Famous for his success in front of the cameras on the reality show “The Apprentice,” President Donald Trump got a reality check Tuesday night during a town hall on ABC.
Accustomed to responding in his own way to questions from reporters who cover the day-to-day events at the White House during press conferences or in exclusive appearances on the sympathetic FOX News station, Trump faced tough questions from undecided voters in Pennsylvania, one of the most important states in the presidential election in November.
It was not the most pleasant of results for the current president, who won the election in Pennsylvania in 2016 by a little more than 44,000 votes, but who has been consistently lagging behind former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden in polls across the state.
In one of the most memorable moments of the evening, one the voters politely and firmly asked that the president stop interrupting her. “Please stop and let me finish my question, sir,” Ellesia Blaque said. Diagnosed with a chronic inflammatory illness, she questioned Trump about his plans to end protections for patients with preexisting conditions (health problems that patients have acquired before choosing a health care plan), established during former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The question highlighted one of the greatest priorities for American voters: the debate between adopting a universal public health care system and maintaining the current private structure, one of the most expensive in the world. “It’s a total disaster. You’re going to have new health care, and the preexisting condition aspect of it will always be in my plan,” Trump said, repeating a promise he has made since 2016, while failing to mention that he has been trying to overturn former President Barack Obama’s health care law, passed during the previous administration, and known as “Obamacare.”
Program moderator George Stephanopoulos persisted and pressed the president on his attempts to dismantle Obama’s health care plan — and with it, protection for preexisting conditions — even though Trump has never revealed his plan for replacing it. Trump retorted that his plan will be better. “But you haven’t come up with it,” Stephanopoulos clarified.
It Is China’s Fault
Still on the topic of health care, Trump also slipped when questioned about his administration’s response to the coronavirus. Voter Paul Tubiana is a diabetic conservative who voted for Trump in 2016. Even so, he did go easy on Trump. “Why did you throw vulnerable people like me under the bus?” he asked.
Trump blamed China, listing a series of dubious statistics. “Well, we have 20% of the cases because of the fact that we do much more testing. If we wouldn’t do testing, you wouldn’t have cases. You would have very few cases.” He called his administration’s response “fantastic.” The United States has more than 6.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and more than 195,000 deaths have been caused by the coronavirus.
When questioned about his resistance to recommending the use of face masks, the current president transferred the responsibility to Joe Biden, his opponent in the November election, who currently does not hold any public office. “And a good question is, you ask why Joe Biden. They (the Democrats) said at the Democrat convention they’re going to do a national mandate. They never did it,” said Trump.
“Could you have done more to stop it?” Stephanopoulos asked. “I don’t think so,” the president responded. “We’re going to be OK, and it is going away … It would go away without the vaccine,” he said, contradicting the opinion of the American government’s own specialists.
The Black Community Is Experiencing the ‘Best Single Moment in … History,’ Trump Says
And when he didn’t misrepresent the truth or shift the blame to others, Trump simply dodged the question, as he did with the Rev. Carl Day, who pressed him about the slogan “Make America Great Again.” “When has America been great for African Americans in the ghetto of America?” Day asked.
“Well, I can say this, we have tremendous African American support,” the president said, alleging that the U.S. was experiencing “the best single moment in the history of the African American people in this country” before the pandemic hit the United States. It is as if the wave of protests against police brutality that disproportionately affect the Black community did not spread throughout the country after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and many others in 2020 alone.
Outside his comfort zone and the fabricated reality of his time as a TV star, Trump performed poorly. Perhaps it was not poorly enough for him to lose votes from his loyal supporters, but enough to show the gap that exists between the White House and real life.
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