Tag: Trump lies

‘Complete nonsense’: CNN report reveals Trump spent years lying about the British royals for publicity and profit

Donald Trump was on his best behavior with the British royal family, give or take a “nasty” used to describe Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. But it must have been galling to them to host him after Trump’s decades of promoting his business by lying about members of the royal family planning to buy into his properties.

CNN reports that Trump did just that again and again, centering his lies on Prince Charles and Princess Diana. First they were supposedly going to buy an apartment at the not-yet-completed Trump Tower, “unidentified sources” told the New York Post. Buckingham Palace said there was “no truth” to that, but Trump Tower had gotten a burst of publicity around the persistent “rumors.”

A decade later, in 1992, the New York Post was again the source of a “rumor” that it acknowledged was “maybe started by the Trump Organization” that Diana was going to buy a Trump Tower apartment. Buckingham Palace again denied the rumors. But Trump wasn’t done.

View the complete June 5 article by Laura Clawson from Daily Kos on the AlertNet website here.

Trump uses discredited conflict-of-interest charges to attack Mueller

President Trump renewed his personal attacks against Robert S. Mueller III on Thursday, leveling discredited accusations that the former special counsel had conflicts of interest that made him a biased investigator.

The attacks came a day after Mueller’s first and only public statement since the conclusion of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump sought to obstruct the probe. During a brief news conference, Mueller reiterated his finding that if his team had concluded Trump did not commit a crime, they would have said so — a statement that sparked a new round of calls from Democrats to impeach the president.

Trump, in tweets and in comments to reporters, accused Mueller of being a “true never-Trumper,” who was conflicted due to a past “business dispute” between them. He also alleged that Mueller asked him for a job.

View the complete May 30 article by Colby Itkowitz, Josh Dawsey and John Wagner on The Washington Post website here.

Trump Accuses Mueller of a Personal Vendetta as Calls for Impeachment Grow

COLORADO SPRINGS — President Trump lashed out angrily at Robert S. Mueller III on Thursday, accusing him of pursuing a personal vendetta as Mr. Trump sought to counter increasing calls among Democrats for his impeachment.

A day after Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, spoke out for the first time and refused to exonerate the president, Mr. Trump dismissed the Mueller investigation as hopelessly tarnished and expressed aggravation that he could not shake allegations of wrongdoing that have dogged him since the early days of his administration.

“I think he is a total conflicted person,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Mueller before flying to Colorado to deliver the commencement address at the Air Force Academy. “I think Mueller is a true Never Trumper. He’s somebody that dislikes Donald Trump. He’s somebody that didn’t get a job that he requested that he wanted very badly, and then he was appointed.”

View the complete May 31 article by Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan on The New York Times website here.

No, China didn’t steal our jobs. Corporate America gave them away

Trump’s trade war points the finger in the wrong direction. China behaved normally; corporate CEOs betrayed us.

China is not “stealing” American jobs.

President Trump loves to blame China for the job losses that have devastated American workers under globalization. But the truth is that Trump is blaming the wrong party. Trump’s reckless trade war against China is misguided and amounts to a colossal charade that will not solve the actual problem.

Yes, it is true that numerous American manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas to China, thereby leaving American workers jobless and suffering. But China did not steal these jobs.

View the complete May 27 article by Cody Cain from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Trump is a lifelong practitioner of twisting rules to his advantage — and 2 political scientists explain how to level the playing field

Donald Trump has been flooding the zone with false claims of “No Collusion” and “Total Exoneration” ever since the Mueller report’s conclusion was announced — and completely misrepresented by Trump’s “Coverup General” William Barr, to borrow the label William Safire affixed to him in 1992. Democrats, typically, have been dithering ever since, trying to be reasonable, and thus falling into a bottomless pit of endless delay — delay, that for 40 years now, has always been Donald Trump’s best friend.

Over the weekend, congressional scholar Norm Ornstein tweeted that Democrats should ditch all that and flood the zone in their own way, with dramatically presented facts:

Memo to House Democrats: start now with a truly aggressive and multifaceted presentation of the findings in the Mueller Report … going with giant placards with the excerpts that show the evidence of obstruction and collusion (collusion is not conspiracy!) … You are trying to show impeachable offenses. Hold aggressive hearings with @benjaminwittes and some of the 900 prosecutors who signed the letter — let them lay out the evidence in stark terms. Then move to formal impeachment inquiry. Lay the right groundwork NOW.

View the complete May 26 article by Paul Rosenberg from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Trump says he was not warned about Flynn. The Mueller report disagrees.

“It now seems the General Flynn was under investigation long before was common knowledge. It would have been impossible for me to know this but, if that was the case, and with me being one of two people who would become president, why was I not told so that I could make a change?”

— President Trump, in a tweet, May 17, 2019

The president tweeted that he did not realize Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser, had been under investigation on suspicion of being a Russian agent and that he should have been warned.

This is a puzzling complaint. First, a report issued by a Republican-led House committee — often touted by Trump — disclosed in 2018 that there had been an ongoing counterintelligence investigation of Flynn. So that’s not new information. Second, Trump was warned by President Barack Obama not to hire Flynn — and the report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III says that warning actually soured Trump on Flynn.

Here’s what we know about the warnings Trump received about Flynn. In a narrow, technical sense, Trump was not warned that Flynn was being investigated as a possible Russian agent. But there were plenty of other flashing lights that Flynn was trouble — warnings that Trump chose to ignore.

View the complete May 20 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

A new study just debunked Trump’s favorite talking point about undocumented immigrants

The report knocks down one of Trump’s most popular xenophobic talking points.

A growth in the undocumented immigrant population is not associated with an increase in local crime, according to a new study from The Marshall Project. The findings directly contradict one of the president’s favorite talking points about immigrants and crime.

This study, which focuses squarely on undocumented immigrants, uses local crime rates published by the FBI and concluded that between 2007 and 2016, almost every type of crime had a flat line trend, suggesting that any increase in undocumented immigrants has had no effect on crime. Areas with higher rates of illegal immigration actually appeared to have a slight drop in the crime rate.

Studies on undocumented immigrants are relatively rare, in part because it’s hard to collect data on them. While it is difficult to estimate the exact number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, the most recent available data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is from 2016 and puts the population roughly at 10.7 million, down a million and a half from 2007.

View the complete May 13 article by Rebekah Entralgo on the ThinkProgress website here.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s fog of misinformation on trade

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump cast a fog of misinformation over the U.S. trade dispute with China, floating inaccurate numbers and skewed economic theories as big tariffs kicked in on Chinese goods.

At stake in the rupture is a trading relationship between the world’s two largest economies that employs nearly 1 million Americans, supplies affordable goods to U.S. households and, in the view of Trump and a bipartisan group of trade hard-liners, puts U.S. business at an unfair disadvantage.

Trump’s torrent of tweets on the subject Friday followed a rally infused with familiar falsehoods about his achievements (the economy, veterans’ health) and grievances (the Russia inquiry). A look at his words over the past week:

View the complete May 11 article by Calvin Woodward and Hope Yen of the Associated Press on The Star Tribune website here.

James Comey on why he isn’t Republican anymore: ‘You cannot have a president who is a chronic liar’

Former FBI director James Comey was on CNN Thursday night, doing a town hall event moderated by Anderson Cooper. Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of Comey’s firing by Donald Trump. Comey talked about a few topics that could be boiled down to one specific thing: Donald Trump is every bit the scumbag you think he is and should probably be charged with obstruction of justice. But one particularly poignant moment stood out. Asked by an audience member why he thought Trump’s personal flaws should be considered by voters in this upcoming 2020 election, Comey had this to say.

Comey: I wouldn’t frame it that way. I think we should start the way I always thought Republicans said we should start—with the nature and character of the leader, and his respect for or attacks on our values, truth and the rule of law among them. That’s the most important level of American politics. Then the level down from that is important policy questions. To my mind, this question at the top level is so obviously answered.

You cannot have a president who is a chronic liar. I don’t care what your passions about tax cuts, or regulations, or immigration—I respect difference there. But the President of the United States cannot be someone who lies constantly. I thought the Republicans agreed with that. It’s one of the reasons I am no longer a Republican.

View May 10 article by Walter Einenkel from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Here are 6 of the wildest moments from Trump’s off-the-wall press conference

On Thursday,  President Donald Trump gave a White House press conference that was intended, primarily, to address medical billing. But the president was all over the place during the briefing, using it for everything from attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller and former Secretary of State John Kerry to a defense of his China trade policy. Here are some of the wildest and craziest moments from Trump’s May 9 White House press conference.

1. Trump described his administration as generous to Puerto Rico

Trump has been widely criticized for his response to the Hurricane Maria tragedy in Puerto Rico; San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz and Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Roselló have been especially critical. But during his press conference, Trump vigorously defended his Puerto Rico policy — saying he “gave Puerto Rico $91 billion” and insisting “I think the people of Puerto Rico should really like President Trump.”

2. Trump called for prosecution of John Kerry

Trump, after taking office, ended the Obama Administration’s nuclear arms deal with Iran, which was negotiated in part by former Secretary of State John Kerry. And Trump took aim at Kerry on Thursday, accusing him of telling Iran not to call his administration. Trump claimed that Kerry was in violation of the Logan Act and should be prosecuted for interfering.

View the complete May 9 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.