Trump’s Word Salad Debate Answer on Afghanistan Deserves a Fact-Check

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Donald Trump had a long-winded, barely coherent answer about his administration’s Afghanistan policy, where the U.S. was negotiating with the Taliban.

Trump claimed that the Taliban was killing a lot of U.S. soldiers with snipers, and that he spoke to “Abdul,” who he claimed was and is the head of the Taliban, warning him against continuing those murders. Trump said that “Abdul” asked, “Why do you send me a picture of my house?”

Trump, by his own account, purportedly responded, “You’re going to have to figure that out, Abdul,” and said that for 18 months, no U.S. soldiers were killed.

In reality, almost none of this is true. The head of the Taliban since 2016 has been a cleric named Hibatullah Akhundzada, although one of the Taliban’s negotiators with the United States was Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of Akhundzada’s deputies. A former Wall Street Journal reporter also notes that the Taliban didn’t use snipers often and was more effective at killing people with IEDs.

Nor did Trump oversee an 18-month stretch where no U.S. soldiers were killed. There was one such stretch where no U.S. service members were killed in combat, but it happened from March 2020 to August 2021, half of which was during Joe Biden’s presidency.

Last month, Trump’s former national security adviser, General H.R. McMaster, told CNN that Trump’s negotiations with the Taliban resulted in the U.S. forcing the Afghan government to release 5,000 members of the extremist organization, a fact that Kamala Harris was only too happy to point out during the debate in her takedown of his word salad.

Trump tried to claim Tuesday night that if he were president during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, it would have gone a lot differently and favorably, with no U.S. casualties. In reality, it would have likely gone as badly, if not worse, and Trump would have had the benefit of a compliant right-wing media backing him to the hilt.

It’s official: Childless Cat Lady Taylor Swift is voting for Kamala Harris.

The pop superstar managed to completely erase all buzz around the presidential debate Tuesday night by coming out in favor of the Democratic nominee. She shared a post on her Instagram, alongside a photo of herself with one of her cats.

“Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most,” Swift wrote.

She slammed Donald Trump for creating a weird A.I. version of the singer and making the fake Swift endorse Trump. The real Swift cited this moment as one of the reasons she decided to be “very transparent” about her voting plans.

“The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth,” she said.

“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”

Swift urged her fans to register to vote and to vote early, and included information for how to do both in her Instagram story. She then cheekily signed her post,

With love and hope,
Taylor Swift
Childless Cat Lady

Harris (as well as her predecessor on the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden) and Trump have been vying for Swift’s endorsement. In addition to being a musical powerhouse and an elite NFL WAG (wife and girlfriend), Swift has proven herself to be an influential political voice in recent years. In October, Swift posted on Instagram for National Voter Registration Day, resulting in more than 35,000 new voter registrations—a 23 percent increase compared to the same day the year before.

Donald Trump tried to sidestep giving a policy position on health care, and walked straight off a rhetorical cliff.

During the presidential debate Tuesday night, Trump struggled to answer a question about his health care plan, accidentally revealing that he didn’t have one at all.

After his particularly lackluster response criticizing Obamacare but giving no alternatives, ABC moderate Linsey Davis asked Trump outright if he knew what he was talking about. “Yes or no, you still do not have a plan?” she said.

“I have concepts of a plan,” Trump replied. “I’m not president right now.”

“But if we come up with something, I would only change it if we come up with something that is better and less expensive. And there are concepts and options we have to do that. And you will be hearing about it in the not too distant future.”

On X, people immediately jumped on Trump’s pathetic response as being relatable … for being total bullshit.

Trump’s ridiculous nonanswer reminded users of the most pathetic characters television has to offer.

Donald Trump’s take on Kamala Harris’s racial identity somehow managed to get even worse.

During Tuesday night’s debate, the former president was probed about his controversial statements on Harris’s racial identity, including that the biracial Democrat had “turned Black.”

“I want to ask a bigger picture question tonight. Why do you think that it’s appropriate to weigh in on the racial identity of your opponent?” prompted ABC’s David Muir.

“I don’t. And I don’t care,” Trump said. “I don’t care what she is. I don’t care.”

“You make a big deal out of something, I couldn’t care less. Whatever she wants to be is OK with me,” he continued. “All I can say is that I read where she was not Black—that she put out, I’ll say that. And then I read that she was Black. And that’s OK. Either one is OK with me. That’s up to her.”

Trump’s outrageous claim first sprang up at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in early August, when the 78-year-old white candidate tried and failed to curry favor with the crowd by trash-talking Harris’s racial identity.

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said at the convention, seemingly unable to grasp how a biracial person (multiracial people now make up more than 10 percent of the U.S. population, according to the 2020 census) could have two parents from different cultures but still manage to appreciate both.

Speaking on his foreign policy prowess during Tuesday’s debate, Donald Trump made sure to brag about his endorsement from a dictator.

“I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they say you’re a disgrace,” said Kamala Harris, telling Trump that his debate performance proves he does not have the “temperament” to lead the country.

In response, Donald Trump flaunted his relationship with authoritarian Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán.

“Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men—they call him a ‘strongman’—he’s a tough person, smart,” Trump started off, then stating that Orbán told American leaders, “You need Trump back as president.”

Boasting about the support of a prime minister who has decried “mixed race nations,” called for “a Europe of nation states,” and helped demolish democratic guardrails in Hungary is certainly a choice.

“China was afraid of him, North Korea was afraid of him … Russia was afraid of him,” said Trump, speaking in the third person, trying to show his own strongman tendencies.

“These dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again,” Kamala Harris responded later in the debate. “You adore strongmen instead of caring about democracy.”

Trump smiled and nodded.