BY GARY EDMONDSON
We’ve known that Donald Trump is a blowhard and a liar as long as we’ve known him.
I remind you that in the 2016 Republican primary, he garnered a mere 28.3% of the Sooner GOP vote.
I knew. You knew. We didn’t approve. Being president doesn’t convert those lies – and the ensuing barrage of bogus behavior – into truths, though many Republican pundits who once opposed his venality seem to preach otherwise.
The Washington Post fact-checkers documented the 2,000th lie of Trump’s presidency before he completed his first year in office.
We knew he was a liar before the announcement that Trump would not attend the opening of the new American Embassy in London because it represented a bad Obama real estate deal that cost us $1.2 billion.
[The change was authorized by the Younger Bush, with the sale of the old embassy property covering the cost of the new facility.]
And now it turns out the first year total needs to include last fall’s braggadocio about intervening to get three shoplifting college basketball players out of China.
According to NBC Sports, quoting ESPN: “The players were already checked into the hotel before the public discovered they were arrested,” a team source said. “They also were not under house arrest. It was our decision to keep them at the hotel until the situation was resolved. The charges were dropped, they weren’t reduced, and that happened two days before we heard from Gen. Kelly.”
His recent waffling on gun control made one day’s statements the next day’s lies before he found himself back in the cozy arms of the NRA of the $30 million in campaign support.
Daily the president adds to his steaming pile of lies – ignored by the religious wrong and mined with delight by comedians.
CNN reported this month: “President Donald Trump boasted at a private fundraiser Wednesday of making up trade claims during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before knowing whether they were true.”
Responsible and informed, Trudeau told the president that Canada has a trade deficit with the U.S., not vice versa as Trump continues to repeat.
Trump rebutted Trudeau, and bragged to the fat-cats later, according to both The Washington Post and CNN, that, when he spoke, “’I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.'”
“No idea” is another motto for this presidency. “No ideas,” even better.
Trump then said that he sent an aide out to get supporting facts. The aide reported “’Well, sir, you’re actually right. We have no deficit, but that that doesn’t include energy and timber … And when you do, we lose $17 million a year.’”
Trump told his backers, “It’s incredible.”
In-credible because it is not credible.
CNN clarifies, “According to figures provided by the Commerce Department, the U.S. ran a $2.77 billion surplus with Canada for 2017. That figure includes oil and timber. It’s unclear what Trump was referring to with the $17 billion figure.”
Unclear because it’s non-existent.
But that doesn’t keep the president from doubling down/lying louder. And, of course, Press Secretary/Daily Liar Sarah Huckabee Sanders just keeps repeating the bogus info.
We have to wonder, though: if the president’s first reaction when dealing with one of our friendliest allies is to just spout lies, what will he say to Kim Jong-un?
– Gary Edmondson lives in Duncan, OK and is Stephens County Democratic Party chair
