He probably lied about some other things that I don’t know
much about, so I’ll give him a pass on them since I can’t prove otherwise, but I
know he told eight lies in the first five minutes of the interview, and that’s
got to be some kind of record. Trump likes to claim records for a lot of different
things, so I will gladly give that one to him.
I’ve been watching and hearing this narcissistic cretin tell
tens of thousands of lies in the five-plus years since he slithered down the golden
escalator and announced he was running for president, but I’m not sure I’ve
ever seen him talk for nearly 40 minutes without ever actually telling the
truth. (Well, he did say “I don’t know” a couple of times, so there’s that. I’m
sure some day people will write books about all the things he didn’t know, so I’m
calling that statement the truth.)
It was a most remarkable interview considering the guy Swan
was talking with is supposed to be the most powerful man on the planet. Trump claims
to be a stable genius, but frankly, if this interview was an accurate record of
his mental acuity, he could sit by himself in a school bus shelter and still
not be the smartest person in the room.
I took notes all during the interview, which really has to
be seen to be believed. If you’ve got 38 minutes to spare (and who doesn’t in
the age of COVID), I encourage you to watch it for yourself. If you can’t or
would rather not, I have compiled this convenient summary for your reading
pleasure. The lies start at 1:55 and go all the way to the end, so buckle up,
buttercup, it’s going to get bumpy at times.
Swan began the interview asking about Trump’s handling of
the COVID-19 pandemic which has been universally criticized for its slow
response, lack of planning and uncoordinated communications strategy.
1:55 – “I think we’ve done an incredible job,” Trump says.
(Only if you mean incredibly bad.)
2:17 – By closing off travel from China and later Europe, “we
have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.” (The virus was already in America
and spreading before Trump took any action.)
3:03 – “Nobody knew what this thing was all about.” (Yes, a
lot of scientists did, but Trump refused to believe them, or at least
disregarded their warnings.)
3:18 – “There are 188 countries that are far worse off than
we are.” (There are not.)
3:50 – When the virus hit “we were beating China on trade.”
(No, we weren’t.)
4:04 – China “was paying billions of dollars” in tariffs. (China
was simply adding the tariffs to the price of its exports and American consumers
were paying the added cost.)
4:17 – When the virus hit, “I closed down the greatest
economy ever in history.” (Only if you base economic success solely on the
stock market.)
4:49 – “Those people who really understand it (the pandemic)
say it’s incredible the job we’ve done.” (When Swan asked “what people,” he couldn’t
name anyone.)
5:34 – Trump claimed that 12,000 people attended his Tulsa
rally, which actually drew just 6,000 people. “You couldn’t get in. It was like
an armed camp.” (It wasn’t. There was a lot of open space.)
5:50 – He claimed that the virus was “pretty much over” in
Tulsa and Oklahoma at the time, when, in fact, both the city and the state were
hot spots before the rally and a lot worse after it.
6:58 – He claimed that he canceled a subsequent rally in New
Hampshire because of the virus, but at the time, his staff said it was canceled
because of an impending storm.
7:23 – “Right now I think (the virus) is under control.”
(One thousand Americans are dying every day.)
Are you starting to get the idea?
I have a lot more notes. There’s basically one lie,
half-truth or questionable comment every minute throughout the rest of the
interview, but I’ll spare you the gory details and just hit the highlights.
* COVID deaths – The U.S. has the lowest death rate in the
world. (You can google this. It’s far from true.)
* On Russia paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American
troops – “Many people said that was fake news,” and that specific intelligence “never
reached my desk.”
* On his recent phone call with Russian president Vladimir
Putin – He didn’t discuss the bounties but talked about nuclear proliferation, “which
is a bigger problem than global warming.” Asked about Russia providing weapons
to the Taliban, he first said, “We did that too” when Russia was fighting in
Afghanistan, then said he has “heard people say” that was happening before
backtracking to, again, “It never reached my desk.”
* On whether he reads his daily intelligence briefings – “I
read a lot and comprehend extraordinarily well, probably better than anyone you
have interviewed in a long time.”
* On voting by mail – “There is a new phenomenon called mail-in
voting.” (Swan corrected him to point out that mail-in voting started during
the Civil War.) Trump claimed that ballots would be sent automatically to dead
people and even to people’s dogs. (There is no evidence that anything like this
happens in 99.9999% of the cases.)
* On rioting in Portland – Videos of unidentified stormtroopers
beating and gassing peaceful protesters were “fake news;” the problems were all
caused by Antifa, anarchists and agitators; and that the violent protests “got
better” after his troops arrived (in fact they got worse). He also said the
troops wore no identifying patches or markings because “anarchists could read
their names (on their uniforms), find out where they live and go scare the hell
out of their families.”
* On African Americans – “I’m doing very well with the black
community and we were becoming a unified country” before the virus hit. “I did
more for the black community than anybody with the possible exception of
Abraham Lincoln, like it or not.” (I’m just going to leave that right there.)
* And finally, on the death of civil rights icon John Lewis – “I
don’t know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration. He didn’t come
to my State of the Union speeches. I think he made a big mistake.”
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