In a White House where there is a torrent of lies falling from the mouth of the president every day, several times a day, it’s a rare occasion when you get the opportunity to step back and expose just one. This past week gave us such a chance.
After returning to the U.S. from meeting with his hero, Vladimir Putin, on July 16, Donnie Dotard was met with chants of “treason” and “traitor” as he and First Lady Melania re-entered their home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The chants must have bothered The Donald because despite how wonderful a time he said he had with the Russian president in Helsinki, he felt the need to almost apologize.
Trump admits he does not like to apologize because he thinks it makes him look weak. Since taking office more than 550 days ago, he has only apologized once — to British Prime Minister Theresa May — and only filed two other partial mea culpas.
One of those half apologies came during a 3 p.m. press conference last Tuesday where we learned about the usages of double-negative phrases and when to use the word “would” versus “wouldn’t.”
The retraction, while allowing us a rare English lesson from an apparently illiterate White House, also provided us with a chance to look into the mind of our pathological liar-in-chief.
In an environment of rapid-fire lies, President Donald J. Trump is like a Gatling gun of fibs and half-truths. Trump spews lies so often and so fast that it’s impossible to keep track of them all — his lies often have lies.
If you doubt it or for some reason dismiss the statement as more partisan prattle, just consider the casual lies told by Trump in the past month.
Here is a small sample:
LIE: During his visit to the United Kingdom, Trump said Queen Elizabeth II of England reviewed the Honor Guard with him for the first time in 70 years.
TRUTH: The Queen has only been queen for 66 years and regularly reviews the guard.
LIE: Trump said he is the most popular Republican of all time with better poll numbers than GOP founder Abraham Lincoln.
TRUTH: Lincoln was assassinated, so his popularity is obviously debatable, I guess? However, Lincoln pre-dates presidential polls.
LIE: “We got back our great fallen heroes, the remains, in fact today, 200 have been sent back.”
TRUTH: Almost a full month later, no remains have been returned. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has since met with North Korean officials and secured only “firm commitments” to discuss the repatriation of American service members’ remains from the Korean War.
Then on July 16, 2018 the president told the whopper heard around the world:
“President Putin just said that it’s not Russia,” he said at the summit, defending Putin’s denial of interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
One reason why it would be is that all levels of the American Intelligence community have identified Russia as the culprit in election interference.
The statement showed that the president believes the assertions and lies of Russian President Vladimir Putin — who perpetuated the crime — over his own intelligence agencies, something many would define as treason.
However, after a plane ride home from Finland and almost 24 hours of reflection, the POTUS appeared before the American people and backtracked on his public statement. It was unprecedented.
In my field I’ve dealt with all types of liars, big ones, small ones, those told for public relations and my favorite, those told by politicians.
We look for “tells” because with politicians, it’s understood they lie so often that you have to develop a check on your check to make sure the public is getting the truth. I won’t bore you with how you know you’re being lied to by a politician, but one surefire way is to peer through the windows to the soul — their eyes.
Trump gave two interviews to Fox News after his historic summit with Vladimir Putin. The first occurred immediately after his treasonous disclosure and the next occurred minutes later with fellow sycophant Tucker Carlson. The picture that leads this story is that of Trump’s eyes during an interview with Sean Hannity right after the president finished his “very successful” meeting with Putin.
For me, these eyes show confidence, if not arrogance or defiance. It was taken in the best setting, one where the president is feeling comfortable in his element of safety.
Trump’s answers follow questions from Hannity that wondered why anyone would have a problem with him meeting Putin in public or in a private two-hour session later. Hannity praised Trump’s “strong” finish in Helsinki that included statements about the questioning of the FBI investigation on the hacked DNC servers and the clearing of Russia. The president was defiant during the interview and touted his meeting with Putin and how well it went.
Hours later, his confidence took a hit when protestors, members of Congress and former intelligence officials began calling him a traitor.
A 5:15 p.m. EST tweet on July 16 from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called for Trump to immediately clarify his statement.
An 8 a.m., July 17 appearance on CNN’s “Alysin Camerota Show” by former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci may have been the first time the word “misspoke” was used. The CNN reporter pushed Scaramucci about ways the president could turn it around after so many believed he had committed treason against his country.
Scaramucci said Trump made a “major mistake” and may have been conflating collusion with Russian meddling. He said Trump had to reverse course and perhaps could save his presidency if he used the term “missspoke,” stated support for his intelligence agencies, while continuing to deny collusion.
Perhaps the president was watching the Fake News Network.
Approximately four hours after the Scaramucci interview, the White House announced a press conference. A sulking Trump read from a prepared text and admitted that he had misspoken.
“I realize there is a need for some clarification. The sentence (at the summit) should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’” Trump said during the July 17 presser – seconds later adding the rarely used lie within a lie. “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place, but it could have been other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.”
The July 17 statement about a grammatical mistake in Finland a day before was obviously a staggering lie made to cover up a traitorous act. There is no reason to believe Trump misspoke during a meeting he called and with the comfort of knowing his hand-picked reporters were waiting to coddle him while he ran his victory lap.
Nonetheless, Trump used the emergency presser to tell a double-whopper of a lie and even apply the rarely used lie-within-a-lie technique, which again was treasonous. After giving assurances about his support for the Intelligence community, Trump’s throwaway statement about “it could have been other people also,” was a complete contradiction of the information provided by the FBI and other intelligence agencies.
The next day, Trump again cast shade over Intelligence reports that condemned Russia and did or did not question Intelligence reports that indicated Russia continues to attempt to hack the United States system and influence American elections.
He ended the week by disclosing disturbing details from his secret meeting with Putin, that included possibly sending U.S. officials to Russia for interrogation and topped off the week by inviting Putin to Washington for a tour of the White House, which Putin’s meddling helped Trump win.
While we theorize on whether Trump meant “would” or “wouldn’t,” the fact is the president lied about his views on Russian interference. Only time will tell whether his lie or relationship with the Russian president will be a crime.
THE SHINBONE STAR 