Donald Trump is counting on voters' bad memories, especially around the year 2020 when the former President bungled his response to the pandemic, and grocery stores were empty. There were miles-long lines at food banks, and the GDP fell by 8.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020, making it the most significant single-quarter contraction in over 70 years. And then there was the toilet paper shortage. Who can forget that?

But Lumpy wants you to think that you were better off in 2020 than you are now with President Joe Biden at the helm. MSNBC's Chris Hayes dismantled Trump's talking point. Hayes says the Biden campaign should embrace that argument because "it is nearly impossible to say that we were better off with Donald Trump as president in 2020." He's not wrong.

Hayes featured this lie-filled X post by Sen. Tom Cotton:

"Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Hayes played a clip of Ronald Reagan saying. "Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we're as strong as we were four years ago? And if you answer all of those questions yes, why, then I think your choices are very obvious as to who you would vote for."

"Here comes Donald Trump, and somehow, it's five years instead of four," Hayes said. "There's a very obvious reason for that. Because four years ago, let's see if we can do the math, it was 2020. remember 2020? You and I were both here. We were in the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years, thousands of Americans were dying every day, and hospitals were overflowing. Morgues were overwhelmed. The dead bodies were being piled up in refrigerated trucks they had to bring in."

"We had mass graves being dug in New York City, and the president was suggesting that people treat the deadly virus by injecting bleach or shining UV light inside their body, or taking a horse dewormer. tens of millions of people lost their jobs," he continued. "The worst unemployment rate since the great depression. Across the country, millions of people turned to food banks, waiting in miles-long lines like this one."

"There was a genuine, palpable, ever-present sense of chaos and social unraveling throughout America, throughout its towns and cities. do you remember that in that year, 2020, the murder rate rose nearly 30% in one year?" he asked. "A completely unprecedented spike in violence. So just in terms of these objective matters, a lot of things were going haywire in this country four years ago while Donald Trump was President."

"So let's look at where things are four years later under President Joe Biden," he continued. "Thankfully, most of the pandemic is over. Even a spike in cases, as there are right around now, actually, this time of year, does not result in mass graves and morgues overflowing, in large part thanks to max vaccinations. On the economy, the country is having an incredible economic recovery, in some ways maybe the best it's ever seen. The unemployment rate has dropped below 4% and stayed there for the longest streak in literally 50 years."

"Job creation has exploded as the White House touts in that chart. Look at that. Over the course of the presidency, the US economy just added another 200,000 jobs in November," he said. "Manufacturing spending and investment is off the charts, almost literally. You see here, right? Look what happens. Yet another promise Donald Trump failed to follow through on during his time in office. Basically, every major economic indicator is up under President Joe Biden. Not to mention fuel is now less than it wasn't 2022."

"There is one exception," he said. "Consumer confidence. The thing about conservative attitudes in the economy is that there is a massive partisan lens to it. Take a look at this incredible recent example. So, nearly 50% of Republicans who made more money in 2022 than they did in 2020, using their income increase, said their income had actually decreased. That's true of even those who made over $40,000 more. They're making $40,000 more, and they're telling pollsters that they're making less money. They refused to accept the economy is doing better. In fact, they're in such denial they are misreporting their own personal finances."

"And it's not just the economy," he continued. "And I think this is actually crucial. Since Biden took office, that pervasive sense of social deterioration that came with the pandemic is also showing real signs of healing with. Remember, Trump used this as a campaign argument, claiming his opponent could not keep the country safe."

Hayes then played a clip claiming that "Rights won't be safe in Joe Biden's America," and that "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America" from an ad.

"First of all, what's amazing about that and he was running in 2020 as he was showing pictures of Donald Trump's America," he said. "Donald Trump was President when that stuff was happening. He was the incumbent. Here we are, 4 years later, we do not have widespread chaos in the streets of America. In fact, after spiking under Trump at a nearly unprecedented rate, the country's on track to see a record drop in homicides for 2023."

"Yes, you heard me right. crime spiked up during Donald Trump, and it's dropping now under Joe Biden," he added. "The most serious crime, homicide. Now, America is a big, unruly, and complicated country with, many many social ills. Many of them tragic and persistent. It has always been a tragic and inspiring nation and equal parts. But we are on an upward trajectory. there is reason to believe it will keep getting better. and that is why Joe Biden, the White House, should welcome the Tom Cotton story about Joe Biden's America versus Trump's. -- what America was really like four years ago, four years ago, because the answer, whether you are better off in 2020 under Donald Trump than you are now as we kick off 2024, is plain as day."

What he said.