As he so often does, President Trump falsely declared on “60 Minutes” that North Korea and the United States were going to war before he stepped in to thwart it.
Interviewer Lesley Stahl was having none of it. “We were going to war?”
Trump immediately retreated to safer ground, expressing a view rather than trying to assert a fact: “I think it was going to end up in war,” he said, before moving on to his “impression” of the situation.
The 26-minute interview that aired Oct. 14 was typical Trump — bobbing and weaving through a litany of false claims, misleading assertions and exaggerated facts. Trump again demonstrated what The Fact Checker has long documented: His rhetoric is fundamentally based on making statements that are not true, and he will be as deceptive as his audience will allow.
.. Trump resorting to all of his favored moves to sidestep the truth.
.. On Stahl’s first question, about whether Trump still thinks climate change is a hoax, the president dodged by saying “something’s happening.” He then completely reversed course and declared that climate change is not a hoax and that “I’m not denying climate change.”
.. Trump also falsely said the climate will change back again, even though the National Climate Assessment approved by his White House last year said that there was no turning back. He said he did not know whether climate change was man-made, though the same report said “there is no convincing alternative” posed by the evidence.
.. Trump did his usual shrug when asked whether North Korea is building more nuclear missiles. “Well, nobody really knows. I mean, people are saying that.” Among the people who are saying that are U.S. intelligence agencies, who have concluded that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile and is instead working to conceal its weapons and production facilities.
.. Even when he adjusts his rhetoric, at times contradicting what he has just said, Trump almost always appears to believe firmly in what he is saying.
.. On trade, the president continues to suggest that deficits mean the United States is losing money: “I told President Xi we cannot continue to have China take $500 billion a year out of the United States.”
That’s wrong. The trade deficit just means Americans are buying more Chinese products than the Chinese are buying from the United States, not that the Chinese are somehow stealing U.S. money.
.. Trump also continues to misstate the trade deficit with China. It’s not $500 billion, as he told Stahl; it was $335 billion in 2017
.. Curiously, he denied to Stahl that he ever said he was engaged in a trade war with China, even though he has said and tweeted it many times, including on Fox News last week.
.. He also falsely said that “the European Union was formed in order to take advantage of us on trade.” That’s a misreading of history, at best. The E.U. got its start shortly after World War II as the European Coal and Steel Community — an early effort to bind together bitter enemies such as Germany and France in a common economic space to promote peace.
.. Trump surfaced another old favorite knock on U.S. allies — “we shouldn’t be paying almost the entire cost of NATO to protect Europe.” Actually, the United States pays 22 percent of NATO’s common fund. Trump keeps counting U.S. defense spending devoted to patrolling the Pacific Ocean and other parts of the world as part of NATO funding.
When it was pointed out that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former general who served in the military for 44 years, says he believes NATO had kept the peace for 70 years, Trump sniffed, “I think I know more about it than he does.”
.. Questioned about Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump conceded that “they meddled.” But he added, “I think China meddled, too.” When Stahl said he was “diverting the whole Russia thing,” Trump insisted he was not. “I’m not doing anything,” he demurred. “I’m saying Russia, but I’m also saying China.”
There is no evidence China engaged in the same disinformation effort as Russia, which intelligence agencies have said was designed to swing the election toward Trump.
.. Finally, Trump continued his habit of mischaracterizing what his predecessor did. He claimed that Barack Obama “gave away” the Crimea region of Ukraine, when actually Russia seized it and Obama then led an effort to impose sanctions in response.
.. In one of the testier back-and-forths, Trump tried to shut down Stahl with one line that was indisputably true: “I’m president,” he said, “and you’re not.”
Michael Cohen is now alleging what would be the Trump team’s worst cover-up yet
1. Trump didn’t know about the Trump Tower meeting
.. Again, Cohen’s version is secondhand and unconfirmed, but he’s apparently willing to testify to it. And if other people know about it, we can bet they’ll be forced to testify to that effect, too.
Were this denial to fall apart, it would be perhaps the most serious false denial, given the Trump Tower meeting’s centrality to the Russia investigation and the fact that it could open Trump Jr. to potential perjury allegations. It would also be among the most incontrovertibly false denials on this list.
2. Trump wasn’t involved in the response to the Trump Tower meeting
.. The Washington Post soon reported that Trump had dictated Trump Jr.’s initial, misleading statement on the meeting.
And last month, in court filings, Trump’s legal team for the first time admitted that on the record.
3. The Trump team didn’t talk to Russians
.. We now know about the Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer tied to Vladimir Putin (and other Russians), of course. We also know about various contacts between now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador. We also know about Erik Prince meeting in Seychelles with a Russian close to Putin, possibly to set up a back channel of communication.
The Post’s Philip Bump details all the connections here.
4. The Trump team didn’t know about the National Enquirer/Karen McDougal payment
.. Trump had spoken with Cohen about buying the rights to the story on a September 2016 tape that Cohen released publicly this week. It is not clear how many details of the situation Trump himself knew — apart from the purchase price and apparently that he was buying something from AMI head David Pecker — but he clearly knew enough for Hicks not to offer such an absolute denial. And Cohen clearly knew a lot.
5. Trump didn’t stay overnight in Moscow in 2013
.. Flight records indicated that Trump’s plane was in Moscow from Friday to Sunday morning — meaning he had to have stayed over at least one night.
Faced with this evidence, Trump denied that he had ever told Comey that he didn’t stay overnight in Moscow. “He said I didn’t stay there a night. Of course I stayed there,” Trump told Fox News. “I stayed there a very short period of time, but of course I stayed. Well, his memo said I left immediately. I never said that. I never said I left immediately.”
.. 6. Trump didn’t know about the Stormy Daniels payment
Rudolph W. Giuliani eventually spilled the beans, saying Cohen “funneled it through a law firm, and the president repaid it.” Trump later confirmed Cohen was placed on a retainer.
What Doesn’t Kill Him Makes Him Stronger
The more Trump lies, the more he is empowered to lie.
Facts don’t matter to millions of Americans anymore. That is just the truth. Republicans bewitched by Donald Trump have devalued the import of truth.
It is a sad truth and a dangerous one. What is the operational framework of a society when the truth ceases to be accepted as true?
There may be precedents in other countries, but one would be hard pressed to find a precedent here. It is becoming cliché now to say that we are in uncharted territory with Trump and his regime, but that is precisely where we are.
.. Every day there is no catastrophe, every day yet another never-before-seen, outrageous scandal emerges from this administration and Trump is not destroyed by it, it strengthens him and numbs us and steels his supporters.
The more he lies without paying a price for it, the more he weakens the power of the truth to defend right and condemn wrong. And he expands his latitude to lie more.
.. Rather than lying less, Trump is increasing the frequency of his lying.
.. Trump has gone from making 4.9 false claims a day to now making 6.5 a day.
.. “Just stick with us, don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,” before telling them, “Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.”
.. he has used the power of the position to project a sort of hypnotic disregard and amnesiac self-delusion upon the people who follow him. So much of what Republicans once said they believed has now been betrayed.
.. He boasts about being strong while simultaneously whining about being assailed.
.. His griping, in a weird way, is what fuels his gasconade. He insists to his supporters that he is being treated unfairly and their reflexive defense of him prevents them from even entertaining the fairest of criticisms.
Indeed, the more Trump is rebuked by his opponents, the more his base rallies.
.. Among [Republicans], 64 percent strongly approve of Trump, who is experiencing an almost unheard-of level of support from members of his own party.”
.. The White House had previously denied any knowledge that McDougal had even sold her story. That clearly was a lie. Trump not only knew; he was discussing buying it from the seller.
.. Rather than cowering in shame at his deception and his unseemliness, Trump simply goes on the attack, tweeting outrage and indignation
.. We are all trapped, for the time being, held hostage by
- an empowered president,
- a self-neutered Congress, and a
- cultish horde of Trump voters.
But it is the vote that is the most likely way to curb this rolling tragedy. The midterm elections are only a little more than 100 days away.
President Trump seems to be saying more and more things that aren’t true
Since Saturday, Trump has tweeted false or misleading information at least seven times on the topic of immigration and at least six times on a Justice Department inspector general report into the FBI’s handling of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. That’s more than a dozen obfuscations on just two central topics — a figure that does not include falsehoods on other issues, whether in tweets or public remarks.
.. in June, Trump has been tweeting at the fastest rate of his presidency so far, an average of 11.3 messages per day.
.. The president often seeks to paint a self-serving and self-affirming alternate reality for himself and his supporters. Disparaging the “fake news” media, Trump offers his own filter through which to view the world — offering a competing reality on issues including relationships forged (or broken) at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, the success of the Singapore summit with the North Koreans, and his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.
.. “As far as I can tell, the best way to understand anything he says is what will best serve his interests in the moment. It’s irrespective to any version of the truth.”
.. Trump had made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days — an average of 6.5 such claims per day of his presidency.
.. Trump’s use of repetition is a particularly effective technique for convincing his supporters of the veracity of his false claims, in part because most people have a “truth bias,” or an initial inclination to accept what others say as true.
.. “When liars repeat the same lie over and over again, they can get even more of an advantage, at least among those who want to believe them or are not all that motivated either way,”
.. “So when people hear the same lies over and over again — especially when they want to believe those lies — a kind of new reality can be created. What they’ve heard starts to seem like it’s just obvious, and not something that needs to be questioned.”
.. While Congress could pass a legislative fix, Republicans control both the House and the Senate — making it disingenuous at best to finger the opposing party, as the president has repeatedly done.
.. Trump again falsely painted the humanitarian crisis as a binary choice. “We can either release all illegal immigrant families and minors who show up at the border from Central America, or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entry,” he said. “Those are the only two options.”
.. twice in the past four days has singled out Germany as facing an increase in crime. “Crime in Germany is up 10% plus (officials do not want to report these crimes) since migrants were accepted,” Trump wrote. “Others countries are even worse. Be smart America!”
.. In fact, the opposite is true. Reported crime in Germany was actually down by 10 percent last year and, according to German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the country’s reported crime rate last year was actually at its lowest point in three decades.
.. The president has also falsely claimed that the inspector general report “exonerated” him from Mueller’s probe, when the report did not delve into the Russia investigation.
.. On a conference call Tuesday morning, for instance, a senior Health and Human Services official said the new policy was focused on deterrence and was working — contradicting the public comments of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has publicly said that family separation is not a policy, is not new and is not about deterrence.
.. the past week may mark an “inflection point” in how both the media and the public treat Trump’s mistruths.
.. “The lies have been so bald and discernibly false, I think people have felt license to challenge him and use the word ‘lie’ more freely than they have in the past,”