Donald Trump may not have a sterling reputation when it comes to honesty, but during several key moments in Monday night's presidential debate, the Republican nominee managed to channel his inner George Washington and actually refrain from telling lies.
Unfortunately, Trump's moments of truthfulness—and they were few and far between—were all in regards to his history of being, well, pretty awful.
Here are four horrible things Donald Trump seemingly admitted to during the first presidential debate.
Not paying taxes.
Trump's refusal to release his full tax returns has been a sticking point during the campaign, prompting a growing chorus of critics to speculate on just what those documents might be hiding. During Monday's debate, the issue burst to the fore during a testy exchange over whether Trump would—or even could—share his tax forms publicly (spoiler: yes, he absolutely can.) When Hillary Clinton noted that the tax forms Trump had made available from several decades ago showed a number of years in which he hadn't paid federal income tax, Trump quipped simply, "that makes me smart."
Later, during a back-and-forth over the national debt, Hillary Clinton joked that perhaps the debt would be lower if Trump had paid his share in income taxes. His reply?
"If I did, it would be squandered."
Wanting to profit off the housing crisis.
During a fiery exchange over the economy, Clinton noted there were people who actively sought to leverage the housing crisis for profit.
"Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis," Clinton said. "He said, back in 2006, "Gee, I hope it does collapse, because then I can go in and buy some and make some money." Well, it did collapse."
For Trump, however, the financial catastrophe was just another day at the office. In response to Clinton's attack, he stated flatly, "that's called business, by the way."
Being sued for racism.
"Donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to African-Americans," Clinton told the debate crowd. "And he made sure that the people who worked for him understood that was the policy."
Rather than reject the allegations of racism, or express regret for his past, Trump minimized the charges as simply "one of those things."
"Now, as far as the lawsuit," he began, "yes, when I was very young, I went into my father's company, had a real estate company in Brooklyn and Queens, and we, along with many, many other companies throughout the country — it was a federal lawsuit — were sued. We settled the suit with zero — with no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do."
Yes, not admitting guilt is very easy to do.
Continuing birther-ism.
When moderator Lester Holt noted that Trump had continued to push the birther lie for years and years after President Obama released his birth certificate, Trump didn't flinch.
"Yeah," he said.
"Nobody was caring much about it. But I was the one who got him to produce the birth certificate, and I think I did a good job," he congratulated himself, when asked by Holt to explain why he had a change of heart over the issue, despite having pursued it for years after President Obama offered irrefutable proof of his birth status.
Good job, Donald.