The fact-free presidency of Trump
They’ll say, ‘Donald Trump lies to the people of Iowa.'”
President Trump, addressing a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa last Wednesday
Last Wednesday night at his sixth post-campaign campaign rally in Iowa, President Trump predicted that the media would call him out on his untruths.
That prediction came true.
By Thursday morning, an army of fact-checkers revealed numerous false statements he’d made the night before.
If Mr. Trump can claim any job growth during his early days in office, it’s the cottage industry of people who’ve sprung up to separate his facts from pure fiction.
They don’t have to work hard at it either.
A long time ago, Trump signaled he has a certain affinity for bombast.
On page 58 his 1987 best seller, “The Art of the Deal,” his ghostwriter wrote, “…a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration.”
But since he announced his run for the presidency, Trump hasn’t merely: “exaggerated;” engaged in “truthful hyperbole;” spun yarns; fibbed; told little white lies; been awash in inconsistencies; or, even shaded the truth – he lies.
Bald-faced, industrial-strength lies.
When Trump stood on that stage last Wednesday, his prediction about how the media would respond to him, was less a prediction than it was his way of inoculating himself against the fact-checking he knew would follow.
Especially when he claimed, “Homebuilders are starting to build again,” but Reuters claims that housing starts are at an eight-month low.
Whenever he needs an applause line, he can conjure up a falsehood out of thin air – even when he contradicts himself.
Somebody should have reminded him that when he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord on June 1, he called it “non-binding.”
Yet, when he stood before his adoring Iowa crowd, he blurted out, “Like hell it’s non-binding.”
Back on June 12, our neighbors to the north at the Toronto Star, indicated Trump’s affinity for trafficking in whoppers had gained international attention.
The Star chronicled Trump’s 300 detours from veracity since he took his oath of office.
Not to be outdone, eight days later the Washington Post published the “669 Trump Falsehoods in 151 Days.”
It’s an eye-opener.
Not only because of the number of lies Trump has told, but because of how methodically the Post gathered and collated them.
“Even the media said the crowd was massive … that was all the way back down to the Washington Monument,” was Trump’s inaugural lie, within hours of him looking out over the Washington Mall, and seeing a crowd much smaller than his predecessor’s.
According to the Post, he’s repeated that fiction three times.
In February, Trump boasted that since he’d taken office “the spirit of the country” was responsible 237,000 new jobs.
Problem is, those jobs were from January, when Barack Obama was still president.
On March 4, he claimed Obama had wiretapped him.
On April 5, he claimed that the, “Russia story is a hoax.”
There’s no proof he’s been wiretapped, but the Russia story is far from a hoax.
Telling a lie over-and-over, still won’t make it true.
But Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to know that.
For instance, on May 12, Trump proclaimed, “Obamacare is dead, it’s dying.”
According to the Post, he’s made that, or similar statements about the Affordable Care Act, 33 times.
Yet, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare, despite Trump saying it’s “in a total death spiral,” is not dying, and it could be stable for some time in the future.
It might need to be fixed, but it’s certainly not on life-support.
My personal favorite on the list of the Washington Post’s assemblage of the Trump anti-facts a tweet he made last week.
That day, he boasted that his job approval rating had risen to 50 percent in the Rasmussen Presidential Tracking poll.
“That’s higher than O’s (Obamas) #’s,” he wrote.
Wrong.
On June 16, 2009, Obama’s job approval was 56 percent.
Don’t tell Trump, though.
He can’t handle that truth.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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