Vox answers your biggest questions about the 2020 US presidential election , which could be one of the most consequential of our lifetimes.

While the Democratic presidential candidates debated in Houston on Thursday night about environmental policy, the role of racism in American society, health care access, and other issues, President Donald Trump gave a speech to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore. The contrast between the president and the Democrats who are vying to take his job was remarkable.

Perhaps the clearest distinction came as Trump resurrected his fake middle-class tax cuts while Democrats had a detailed conversation about how to provide affordable health care to more people without dramatically raising taxes — within minutes of each other.

“We’re now working on a tax cut for middle-income people that is going to be very, very inspirational,” he told House Republicans, bringing up an idea he hyped just before last November’s midterm elections, only to forget about it as soon as it came and went. “It’s going to be something that I think it’s what everybody is looking for. We’ll be announcing it sometime in the next year.”

Trump pushes more fake middle-income tax cuts!



"We're now working on a tax cut for middle-income people that is going to be very, very inspirational. It's going to be something that I think it's what everybody is looking for, & we'll be announcing it sometime in the next year." pic.twitter.com/2pQZU2hqjo — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2019

While one can pick holes in the tax plans offered by Democrats, at least they’re coherent plans. Trump, on the other hand, is offering soundbites that he thinks will play well with voters without seemingly having any intention of following through.

But Trump has a long history of this sort of thing. On Tuesday, for instance, he vowed that Republicans “will always protect patients with preexisting conditions,” despite the fact that two years ago he wholeheartedly embraced health care legislation that would’ve resulted in millions of people losing coverage. Trump even mocked the late Sen. John McCain during his speech for voting against it.

Trump mockingly mimics John McCain's vote against ACA repeal pic.twitter.com/sAU0lTRMB0 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2019

That was par for the course in Trump’s more than hour-long speech, during which he made a number of outlandish and self-refuting claims. He began by bragging about the move his administration made earlier in the day to repeal an Obama-era rule meant to limit pollution in America’s rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands. But a short time later, he seemed to accidentally admit that rules of that sort have helped the country’s water remain relatively clean.

“The Clean Waters act didn’t give you clean waters — by the way, today we have the cleanest air, we have the cleanest water that we’ve ever had in the history of our country,” Trump said, falsely, combining two statements that directly contradict each other.

Trump is totally incoherent. He claims the Clean Waters Act "didn't give you clean water," but then in the very next breath says "by the way, today, we have the cleanest air, we have the cleanest water that we've ever had in the history of our country." (This is a lie.) pic.twitter.com/wLsuHRyrid — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2019

When he wasn’t contradicting himself or gaslighting, Trump offered hyperbolic commentary about MS-13 (“They take young women. They slice them up with a knife. They slice them up — beautiful, young.”), Democratic presidential candidates (“They’re gonna take your money, they’re gonna take — and very much hurt — your families.), and expressed his now-familiar ignorance about wind energy.

“If you happen to be watching the Democrat debate and the wind isn’t blowing, you’re not going to see the debate ... ‘the goddamn windmill stopped!’” he said.

Trump on wind energy: "If you happen to be watching the Democrat debate and the wind isn't blowing, you're not going to see the debate ... 'the goddamn windmill stopped!'" pic.twitter.com/sZQMqLo8KD — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2019

Trump even took aim at the city that was hosting the House Republican retreat, characterizing Baltimore as a city that has “been destroyed by decades of failed and corrupt rule.” He closed by promising some sort of major federal action unless Los Angeles and San Francisco take quick action to clean up homelessness.

The spectacle was dark, and at times brutal. Republicans, as they have mostly done since Trump became the Republican nominee for president in 2016, cheered.

Meanwhile, in Houston, Democratic presidential candidates took a few potshots at each other and, of course, at Trump — but they also got deep into the weeds of policy and outlined their respective visions of an America where immigrants are treated with respect, the climate crisis is taken seriously, and claims about health care proposals are backed up with actual plans.

The difference couldn’t have been clearer. Then again, it was just as clear in 2016.

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