TRUMP SUPPORTERS SAY: PRESIDENT TRUMP DOESN’T LIE!

…Our lying President

It’s astounding to watch those close to the president, denying that he lies.

The following is a slice of a conversation that occurred last year between Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and CNN’s Anderson Cooper that left the CNN anchor totally dumbfounded.

Being that the Washington Post fact checkers have now stated that President Trump has made more than 12,000 false or misleading claims in fewer than 1,000 days as president, let’s see how you feel about the statements by Representative Jordon to Anderson Cooper

• COOPER: “So, you haven’t heard the President lie?”

• JORDAN: “I’ve not heard the President -- he’s always been square with me. That’s for darn sure.”

• COOPER: “What about to the American people?”

• JORDAN: “The American people elected him president of the United States.”

• COOPER: “OK, but I mean, have you ever heard the President lie? That's what I'm asking you?”

• JORDAN: “I have not. And the American people feel like the treatment he’s receiving from the top people of the FBI….”

• COOPER: “I don't think you can talk about all the American people. But I'm asking you -- just yourself, have you ever heard the President lie?”

• JORDAN: “I have not.”

• COOPER: “Really? So when the Washington Post counts hundreds and hundreds of [lies], none of those are believable to you.”

• JORDAN: “I have not seen what the Washington Post reported. You are asking me if the President communicated something it wasn't accurate to me, I'm not….”

• COOPER: “No. No, not to you. Has the President publicly said anything that is a lie?”

• JORDAN: “I mean, look, I don’t know of it. Nothing comes to mind. But look, people who talk as much as you and I do, my guess is probably, Anderson, you may have said something at some point that wasn’t 100% accurate.”

Now, that was back in April of last year and Jordon’s answers were pretty amazing, even back then.

Well, after The Post has now stated that the president has now told 12,000 untruths, and the fact checkers have documented each of those untruths, it is amazing as to what Donald Trump’s allies are still saying about him today.

The latest example was on Chris Cuomo’s CNN program just this week.

Trump’s 2020 campaign spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, was the latest to be so off-the-wall to argue that Trump has never lied.  She appeared on CNN with Cuomo and he repeatedly pressed her on that one point. But she confirmed multiple times that Trump has never lied.

“No, I don’t think the president has lied,” she said twice..

All of the people around the president would like everyone to know that, in each and every one of these cases, “the president didn’t intend to deceive”.

Apparently, this response from Trump’s allies is supposed to make everyone feel better.

But this response from Ms. McEnany is not the way most of Trump’s people deal with Trump’s lies.  

Most of his allies answer by dancing around the question, such as this week, when the White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told The Washington Post’s, Paul Farhi much the same thing as McEnany, but in a different way.  She instead said: “I don’t think they’re lies. … I think the president communicates in a way that some people, especially the media, aren’t necessarily comfortable with. A lot of times they take him so literally. I know people will roll their eyes if I say he was just kidding or was speaking in hypotheticals, but sometimes he is.”

This attitude has been with Trump’s supporters for years, even before he was president.

In fact, Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen Bannon, he had also offered a similar explanation just last year. “Not to my knowledge, no,” he said when asked if Trump has ever lied. When pressed, he explained, “I think he speaks in a particular vernacular that connects to people in this country.”

The most telling answer to this question came from his close advisor, Kellyanne Conway, whom was pressed last August as to whether Trump had lied about his affairs with other women.

“The president has said that he has not lied,” Conway said.  She instead laid this claim right at Trump’s feet, rather than making the claim herself.  This has become a common tactic when Trump spokesperson’s don’t want to put their own credibility on the line for their boss.  It is usually assumed that Trump’s aides are speaking for their boss, but Trump has forced so many of them to vouch for untrue things, they’ve had to adapt their answers to fit with the boss.

There is no question that President Trump has most definitely lied. The media gets plenty of criticism for not calling Trump’s specific false claims, “lies”.  The Post has only called Trump’s untruths “lies” in those rare cases where it could be determined that Trump actually knew what he was saying was totally dishonest, and he said it anyway.

Let’s face it, no Trump spokesperson would want to concede that their boss has been untruthful, but it is obvious, Trump has, and he does it so often that it is amazing that those close to him even try to deny it.

We know Trump has said thousands upon thousands of false things, and some of them he has repeated hundreds of times, even after they have been proven totally false. 

But today, the pressure is increasing on the president.  A president who has an election campaign that is dependent on the nation’s economy.  An economy that is starting to look highly questionable.  The president is now looking like he is so removed from reality, he can’t comprehend the basic facts.

But I don’t think it is more comforting to believe he has done this because he doesn’t know any better.

Yes, you could make an argument that it’s preferable to have a dishonest president, instead of one who is so divorced from reality that he can’t comprehend basic facts.

But that’s not the point.  At least, I hope that’s not the case.

The point seems to be about those that continue to support the president by lying for him.  

Whatever happens with the president and his lies, history will deal with him and what he says and does.  It appears that he will most likely go down as possibly the most dishonest ever, US President.

What we can say today, is that any supporters who says Trump has never lied or been intentionally deceptive, they are not being honest.  Not with themselves and definitely not with the American public.

The reality is that so many supporters have today already made this laughable claim in public.  That it is an excellent point of how much loyalty Trump continues to demand and extract from those around him.

One can hope that at some point, these individuals will come to see how they are only hurting themselves and their own integrity by supporting a pathological liar.

I guess, only time will tell.

Copyright G. Ater 2019