We learned a few things from CNN’s “town hall” with Donald Trump on Wednesday night: Even though he abandoned his policy of separating families at the border, he still defends it as a deterrent to illegal immigration and won’t rule out bringing it back if reelected. He is capable of getting a crowd to laugh along with him at the woman a jury just determined that he had sexually abused. And there is no effective way of fact-checking him in real time.
But we could have learned more. Here are a few questions I wish Trump had been asked:
- For the first two years you were president, Republicans held the House and the Senate. Why didn’t you get them to pass funding for a wall on the southern border? Did then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan outmaneuver you, or did you drop the ball?
- In your inaugural address in 2017, you referred to the scourges of crime and drugs, among other things, as “American carnage.” Crime rates, homicide rates and drug-overdose rates all rose during your presidency. Why did you fail to reduce the carnage?
- You included the trade deficit as a cause of that carnage. It, too, increased during your presidency. It kept increasing under President Biden, who has largely kept your trade policies. How do you explain this failure?
- You have been harshly criticized by many of the high-level officials you appointed, including an attorney general, a national security adviser, a defense secretary and two White House communications directors. Why do so many people who work with you turn against you? Are you bad at hiring people?
- In 2020, you said that you had “total” authority to end state lockdowns. Does that mean you were pleased with how long those lockdowns lasted?
- Many of your strongest supporters believe that coronavirus vaccines are one of the greatest public health atrocities in memory. You have said that the vaccine rollout was “one of the greatest miracles of the ages.” Who is wrong?
- If you win in 2024, will your appointees have to agree that you won the 2020 election in a “landslide”?
- Speaking of the 2020 election: If it was rigged against you, why did the people rigging it allow Republicans to flip 14 House seats? If your story were correct, what would it say about your performance of the presidential duty to protect the Constitution? Has anyone else in U.S. history had the presidency stolen from under him?
- You have maintained that Ron DeSantis has been a terrible governor of Florida and that he owes his election as governor to you. Then wasn’t endorsing him a terrible failure of judgment on your part?
- Joe Biden entered office at age 78. Is that too old for a president? How old will you be on Election Day?
- When defending yourself against E. Jean Carroll’s accusation of sexual assault, you explained that she wasn’t your “type.” Would you have attacked her if she were your type?
Getting into the weeds of factual disputes with Trump, even when he is provably wrong, is not a fruitful way to question him: He’ll just barrel ahead with his version of reality. It’s time to ask him some new questions.