In her first press conference as Joe Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris told multiple lies. To wit:
“The president’s mismanagement of the pandemic has plunged us into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” Harris said.
False. The pandemic and its associated lockdowns, not the president, are responsible for the economic contraction. Donald Trump is not the president of the euro zone, which suffered through an even more dire economic contraction in the second quarter: minus 40.3 percent, on an annualized basis, as against minus 32.9 percent in the US. The U.K. suffered a contraction of 59.8 percent, also on an annualized basis. Donald Trump is not the prime minister of the United Kingdom. The U.S. economy did slightly better than Germany’s in the second quarter. And it’s questionable to compare the current crisis to the Great Depression, which was not only deep but lasted more than a decade. The U.S. added 1.8 million jobs in July and Goldman Sachs predicts 25 percent (annualized) GDP growth in the current third quarter, which would mark an end to the U.S. recession after two quarters.
“Just look where [Trump and Mike Pence] have gotten us. . . . Millions of kids who cannot go back to school,” Harris said.
Wrong. It is not Donald Trump’s decision whether kids go back to school, because the federal government does not run schools, but he has urged the schools to reopen. The primary reason kids cannot go back to school is opposition from teachers’ unions. The second-largest teachers’ union is threatening to strike if schools reopen.
“Six years ago, in fact, we had a different health crisis,” Harris said. “It was called Ebola. We all remember that pandemic.”
Incorrect. Ebola was an outbreak, not a pandemic, according to the World Health Organization.
“This virus has impacted almost every country,” Harris said. “But there’s a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously.”
Wrong. Several advanced nations have suffered more fatalities per million population than the U.S.: Belgium, the U.K., Spain, Italy, Sweden. Donald Trump is not in charge of any of these countries.