Trump’s flawed Rose Garden assault on Joe Biden

President Trump’s media event Tuesday — which was mostly an extended monologue — was like watching our database of Trumpian claims unroll in real time. So many of Trump’s rhetorical favorites were tossed out — that he had built the best economy in U.S. history (no), that he inherited few ventilators (no), that he overrode his aides to impose some travel restrictions on China (no), that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “danced” in the streets in defiance of the coronavirus (no), that he “rebuilt” a “totally depleted” military (no), that the European Union was formed to take advantage of the United States (no). It went on and on.

But rather than rehash old ground, in this roundup we will focus on Trump’s claims against his election rival, former vice president Joe Biden. Violating norms and protocol, the president used the august setting of the Rose Garden for a sustained campaign-style attack. Here are some of the more noteworthy claims he made. We don’t award Pinocchios in roundups, but many of these statements are wildly off-course.

“Biden personally led the effort to give China permanent, most-favored nation status, which is a tremendous advantage for a country to have. Few countries have it. But the United States doesn’t have it. Never did. Probably never even asked for it, because they didn’t know what they were doing.”

False. “Most favored” trading status is one of those confusing inside-the-Beltway terms that apparently the president still does not understand. It just means normal trading relations. (As the World Trade Organization explains: “It suggests special treatment, but in the WTO it actually means non-discrimination — treating virtually everyone equally.”)