy our country.
This is another gross exaggeration, hyperbole, and unfounded assertion. There is no evidence to support this claim. However, it is consistent with the Great White Replacement Theoryembraced by many of his followers.
Just take a look at where they’re living. They’re living in luxury hotels in New York City and other places.
The hotels are another red herring, and also false. The city used those hotels to quarantine migrants who had qualified to seek (seek, not get) asylum during the pandemic. And they weren’t living in luxury hotels. New York City converted 100 hotels (both luxury and pedestrian) and office spaces to temporary housing to handle the influx of migrants shipped to the state from Texas and Florida.
Our veterans are on the street, they’re dying, because he doesn’t care about our veterans. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t like the military at all. And he doesn’t care about our veterans. Nobody’s been worse. I had the highest approval rating for veterans, taking care of the V.A. He has the worst.
Where to begin. Veterans are yet another red herring and an example of a false cause fallacy. There is nothing connecting homeless veterans to immigrants, a claim the Military Times debunked as a hoax.
Nor did Trump get the highest approval for his veteran’s policies. In fact, he lied about awards he never received. The Obama administration started many of his touted reforms with the support of Trump’s arch-enemy John McCain. Nor can we forget his calling soldiers and veterans “suckers.” (Which he denied despite confirmation by his own Chief of Staff.)
He’s gotten rid of all the things that I approved, choice, that I got through Congress. All of the different things I approved, they abandoned.
Trump’s claim is ironic, considering that’s exactly what Trump did with Obama’s policies.
It is a lie that Trump got those policies through Congress. If he had, Biden couldn’t have reversed them. Trump reversed 20 Obama policies by executive order. While Biden did overturn many Trump policies, he also continued many of Trump’s border policies and tariffs.
We had, by far, the highest, and now it’s down in less than half because he’s done – all these great things that we did – and I think he did it just because I approved it, which is crazy. But he has killed so many people at our border by allowing…
Trump’s just rambling here. We might call it a summation, but it feels like he’s just riffing on his favorite tunes.
TAPPER: Thank you, President Trump.
TRUMP: … all of these people to come in.
TAPPER: President Biden…
TRUMP: And it’s a very sad day in America.
TAPPER: President Biden, you have the mic.
Notice that Trump continues to talk and they don’t turn off his mic.
Round 5b: Rebuttal—Who cared more for veterans
BIDEN: …I was recently in – in – in France for D-Day, and I spoke to all – about those heroes that died. I went to the World War II cemetery – World War I cemetery he refused to go to. He was standing with his four-star general, and he told him – he said, I don’t want to go in there because they’re a bunch of losers and suckers.
My son was not a loser. He was not a sucker. You’re the sucker. You’re the loser.
TRUMP: First of all, that was a made-up quote, suckers and losers. They made it up. It was in a third-rate magazine that’s failing, like many of these magazines. He made that up. He put it in commercials. We’ve notified them. We had 19 people that said I didn’t say it. And think of this, who would say – I’m at a cemetery, or I’m talking about our veterans – because nobody’s taken better care – I’m so glad this came up, and he brought it up. There’s nobody that’s taken better care of our soldiers than I have.
The Atlantic took the information about the suckers remark from four different sources before they ran with it. His own Chief of Staff, John Kelly, confirmed the comment on the record. Nor have any of my searches revealed the names of the 19 officials he claims can back him up.
The claim that no president has taken better care of our troops is debatable and a gross exaggeration. He left office with troops still fighting in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, he undermined civilian-military relations by using service members to promote political events, and sidelined the military justice system by pardoning members found guilty of war crimes.
To think that I would, in front of generals and others, say suckers and losers – we have 19 people that said it was never said by me. It was made up by him, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was made up, just like the 51 intelligence agents are made up, just like the new thing with the 16 economists are talking.
It’s the same thing. Fifty-one intelligence agents said that the laptop was Russia disinformation. It wasn’t. That came from his son Hunter. It wasn’t Russia disinformation. He made up the suckers and losers, so he should apologize to me right now.
I don’t know where to begin. This is a tangled mess of assertions and bad grammar. Do I count it as three short, consecutive brain farts, or one long loud but ridiculous fart? (I’m going with three.) The 51 agents refers to a Republican claim about Hunter Biden’s laptop, a disputed charge that hasn’t been been prosecuted for lack of evidence despite a number of publicized hearings.
The “new thing with the 16 economists are talking” comment refers to 16 Nobel laureates who say Trump policies will fuel inflation, which he folds into an entirely separate claim about Hunter Biden as though both were related (also known as an association fallacy).
I find it ironic that Trump demands an apology for making a claim that’s been backed by a number of sources, but makes no attempt to apologize himself (outrage fallacy).
None of these, of course, have any relevance to whether he called our troops “suckers”