Chris Christie wasn’t the only blatant liar at Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate. Donald Trump joined him in that category, although … let’s be honest, we’re kind of used to it from Trump by now, right? The issue: whether Trump called for a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
At the debate Thursday, Mr. Cavuto raised the subject again, bringing up Mr. Trump's comments to The Times's editorial board.
"That's wrong," he said. "They were wrong. It's The New York Times. They're always wrong."
But the recording speaks for itself:
“I would tax China coming in — products coming in. I would do a tariff. And they do it to us. We have to be smart. I’m a free trader. I’m a free trader. And some of the people would say, ‘Oh, it’s terrible.’ I’m a free trader. I love free trade. But it’s got to be reasonably fair. I would do a tax, and the tax — let me tell you what the tax should be. The tax should be 45 percent."
Has there been a single debate at which Trump didn’t deny having said something he had definitely said?
If Trump’s legion of supporters didn’t hold him accountable for any of the other times this has happened, it seems unlikely that lying about his tariff proposals will be the thing that finally brings him down. So maybe we should give Christie the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he thought everyone got to operate by Trump rules in this race and that’s why he told a lie he was certain to get caught on. But that would be a foolish thought. Trump, and Trump alone, gets to operate by Trump rules.