Tag: Trump lies

The 6 essential cons that define Trump’s success

Credit: John Minchillo AP

A playbook of deceit starts with the ‘origin lie’ that made him richer than he was. And it’s still being written.

Nearly four decades ago, Donald Trump deceived me into including him on the first Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. He claimed a net worth of $100 million but was actually worth less than a tenth of that. Last week, President Trump declared a national state of emergency to bypass the constitutional budgeting powers of Congress and divert money to build a wall on the border with Mexico. What do these acts have in common? Only that they are the first and latest entries on the continuum of cons that have defined Trump’s success.

A real estate insider told me back in the 1980s that Trump’s win-at-all-costs father, Fred, “loves a crook and he loves a showman.” Donald Trump has built his extraordinary career by exhibiting the characteristics of both. He is a self-promoter willing to lie, swindle and destroy to advance his insatiable self-interest. I am not the first journalist to observe that for Trump, the “Art of the Deal” has been the art of the con. But as the first journalist to enable the consummate con man’s career-boosting deceptions, I have a completist’s view of the pernicious racket that is his playbook. Here, in roughly chronological order, are the six essential cons around which Trump has built and sustained his success: Continue reading “The 6 essential cons that define Trump’s success”

Using Old Video, Trump Claims ‘Wall Is Under Construction Right Now’

The video is footage of a repair procedure from Sept. 18, 2018. And it isn’t “the wall.”

Trump is pretending that video of a fence being repaired from 5 months ago is evidence of his “wall” being built right now. The lie is the latest humiliation for Trump, who has been repeatedly denied the ability to waste billions in tax dollars on the racist vanity project.

Trump posted video of the fence repair with the caption, “We have just built this powerful Wall in New Mexico. Completed on January 30, 2019 – 47 days ahead of schedule! Many miles more now under construction!”

In a subsequent, lying, all-caps tweet he added, “THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!”

View the complete February 22 article by Oliver Willis of the American Independent on the National Memo website here.

Fact Checker: Trump’s repeated claim that China is paying ‘billions’ in tariffs to the Treasury

President Trump claims the Treasury Department has received billions and billions of dollars of revenue from import tariffs. (Joy Yi/The Washington Post)

“Billions of Dollars are being paid to the United States by China in the form of Trade Tariffs!”

— President Trump, in a tweet, Feb. 16, 2019

“The tariffs are bringing a tremendous amount of money to our Treasury.”

— Trump, in remarks to the Cabinet, Feb. 12

“Those tariffs are costing them a lot of money, and they’re going into our Treasury; remember that, we’re filling up with billions of dollars.”

— Trump, at a campaign rally in El Paso, Feb. 11

It’s become one of the president’s favorite talking points. But it’s wrong on many levels.

Continue reading “Fact Checker: Trump’s repeated claim that China is paying ‘billions’ in tariffs to the Treasury”

The War That Wasn’t: Trump Claims Obama Was Ready to Strike North Korea

Credit: J. Scott Applewhite, AP

WASHINGTON — America was on the brink of war. As President Barack Obama prepared to leave office, he was contemplating yet another conflict in Asia, where the United States had already fought twice since the 1950s without winning. This time, the enemy had nuclear weapons. The potential for devastation was enormous.

Wait a minute — don’t remember Mr. Obama’s near-war with North Korea? Neither do the people who were working for Mr. Obama at the time.

But President Trump has been telling audiences lately that his predecessor was on the precipice of an all-out confrontation with the nuclear-armed maverick state. The way Mr. Trump tells the story, the jets were practically scrambling in the hangars.

View the complete February 16article by Peter Baker on The New York Times website here.

Trump’s false claim that violent crime hasn’t gone down ‘in a long while’

Through the combined effort of everyone here today, violent crime is now going down for the first time in a long while.”

— President Trump, remarks to Major County Sheriffs and Major Cities Chiefs Association joint conference, Feb. 13, 2019

President Trump ran for president warning that U.S. crime and murder rates were through the roof — repeatedly claiming, “We have the highest murder rate in this country in 45 years.”

Or, as he put it in 2018: “Before I took office less than two years ago, our nation was experiencing a historic surge in violent crime.”

View the complete February 15 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

‘Off the rails’: Inside Trump’s attempt to claim victory in his border wall defeat

After three weeks of pained negotiations to keep the federal government open, President Trump almost blew the whole thing up again on Thursday.

Headed for another defeat on his signature promise to make Mexico pay for a southern border wall, the president was frustrated after a briefing by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and others on details of the final deal to avoid a shutdown, according to officials involved in the discussions. Trump threatened not to sign the legislation, the officials said, putting the government on the brink of another damaging shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was on the phone with Trump at least three times during the course of the nerve-racking day, pressing him to stay the course and asserting that Democrats had actually lost the spending fight, two people familiar with the conversations said.

View the complete February 14 article by Robert Costa, Rachael Bade, Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim on The Washington Post website here.

Trump Pledged to End H.I.V. But His Policies Veer the Other Way.

A protest against the Trump administration’s transgender policies in New York in October. Credit: Yana Paskova, Getty Images

WASHINGTON — In his State of the Union address, President Trump announced a bold plan to end the scourge of H.I.V. by 2030, a promise that seemed to fly in the face of two years of policies and proposals that go in the opposite direction and could undermine progress against the virus that causes AIDS.

In November, the Trump administration proposed a rule change that would make it more difficult for Medicare beneficiaries to get the medicines that treat H.I.V. infection and prevent the virus from spreading.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly urged Congress to repeal the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, even though Medicaid is the largest source of coverage for people with H.I.V. And he has promoted the sale of short-term health plans that skirt the Affordable Care Act, even though such plans usually exclude people with H.I.V.

View the complete February 12 article by Robert Pear on The New York Times website here.

North Korea remains a top threat despite diplomatic thaw, U.S. commanders say

The chief of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Navy Adm. Philip Davidson, testified North Korea “remains the most immediate challenge.” Credit: Carolyn Kaster, AP Photo

North Korea remains a top threat to the U.S. despite a recent thaw in diplomatic relations, the commanders of U.S. forces in the Pacific and on the Korean Peninsula told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday.

The commander of U.S. Forces Korea, Army Gen. Robert Abrams, noted a “significant reduction in tension” compared to the recent history of missile and nuclear tests by North Korea. But the four-star general cautioned the regime’s annual military exercises hadn’t changed in size, scope or timing.

“I remain clear-eyed about the fact that, despite a reduction in tensions along the DMZ and a cessation of strategic provocations coupled with public statements of intent to denuclearize, little to no verifiable change has occurred in North Korea’s military capabilities,” Abrams told senators.

View the complete February 12 article by Connor O’Brien on the Politico website here.

Trump Lied About Getting Special Permission From El Paso Fire Dept, Says Fire Dept

The president bragged about his crowd size and claimed he got special permission to let 10,000

people inside the venue for his rally in El Paso on Monday.

President Donald Trump told the crowd at his rally in El Paso, Texas, on Monday that he got special permission from the El Paso Fire Department to let 10,000 people inside the El Paso County Coliseum.

El Paso Fire Department spokesman Enrique D. Aguilar told The El Paso Times that not only did the fire department not give Trump special permission, but the Coliseum had about 6,500 people in it during the president’s rally. Aguilar says that number was at capacity and well within its standard allowance.

The spokesman added that “it might be 10,000 with the people outside” total, but the fire department didn’t track the number of people outside the venue. While the number Trump quoted about his attendees might not have been far off, he blatantly lied that he got special permission, according to Aguilar.

View the complete February 12 article by Jenna Amatulli on the Huffington Post website here.

‘No crisis exists’: El Paso officials tell Trump to stop the falsehoods about their border city

Officials in El Paso disputed President Trump’s claim in his State of the Union speech that a border wall reduced crime in their city. (Reuters)

Officials in El Paso rebuked President Trump in advance of his visit to the border city on Monday night, assailing the president for falsely crediting the Texas city’s safety to the border fence that was built there 10 years ago.

At a news conference Monday afternoon, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D), who represents the city in Congress, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, District Attorney Jaime Esparza, and Commissioner Carlos Leon said Trump’s statements threatened to damage the town’s reputation.

“We’ve worked so hard to have the image of a solid community,” said Samaniego, who noted that his family emigrated to the country in 1911. “Every one of us is touched with the falsehoods that are taking place.”

View the complete February 11 article by Eli Rosenberg on The Washington Post website here.