Refuting More MAGA Talking Points

Plus responding to objections to "The Comprehensive Case Against Trump"

Introduction

A few days ago I wrote The Comprehensive Case Against Trump, where I argued Trump is a blatantly corrupt, coup-attempting liar, who killed millions with foreign aid cuts, and devastated both the U.S. and global economy. His immigration policy is disastrous, he’s clearly authoritarian, and his war on scientific research and global trade is likely to make Americans poorer and sicker.

I was hoping that some MAGA supporters would respond. Instead, I was met with almost total silence. Many people left comments calling me a far-left kook and complaining about the Democrats—typically without stating any policies that were anywhere near as bad as the foreign aid cuts alone—but virtually none had any substantive critiques.

Now, obviously the mere fact that no one writes a response doesn’t mean your points are correct. But if, out of over fifty commenters, none have any serious factual criticisms, that indicates something about the veracity of the post.

I should note the one error that I made, pointed out by

Shaked Koplewitz

and

llaves

: I suggested that Trump has caused so many deaths through foreign aid cuts that even if he ended all wars, this wouldn’t outweigh the deaths he caused. Wars only cause about 80,000 deaths annually.

I now think that claim was overconfident. There are three big problems with my claim:

1. The source I cited looked at direct conflict deaths, but didn’t take into account indirect effects of wars. So the real impact of war is probably several times what I stated.

2. I cited a many year average, but war deaths have gone up in recent years. Last year, there were 240,000 war deaths.

3. Wars create serious risks to global stability in ways other deaths don’t. The Ukraine war, for instance, has some chance of going nuclear.

I thus think it’s not clear if Trump would be a good president if he brought about peace on Earth.

There was one other interesting objection that a commenter raised. He suggested that because the private sector is so innovative, perhaps tax cuts by putting more money into the hands of wealthy philanthropists will outweigh the badness of the foreign aid cuts. After all, if Bill Gates has some extra money, he can use it to do effective international charity.

This is almost definitely wrong:

1. Similar amounts of foreign aid comes from both the government and private sector. About 44 billion dollars goes overseas from private donors, and about 39 billion from the government. And the federal government hasn’t been cutting spending; it’s specifically targeted its cuts at foreign aid. While lots of government programs are wasteful and inefficient, foreign aid is one of the few programs that works very well. PEPFAR, for instance, saves lives about as cheaply as the top Givewell charities.

2. Trump hasn’t cut spending, he’s increased it. Cutting taxes just means we pay the money back later if spending isn’t cut.

3. By damaging the economy through tariffs and immigration cuts, Trump’s likely to make it harder for rich people to give effectively.

4. By undermining government research, new life-saving innovation is less likely to hit the market, and be used by philanthropists.

So, without any other serious criticisms of my post, I thought I’d simply respond to a few more of the pro-Trump talking points that I’ve seen.

Did Trump improve the Ukraine war?

Trump has claimed that Putin respects him and so won’t break ceasefires. The facts, however, tell a different story. Russian attacks on Ukraine have more than doubled since Trump took office. See the chart below.

There was a major increase in Russian aggression right as Trump was elected. This may be coincidence, but at the very least if one claims that Putin invading under Biden and Obama is evidence of their weakness, they should think this is evidence of Trump’s weakness. And aside from acting like he was going to stop funding Ukraine and then changing his mind—a decision likely to embolden Putin—Trump has done nothing to stop deaths in Ukraine.

Trump said repeatedly he’d end the war on day one. Promises made, promises not kept.

Did Trump reduce border crossings?

Yes but he did this in a terrible way! First he banned all asylum seekers, stranding 30,000 people with scheduled asylum claims in Mexico. This was overruled by the courts, though still asylum claims are mostly shut down. Asylum seekers who were in the process of applying were forced to start over. Dissidents who fled Russia for criticizing the regime were thrown into brutal detention facilities.

The government began dismissing asylum claims for people who had been in the U.S. two years or less. Trump shut down the CBP app which helped facilitate legal entry. He also ended catch and release, which allows asylum seekers and children of immigrants to be released in the U.S. rather than detained while waiting for their hearing.

He’s vitiated the legal status of a million people under the TPS program from from places like.

• Venezuela

• Afghanistan

• Cameroon

• Nepal

• Haiti

• Honduras

• Nicaragua

This sent people back to extremely dangerous countries. The JAC notes:

This impacts approximately 500,000 people who entered the U.S. lawfully, after their U.S. sponsors’ applications were approved and they were heavily vetted, before being granted temporary legal parole status.

In total this will affect a million people, who will be sent back to desperately poor countries like Venezuela. He also has unmarked ice agents plucking people off the street, many here legally, to meet immigration quotas. Other alarming elements of the administration’s foreign policy include:

1. Deporting people for anti-Israel speech (E.g. Rümeysa Öztürk).

2. Sending people without due process to CECOT, a facility rife with abuse.

3. Deploying the national guard over the protestations of governors.

4. Failing to spend congressionally-appropriated funds on refugee resettlement.

5. Prosecuting judges and elected officials for alleged interference with ICE.

6. Shutting down refugee resettlement from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Myanmar (carrying out an active genocide). This “has left 100,000 or more people around the world in limbo.” Ironically, refugee status was only granted to South Africans, meaning that people fleeing genocide in Myanmar can’t come to the U.S., but whites fleeing comparatively minor persecution in South Africa can.

7. Eliminating all visas from “Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.” People fleeing the most brutal governments on Earth—ruined because of us—can’t come the U.S..

8. Terminating huge numbers of student visas, including of people already here for free speech and traffic tickets.

9. Ending processing of legal immigrants already here, so that they are unable to apply to stay for longer, as well as raising fees on people submitting immigration forms.

10. Detaining DACA recipients who were brought to the U.S. as kids and have been here for decades.

11. Threatening to prosecute AOC for telling people that they don’t have to open the door to ICE if ICE doesn’t have a warrant.

12. Freezing funds for immigrant legal representation.

The AIC report concludes:

Rather than focus primarily on the border, recent entrants, or even those with criminal records, the Trump administration’s scattershot approach to enforcement is simultaneously targeting longtime residents, those with no criminal records, undocumented families, migrant children, undocumented workers, and random people—including some U.S. citizens with the misfortune to be caught standing near an ICE operation.

This fits data indicating most of the people being deported have committed no crimes while here, and 93% haven’t committed violent crimes.

Were asylum claims under Biden fraudulent? Is Trump’s immigration better?

No, only 34 claims were found to be fraudulent as of 2014. About half of asylum claims were granted, and many that weren’t granted weren’t bogus but just didn’t meet the legal definition of asylum. Most met the minimal bar for credible fear.

Biden attempted to pass a border bill that would crack down on illegal immigration. Trump called up his buddies in congress and got them to veto the bill because he wanted to keep immigration as a campaign issue.

In fact, the standard narrative about Biden and border enforcement just isn’t true:

1. Under Biden, border patrol arrested an unprecedented number of immigrants.

2. “From his administration’s first day, Biden actually increased border enforcement: arrests, detentions, and removals of border crossers all increased.”

3. Immigration to the U.S. had increased to an all-time high before Biden came into office.

4. Biden expelled more border crossers than Trump in his first term, and removed a similar percentage of border crossers as Trump.

5. The increased immigration under Biden was caused by title 42 expulsions leading to repeat crossings, title 42 asylum termination leading to greater incentive to evade border patrol, greater labor demand, and greater internet access to information about crossing.

6. The border crisis mostly ended under Biden because of greater legal immigration and a less hot labor market.

7. Biden didn’t cut border enforcement, and in fact increased it.

8. The border crisis was trending down before Trump was elected.

Is MAHA good?

One of the pro-Trump talking points is that RFK Junior’s MAHA program will improve American health.

Now, as I mentioned in the last post, RFK Junior is doing a lot to undermine American health. He’s inhibiting vaccine approval, vaccine distribution, and MRNA research which could cure cancer. The Trump administration has made it harder for foreign students to come to American universities and eviscerated significant federal funding for new medicine, making Americans vastly sicker. RFK Junior has also mostly gotten rid of a kind of thyroid medication that treats hyperthyroidism.

The Trump administration has also rolled back environmental regulations, which will lead to greater illness. RFK Junior does not remotely follow the evidence—we should be worried about him redesigning the food system.

The two main MAHA programs are both bad:

1. The banning of seed oils will lead to many businesses replacing them with beef tallow—despite no good evidence that they’re harmful. This will lead to more factory farming of cows and worse health.

2. The banning of red dye will increase insect farming potentially by trillions in hellish conditions, because cochineal farming used to color foods is a main competitor of traditional dyes. RFK Junior is trying to make you eat the bugs!

For this reason, I expect MAHA—and broader health initiatives—to do vastly more harm than good.

Did the Gabbard files show that Obama bogusly manufactured Russia-gate?

Tulsi Gabbard recently released files that purported to show that Obama had manufactured claims of Russian collusion. She cites claims that the intelligence community admitted Trump was “probably not trying … to influence the election by using cyber means.” The problem is that the files are mostly bogus. Russia was trying to interfere in the election by:

1. Setting up fake social media accounts using the internet research agency, costing 10 million per year.

2. Hacking targets and then selectively leaked hacked information.

3. Attempting to hack voter rolls (though not succeeding in changing any votes).

Intelligence granted that Russia was not directly hacking voting machines, but this doesn’t mean they weren’t involved in other interference. The full sentence reads that Russia was “probably not … trying to influence the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure.” The rest of Gabbard’s claims were similarly bogus.

Did Trump end a bunch of wars?

I recently heard it claimed that Trump “ended seven wars.” Similar claims were made by the White House. So I thought I’d investigate.

1. Azerbaijan and Armenia: conflicts really were ended by a 2023 Russian agreement. While the U.S. was present at the signing, the countries had already declared a mutual desire to end the conflict. Significant agreements to end the conflict began under Biden, and the conflict had pretty much ground to a halt by the time Trump was elected (no deaths in the last year). While Trump hosting the two nations was probably a good idea, it wasn’t anything revolutionary, and the conflict would likely have ended otherwise. There have been zero casualties since 2023.

2. Cambodia and Thailand: This one I think Trump gets some credit for. The agreement came shortly after he called up both sides and said he wouldn’t make a trade deal unless they had a peace agreement. However, other countries like China also played a big role in the ceasefire and hostilities are still high, with both sides accusing the other of violating the ceasefire. There’s serious risk of it not holding because the underlying disputes haven’t been resolved. The number of people killed is also in the low double digits. But overall, I’m happy to grant, I think Trump did pretty well here!

3. Egypt Ethiopia: as best I can tell, this is just Trump saying he’d like a deal and both leaders saying they’d like a deal too. And there’s no war, just some tension over the dam! This one seems like total nonsense for which Trump gets no credit—a classic case of someone listing 6 things and hoping to let a few nonsense points skate by. Trump even admitted that his 2020 “agreement” had been broken. In fact, by siding with Egypt, it seems Trump has made peace less likely.

4. Serbia Kosovo: the two signed a piece of paper around 2020, but it had limited effect. Trump’s later claim that there was a war that he stopped recently seems to have been completely made up.

5. Rwanda Congo: it’s true that Rwanda and Congo signed an agreement in Washington, for which Trump probably gets some credit. However “Foreign policy experts said the agreement is significant but part of a long string of broken agreements between the countries.” Most of the violence on Congo’s side is coming from the M23 militia, which was not party to the signing. This is why, despite the peace agreement, violence has continued in the region without abating.

6. India Pakistan: India and Pakistan had a ceasefire after minor clashes, but it doesn’t seem the U.S. played a role. Certainly their longstanding tension has not abated, and despite his repeated claims that he stopped a nuclear war, he did not. By siding with Pakistan, a state sponsor of terror, Trump harmed the U.S. India relationship and arguably made conflict likelier. And the recently negotiated agreement might not last because it doesn’t address any of the underlying issues.

7. Israel Iran: after Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, the U.S. attacked too. Then Trump declared a ceasefire, seemingly without consulting the parties involved. This ceasefire held. I don’t think that Trump gets much credit, especially because vaporizing the Iranian nuclear deal was the cause of the flare-up in the first place, and both sides seemed to have met their aim (Israel disrupting Iran, Iran having some limp response so that they could save face). This looked a lot like previous Iran-Israel ceasefires, and arguably the U.S. attack on Iran made them more likely to develop nuclear weapons.

So overall, no, Trump does not get credit for ending seven wars. He gets decent credit for ending the flare-up in Cambodia/Thailand, debatable credit in Israel/Iran and India/Pakistan (he plausibly made these worse), none in Serbia/Kosovo or Egypt/Ethiopia, and limited credit in Rwanda/Congo and Azerbaijan/Armenia. Overall, his record is better than I expected but nowhere near as good as he claims.

Epstein

Let’s close out by reviewing the relevant facts with respect to Epstein:

1. Epstein, said he was Trump’s “closest friend.”

2. The two were repeatedly photographed together.

3. Trump described him, in 2002, as a “terrific guy.” Most damningly, Trump said “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

4. Trump appeared repeatedly on Epstein’s flight logs.

5. Despite immense public pressure, and after repeatedly saying he’d release the Epstein list, Trump has not.

6. Apparently Trump was told by Bondi that he appeared in the files. Bondi said the list was on her desk, but then suspiciously walked it back.

7. When asked why he hasn’t released the files, Trump lied repeatedly.

8. Trump has admitted on tape to walking into the dressing room of models and been accused of sexual assault multiple times, credibly.

Conclusion

Overall, the case against Trump is very solid. He is an incompetent buffoon, utterly indifferent to the effects of his policies, motivated primarily by greed. There is no issue where his record is very good, and many where his record is completely disastrous!