Listen to any Democrat spinning President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week, and one of the lines you’ll hear is, “Yes, Biden had a bad night, but Donald Trump repeatedly lied.” To be fair, falsehoods poured from Trump much as usual, but the dichotomy Democrats wish to suggest is a false one. Biden was just as dishonest. He lied constantly, as he always does. Biden has a long history of not telling the truth, going all the way back to his first failed presidential campaign in 1987.

Before we address Biden’s debate claims, it is only equitable to note some of Trump’s worst falsehoods. He did not, as he claimed, deliver the biggest tax cut in American history (that honor still belongs to President Ronald Reagan), it was not Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who turned down National Guard protection before Jan. 6 (that was the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms), and illegal immigrants are not destroying Social Security and Medicare (although they are a huge burden to state and local governments that have to house, clothe, feed, and educate them, they do not qualify for Medicare or Social Security benefits).

Now consider Biden. He claimed early in the debate that he is the “only president this century that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world.” This statement was a huge surprise and insult to the families of the 13 American servicemen and women who died during Biden’s reckless and negligent withdrawal from Afghanistan. The three service members killed by a drone in Jordan this January also apparently escaped Biden’s memory.

Biden then fantastically claimed that we’re now “in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally. It’s better than when he left office.” Border crossings are down from this December’s record-high 301,983 migrants arrested for illegally crossing the border, but that was a 300% increase from Trump’s last month in office. In total, over 7 million illegal immigrants have been arrested illegally crossing the southern border under Biden, and the president has released millions of them into the country. Far, far more than Trump ever did.

Relatedly, Biden claimed he had been endorsed by the Border Patrol union, a claim the union itself quickly denied, posting on X that night, “To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden.”

Biden said “the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe,” which should have been surprising to Biden himself, who said in 1986, “there is an overwhelming universal criticism by proponents of pro-choice and opponents of pro-choice that Roe v. Wade wasn’t very well-reasoned.” Maybe he just forgot that too. 

Biden claimed that unemployment was 15% when he came into office, and that “there were no jobs. … It was terrible.” In reality, the economy was already rapidly recovering under Trump, adding 1.4 million jobs a month with a 6.4% unemployment rate when Biden was sworn into office. Since Biden became president, job growth has slowed to 400,000 jobs a month.

As important as all these Biden lies are, however, they don’t break but extend the record of falsehood he has achieved in the past. During his first presidential campaign, Biden falsely claimed he was the first in his family to go to college, falsely claimed he finished in the top half of his law school class, and was forced to exit the 1988 Democratic primary after being exposed for plagiarizing a campaign speech.

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But the biggest lie of all is the one Biden is still telling right now: that he is mentally competent to be president of the United States until the age of 86. For months, the White House has attacked those who claimed Biden has lost even a step mentally. Now, after last Thursday’s debate performance, everyone knows the truth. Biden is a shadow of even his unimpressive former self, unable to complete sentences and finish a train of thought.

There are many contrasts between Biden and Trump, but honesty is not one of them.