Natalie Harp said Trump saved her life. Experts doubt that’s true.

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Under the bright lights of the Republican National Convention on Monday night, California entrepreneur Natalie Harp said President Trump literally saved her life.

“When I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials,” Harp said in an emotional address. “They didn’t give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President. You did, and without you, I’d have died waiting for them to be approved.”

But experts cast doubt on that story: They point out that Harp’s description of the treatment she received and her timeline for receiving it make it unlikely Trump had any effect on her case. Continue reading.

Trump and allies try to rewrite history on handling of police brutality protests

Washington Post logoPresident Trump claimed on Wednesday that he had not hunkered down in a secure bunker as hundreds of protesters gathered around the White House last Friday night. He said Secret Service had not raced him to the secret underground location. And he described his trip to the subterranean space as a “tiny little short” visit that was really “much more for an inspection.”

But the president’s alternate history, which he unspooled to Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio Wednesday, was a false one — one facet of his days-long attempt to rewrite the history surrounding the police brutality protests that have engulfed the fortified White House in recent days.

Trump and his family were rushed to a secure bunker after at least four protesters breached the temporary fences set up near the Treasury Department grounds Friday around 7 p.m., according to arrest records and people familiar with the incident. Continue reading.

260,000 Words, Full of Self-Praise, From Trump on the Virus

New York Times logoAt his White House news briefing on the coronavirus on March 19, President Trump offered high praise for the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Stephen Hahn. “He’s worked, like, probably as hard or harder than anybody,” Mr. Trump said. Then he corrected himself: “Other than maybe Mike Pence — or me.”

On March 27, Mr. Trump boasted about marshaling federal resources to fight the virus, ignoring his early failures and smearing previous administrations. “Nobody has done anything like we’ve been able to do,” he claimed. “And everything I took over was a mess. It was a broken country in so many ways. In so many ways.”

And on April 13, Mr. Trump insisted that governors were so satisfied with his performance they hadn’t asked for anything on a recent conference call. “There wasn’t even a statement of like, ‘We think you should do this or that,’” he said. “I heard it was, like, just a perfect phone call.” Continue reading.