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Time
He also claimed credit for things he had said that were factually incorrect at the time, but for which he later found evidence. At a February rally, in a discussion about problems caused by new migrants in Europe, he said, "Look at what's happening last night in Sweden." Nothing had happened the prior night in Sweden, prompting diplomatic protests from Stockholm. But days later, there was a riot in a predominantly immigrant suburb in response to a local arrest. Which, to the President's way of thinking, made him a truth-teller. "I was right about that," he said.
Truth, in other words, takes time to ripen: he also said his unsubstantiated claim that at least 3 million undocumented immigrants had voted illegally in the 2016 election would be proved right eventually, though he hinted to TIME that he no longer stood by all parts of that claim. "When I say that, I mean mostly they register wrong. In other words, for the votes, they register incorrectly, and/or illegally," the President said. "I'm forming a committee on it."
The more the conversation continued, the more the binary distinctions between truth and falsehood blurred, the telltale sign of a veteran and strategic misleader who knows enough to leave himself an escape route when he tosses a bomb. Rather than assert things outright, he often couches provocative statements as "beliefs," or attributes them to 'unnamed' "very smart people." During the campaign, he claimed falsely that Texas Senator Ted Cruz's father had consorted with the assassin who killed John F. Kennedy. Now as President, Trump argued that he had done nothing wrong by spreading the fiction, since it had been printed in the National Enquirer, a tabloid famous for its unconventional editorial standards.
Trump has in this way brought to the Oval Office an entirely different set of assumptions about the proper behavior of a public official, and introduced to the country entirely new rules for public debate. In some ways, it is not surprising. For years, we have known Trump colored outside the lines of what was actually real because he told us. As a businessman, Trump wrote in praise of strategic falsehood, or "truthful hyperbole," as he preferred to call it. Sometimes his whoppers were clumsy, the apparent result of being ill informed or promiscuous in his sources. Sometimes he exaggerated to get a rise out of his audience. But often Trump's untruths give every sign of being deliberate and thought through.
Trump recently bragged about a drop in the Labor Department jobless rate--after calling the same statistic "phony" when it signaled improvement under Obama. Trump explained the contradiction through his spokesman with a quip: "They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now."
TIME reviewed the 298 tweets Trump has sent since being elected President as of March 21. Fifteen included clear falsehoods, like the wiretap claims. The false messages were retweeted an average of 28,550 times. Those that were not clearly false were retweeted on average 23,945 times. The viral effect of falsehood being repeated on the news was many times more pronounced.
According to a search through the Internet Archive, a nonprofit library database, the false tweets were quoted on television an average of 31 times, more than twice as often as other tweets.
For Trump's allies, this is a measure of strategic brilliance, not defective character. "He understands how to make something an issue and elevate the discussion by saying things that are contrary, perhaps even unproved," explains Roger Stone, a former adviser to Trump, who has his own penchant for spreading false conspiracy theories. "He has the ability to change the subject to what he wants to talk about."
The night before his wiretap maneuver had been a trying one for Trump's young White House, according to aides. It was a Friday, and the President was frustrated that his widely praised address to Congress on Tuesday had been overtaken by darker news. Revelations of previously denied contacts between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a Russian official had led Sessions to recuse himself from any probe of Russian election interference. The LexisNexis database registered 509 stories or news transcripts referring to some aspect of the story. Can President Trump Handle the Truth?
The most VILE, DETESTABLE,PATHOLOGICAL LIAR in history!
No! Trump can’t handle the truth if it makes him look less than “great”. He’s always one up better and can never be wrong. It’s simply not in his personality or character.
He has received a new updated recount on the inauguration crowd at the male from the Nat’l Parks Service today.
Trump placed a call to acting NPS Director Mike Reynolds the day after the inauguration, asking the agency to produce additional photos of the inauguration. That weekend the White House had begun insisting that Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20 was the most watched ever, a claim which has been largely disproven.
Trump lies here and there, but he's probably the most truthful president we've had in years. Remember Clinton and Bush.... and Obama was by far the worst. It's all relative.
Be fair... Bush, Clinton, and Obama were bad, and they lied about serious stuff like sex, WMD's, Benghazi videos. Crazy stuff. Nobody cares about the crowd size, and with TV, and Internet live streams, Trump's might have been the most watched inaugriation.. nobody knows..
Trump did say in the interview... that the unemployment percentage rate of 4.7 is still phony, even though he's president..
Trump lies here and there, but he's probably the most truthful president we've had in years.
Remember Clinton and Bush.... and Obama was by far the worst. It's all relative.
Be fair... Bush, Clinton, and Obama were bad, and they lied about serious stuff like sex, WMD's, Benghazi videos. Crazy stuff. Nobody cares about the crowd size, and with TV, and Internet live streams, Trump's might have been the most watched inaugriation.. nobody knows..
Trump did say in the interview... that the unemployment percentage rate of 4.7 is still phony, even though he's president..
Are you serious. Trump lies about everything. So you think he is more truthful than Regan. He doesn't even hold a candle to Regan.
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