WATCH: Chris Christie Tells Four Obvious Lies in 90 Seconds While Jon Karl Tries to Not Laugh at Him

WATCH: Chris Christie Tells Four Obvious Lies in 90 Seconds While Jon Karl Tries to Not Laugh at Him

How many lies can Chris Christie tell in under 90 seconds and get away with no pushback from a panel moderator?

Based on Sunday’s episode of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, the answer is four. Four whoppers, all well-known to anyone even mildly versed in the last few years of American politics. And yet Stephanopoulos let him get away with it.

First up, in defending economic growth under President Trump, Christie said this: “I saw Joe Biden say that he [Trump] inherited the Obama-Biden economy. They never saw three percent growth in a quarter.”

This is wildly, wildly false. The economy under Obama saw eight quarters in which economic growth as measured by the gross domestic product was 3 percent or higher. Christie just flat-out lied.

Christie’s second whopper came when he made the comment that Trump “is a difficult figure for some people to support.” One of the other panelists corrected him by saying “most people.” To which Christie responded “Not most, because guess what, he won the election last time.”

This is another wildly false statement. Anyone even mildly interested in national politics knows that Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by about 3 million, and only squeaked into office through the anti-majoritarian mechanism that is the Electoral College. A vast majority of the electorate voted for someone else. He has never commanded the support or approval of a majority of voters.

Again, there was no pushback from Stephanopoulos.

The third whopper came when panelist Yvette Simpson called Trump “the least popular president in a generation.” Christie responded that “is just not true.”

Actually it is very true. Trump’s aggregate approval rating as measured by FiveThirtyEight has stayed in the low forties for the entirety of his presidency. At the one-year anniversary of his term, he was by far the least popular president of the postwar era. At the two-year mark, only Ronald Reagan had a lower approval rating among recent presidents, and that was when the country had just gone through the recession of 1982.

Christie then tried to claim that Barack Obama’s approval ratings “were exactly the same as Donald Trump’s right now at this exact same time in his presidency.” Again, this is simply not true. At this point in his presidency, according to Gallup, Obama had a higher approval rating (49 percent to Trump’s 42 percent) and a significantly lower disapproval rating (43 percent to Trump’s 52 percent).

“So do you want to say that Barack Obama was the most unpopular president in a generation?” Christie challenged SimpsonTo which the answer is that no, she does not want to say it, because it is untrue.

Watch Christie tell his four whoppers while ABC reporter Jon Karl tries not to laugh in his face in the segment up top, via ABC.

 

Gary Legum

Gary Legum has written about politics and culture for Independent Journal Review, Salon, The Daily Beast, Wonkette, AlterNet and McSweeney's, among others. He currently lives in his native state of Virginia.

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