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Darrell Ehrlick, Daily Montanan
I watched nearly 100 minutes of Donald Trump’s speech that he gave a week ago in Bozeman, one of his few recent public rallies.
Listening closely to it, it struck me as more of an impromptu jam session for the MAGA crowd than any serious policy speech or outreach to undecided voters.
Having either led or been a part of three fact-checking teams during Trump’s other visits, I can say with authority that tracing the contours of his speech can have a dizzying effect, like focusing too hard on the ball while watching a tennis match.
Yet, after Bozeman, I believe we have absolutely the wrong approach to fact-checking Trump. In fact, it’s completely backward.
We shouldn’t inform people of when Trump misstates or gives the wrong information: That happens so often that when fact-checkers report them, they hardly have any time to register before the next fact-free statement is made.
Instead, fact-checkers and journalists may want to consider only reporting what Trump said that is tethered to verifiable facts.
Trump’s meandering, invective-laced tirades aren’t getting more cohesive, nor coherent. From trying to pressure a Libertarian candidate into backing U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy to admitting that Nick Faldo has a better golf game, trying to fact-check the Republican presidential candidate is not futile, it just feels like it. You simply cannot prepare for any number of rabbit holes and tangents you’ll have to wander with him — and Bozeman was no exception.
I went through the speech, checking his facts — not his opinions or even his over-the-top statements. For example, when he called incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester a slob, while it is both offensive and mean-spirited, short of inspecting Tester’s house and following him around constantly, that is a matter of opinion, conjecture and name-calling and deserves no real comment. Trump is entitled to his opinions, no matter how cruel and off-putting they may seem to some of us.
And, I left statements that seemed self-evident alone because they, too, are simply not verifiable. For example, when Trump told the Bozeman audience that he “did a lot of bad name calling,” I tend to believe him because I’ve heard it. Name calling? Sure. Bad name calling? Probably. But, who gets to be the final judge on how bad is bad? Furthermore, a momentary dalliance with the truth or even an attempt at humor doesn’t mean that voters can trust what Trump is saying.
Instead, I was interested in both Trump’s policies and how he intends to make America better.
I could find just one statement that matched verified statistical truth: The poverty rate during his presidency did plunge to its lowest level in recent history, hitting 10.5% in the summer of 2019.
Nope on all the other statements.
Nope on Venezuela having the lowest violent crime statistics (it doesn’t; it has one of the world’s highest, eclipsing that of even Haiti).
Nope on lowest immigration rates (that was during George W. Bush’s tenure in 2007).
Nope on having more proven oil reserves than Saudi Arabia or Russia.
Trump’s relationship with truth has always been rocky, but the point of slow walking his speech isn’t to prove what many people already know and believe: That the man, at most, has his facts wrong. It’s not to call him a liar, because years of fact-checking by publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post have documented them, literally by the thousands.
Instead, it’s to point out the simple and amazing feat of speaking for nearly 90 minutes (excepting interludes from aggrieved White House doctor turned Texas politician Ronny Jackson) and only producing a single verifiable fact that doesn’t involve Trump’s favorite subject, himself.
We have serious issues facing voters in November, some national and some statewide. Simply declaring that inflation will drop because he will be president isn’t a fact anymore than his insistence that unemployment hit a historic low during his first presidency, (again, not true, current President Joe Biden had the lowest).
We have a housing crisis, climate change that is wreaking destruction on the country, and an unstable world with conflicts in Russia and Israel.
Politicians will get away with whatever the people who support them accept. And right now, it appears that the conservative crowd backing Trump is more content to listen to his bluster and names than they crave answers. But that, if anything, shows how far the stolid, circumspect, even boring-by-comparison Republican Party has drifted. It was once a steady and disciplined party much less concerned with gender and guns, and more interested in fiscal discipline and growing the economy.
Calling a person a slob isn’t a policy position.
And, the American voters will have to choose which candidates best align with their values, beliefs and needs.
But, when it comes to a side-by-side analysis of the two major parties candidates’ stances on the issues, it’s nearly impossible unless Kamala Harris has an opinion on Nick Faldo.
Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com. Follow Daily Montanan on Facebook and X.
