Tag: liar

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Trump: “I Never Said” Mexico Would Pay For The Wall

Donald Trump

Donald Trump told reporters today that he “never said” Mexico would pay for his beloved border wall.

“When during the campaign I would say Mexico is going to pay for it, obviously I never said this, and I never meant they’re going to write out a check,” said the Trumpster. “I said they’re going to pay for it – they are.”

Show of hands, please, does anyone recall Trump repeating over and over again, “Who’s gonna pay for the wall? Mexico! It’ll be so easy…”

From Trump’s campaign website, August 2016: “It’s an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion…”

Trump now says Mexico is “paying for the wall indirectly many, many times over by the really great trade deal we just made.”

Note: The USMCA has not been ratified by Congress, and so, it’s not currently in force.

Plus, any economic gains from the USMCA would go to private individuals and companies, not the U.S. Treasury.

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Mike Pence: Trump Had The ‘Impression’ Former Presidents Wanted A Border Wall

Vice President Mike Pence

For several days now, fact checkers have noted Donald Trump’s claim that former presidents have told him they wish they had built a wall along the US/Mexico border as false.

Representatives from Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter have all confirmed they never told Trump they regret not building a wall.

Today, Vice President Mike Pence told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson that the president ‘had the impression’ previous administrations had wanted to build a wall.

“I know the President has said that that was his impression from previous administrations, previous Presidents,” said Pence. “I know I’ve seen clips of previous presidents talking about the importance of border security, the importance of addressing the issue of illegal immigration.”

Again, we see the Trump/Pence administration stretch the truth here as “border security” (which Democrats support, by the way) is one thing, building a wall is another.

On top of the fact that all living former presidents say they never even discussed the subject with Trump.

The man literally cannot stop lying.

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Fox News Fact Checks Sarah Huckabee Sanders On Bogus ‘Terrorists Coming Across Mexican Border’ Lie

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders found out today what it's like to be interviewed by a journalist who's done his homework.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders found out today what it’s like to be interviewed by a journalist who’s done his homework.

In an interview with Fox News‘ Chris Wallace, Sanders attempted to push the false claim about terrorists being caught at the southern border on Fox News Sunday, but Chris Wallace just happened to have the facts at hand.

“I know the statistic, I didn’t know if you were going to use it, but I studied up on this,” Wallace said. “Do you know what those 4,000 people come where they are captured? Airports.”

“Not always,” Sanders tried.

“Airports. The state department says there hasn’t been any terrorists found coming across the southern border,” continued Wallace. “But they’re not coming across the southern border, Sarah, they’re coming and they’re being stopped at airports.”

“They’re coming a number of ways, they’re certainly, I’m not disagreeing with you that they’re coming through airports,” lamely offered Sanders.

You have to wonder how different would the state of the nation be if every journalist was prepared with facts when interviewing politicians?

Watch below.

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Another Lie: Trump Says Former Presidents Wish They’d Built ‘The Wall’

Donald Trump

Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that former presidents have shared with him privately that they wish they had built a wall along the Mexican border.

“This should have been done by all of the presidents that preceded me and they all know it,” Trump said. “Some of them have told me that we should have done it.”

But spokesmen for three of the four living former presidents – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — say (guess what?) that has not happened.

From Politico:

Asked if Clinton told Trump that he should have built a border wall, Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said, “He did not. In fact, they’ve not talked since the inauguration.”

Bush spokesman Freddy Ford also said the two men had not discussed the matter. And Obama, for his part, has not spoken with Trump since his inauguration, except for a brief exchange at George H.W. Bush’s funeral in Washington, D.C.

No official word from Jimmy Carter, but in September he said, “If I were president again, I’d change all of Trump’s policies.”

So, there you go.

*****************************************

UPDATE – January 7, 2019 – Jimmy Carter has weighed in officially now saying, “I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue.”

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Donald Trump: #TrumpShutdown ‘Is Only Because Of The 2020 Presidential Election”

Donald Trump

As the new Congress is sworn in today, Donald Trump is already railing at the Democrats for not budging on funds for his infamous ‘wall’ along the southern border.

Blaming the current government shutdown on ‘the 2020 Presidential Election,’ the Donald again speaks in the third person hailing ‘all of the achievements of “Trump:”‘

In truth, there was an agreement to continue funding the federal government among Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The legislation was approved 100-0 in the Senate on a voice vote.

But when far-right nuts like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter publicly took Trump to task for not standing his ground for ‘the wall,’ Trump reneged and reversed course. And in doing so, closed down 25% of the federal government.

As Jeff Zeleny of CNN reminds us, on December 12 Trump proudly said on camera in the Oval Office, “I am proud to shut down the government. I will take the mantle.”

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Trump: “Much Of The Wall Has Already Been Fully Renovated Or Built”

Donald Trump

Donald Trump tweeted today that his infamous ‘wall’ is actually being paid for via the recently announced trade negotiations known as United States/Mexico/Canada Trade Deal.

The Donald also asserts that ‘much of the wall has already been fully renovated or built.”

???

If it’s ‘fully renovated or built’ why shutdown the government?

Ken Meyer at Mediaite has more:

So, let’s see. Mexico is supposedly paying for the wall with an updated NAFTA deal that will presumably stimulate U.S. economic activity enough to offset the wall’s cost through tax revenue. Even if this federal revenue increase does happen as Trump claims, the actual end result here is American taxpayers will supply the money for the wall, not Mexico.

At a briefing today, Trump told reporters he’d ‘rather not say’ if he would accept less than $5 billion for his wall to bring the government shutdown to a close

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Four-Star General: Donald Trump Is An Immoral Liar

In an appearance on ABC News' This Week, four-star Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led the international mission in Afghanistan, told host Martha Raddatz that Donald Trump lies and is 'immoral.'
Army General Stanley McChrystal

In an appearance on ABC News’ This Week, four-star Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led the international mission in Afghanistan, told host Martha Raddatz that Donald Trump lies and is ‘immoral.’

In the exchange, Raddatz asks if McChrystal would serve in the Trump administration if asked. The answer is a quick ‘no.’

McChrystal: “I think it’s important for me to work for people who are basically honest.”

Raddatz: “You think he’s a liar?”

McChrystal: “I don’t think he tells the truth.”

Raddatz: “Is Trump immoral, in your view?”

McChrystal: “I think he is.”

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Trump Says Democrats ‘Own’ Government Shutdown After Saying He Would Shoulder The Blame

Donald Trump summoned Senate Republicans to the White House this morning in a rallying cry to get them to somehow pass the newly-approved House spending bill that includes $5 billion for Trump’s border wall.

Remember the 2016 campaign? 

 ‘Who’s gonna pay for ‘the wall?’ ‘Mexico!’

Mind you, you need 60 votes in the Senate to pass a spending bill. There are nowhere near enough Democratic votes (if one) to get close to 60.

But Trump took to Twitter this morning already blaming the Democrats for any government shutdown that might occur tonight at midnight.

But if you take a little trip on the Wayback Machine, you’ll recall on December 11th in a nationally televised Oval Office meeting, Trump said:

“If we don’t get what we want, one way or the other, I will shut down the government. So I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it. I’ll tell you what, I am proud to shut down the government.”

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer points out, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to keep the government open and running.

In the case of a shutdown, nine federal departments and a number of agencies – Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, State, Transportation and Treasury Departments – will all shutter.

More than 420,000 people will work without pay and an additional 380,000 workers will be furloughed.

Right before Christmas.

#ThanksTrump

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Washington Post Launches New “Bottomless Pinocchio” Rating For Trump’s Repeated Lies

Donald Trump

The Washington Post Fact Checker is beginning a new fact-checking rating for politicians – the “Bottomless Pinocchio.

That dubious distinction will be awarded to politicians who repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation.

The bar for the Bottomless Pinocchio is high: The claims must have received three or four Pinocchios from The Fact Checker, and they must have been repeated at least 20 times. Twenty is a sufficiently robust number that there can be no question the politician is aware that his or her facts are wrong. The list of Bottomless Pinocchios will be maintained on its own landing page.

The Fact Checker has not identified statements from any other current elected official who meets the standard other than Trump. In fact, 14 statements made by the president immediately qualify for the list.

Among the whoppers that Trump continues to repeat that qualify for the “Bottomless Pinocchio” include the Democrats ‘colluding’ with the Russians in the 2016 election (48 times); calling his tax cut legislation “the biggest tax cut in history (123 times); and boasting that the U.S. is experiencing ‘the best economy in the history of the country (99 times).

There’s much more at the link.

What a dubious distinction.

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Mike Pence’s World AIDS Day Speech Filled With Misinformation, No Mention Of LGBTQ Community

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at World AIDS Day event at White House

In advance of the 30th observance of World AIDS Day (December 1), Vice President Mike Pence spoke at a White House event where he boasted of the current administration’s ‘accomplishments’ on HIV/AIDS.

Since 1988, December 1 has been acknowledged as a day dedicated to raising aware of the AIDS pandemic that has claimed more than 35 million lives worldwide.

Pence’s speech was filled with wild inaccuracies as he attempted to credit Donald Trump with bringing “a renewed energy and focus” to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

That statement alone represents the height of hypocrisy.

Celebrating the 15th anniversary of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), Pence told the audience at the event that the president plans on signing a bill soon that will reauthorize the program.

What he didn’t mention is that Trump’s own budget proposal called for a 17% reduction in funding for the program, in addition to $425 million to be cut from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

Hailing the success of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, which provides health coverage for low-income people with HIV/AIDS, the Vice President failed to tell the crowd that the administration diverted funds from the program this year to help pay for separating families at the Mexican border.

Additionally, the president fired the remaining 16 members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS after 6 prominent members resigned over his indifference to the issue.

In the nearly two years since Trump took office, no one has been appointed to lead the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. How do you take credit for ‘renewed energy and focus’ when you haven’t even asked someone to lead the charge against the disease?

Then there’s the “Deploy or Get Out” policy which could mean the discharge of HIV+ U.S. military service members. The policy, announced in February of this year, directed the Pentagon to remove any military personnel who are considered undeployable to serve outside of the U.S. for 12 consecutive months “for any reason.”

And, for the second year in a row, at no time did Pence, nor any other White House official, acknowledge the disproportionate impact HIV/AIDS has had on the LGBTQ community.

In 2016, two-thirds of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States were gay and bisexual men.

Even going back to before Pence’s time in the current administration, there was his woeful record as a congressman and governor of Indiana on the issue of HIV.

Running for congress in 2000, his campaign website stated that funds from the Ryan White program should be “directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

As Governor of Indiana, Pence opposed a needle exchange program which would have slowed HIV infections in rural counties in his state. It was only after 200 people became infected in just one county that he allowed the program to be implemented.

Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, tweeted his criticism of the speech, calling out Pence’s hypocrisy and misinformation:

And longtime LGBTQ activist and author Michelangelo Signorile pulled no punches in his assessment of Pence’s remarks:

(h/t Washington Blade)