Chris Hayes exposed a “really amazing tell” from Donald Trump’s recent campaign speech in which the former president asked the crowd if they were better off now than they were “five years ago,” comparing his presidency to Biden’s.
“Were you better off five years ago or are you better off today?” Trump asked during the New Hampshire rally.
“Do you know what he said? Five years. Are you better off than five years ago?” Hayes said on Wednesday night’s “All in With Chris Hayes,” noting that “obviously” Trump was referencing Ronald Reagan’s “iconic” line that he said during his 1980 presidential campaign.
“Somehow it’s five years instead of four, and there’s a very obvious reason for that. Because four years ago — let’s see if we can do the math — it was 2020,” Hayes continued.
The MSNBC host went on to detail how four years ago the world was facing “the worst pandemic in 100 years” thanks to COVID-19. He also detailed “tens of millions” of people lost their jobs during this time, the unemployment rate was the highest it had been since the Great Depression and that the murder rate was up.
“We had mass graves in New York City, and the President was suggesting that people treat the deadly virus by injecting bleach or shining UV light inside their body or taking a horse tranquilizer,” Hayes continued. “There was a genuine palpable ever-present sense of chaos and social unraveling throughout America throughout its towns and cities.”
“So, just in terms of objective metrics, a lot of things were going haywire in this country four years ago while Donald Trump was President,” Hayes said.
He then went on to explain that every “major” economic indicator is up under President Biden, including high employment and low fuel prices. The only exception Hayes noted is that consumer confidence is down.
“They should embrace the argument head on, what America was really like four years ago — four years ago. Because the answer, whether you were better off in 2020 under Donald Trump than you are now as we kick off 2024, is plain as day,” Hayes concluded.
It should also be noted that 2020 was an unprecedented time globally due to COVID-19. Similarly, because the world has had to recover from the long-lasting economic effects of this deadly virus over the past several years, it’s difficult to compare the past four years to pre-pandemic times.
