Tag Archives: Donald Trump’s lies

Trump’s lying might be overtaking him … finally!

Donald Trump’s lying is boundless, endless, bottomless.

He lies about big things. Little things. Important things. Trivial things.

The president recently said that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian. The weather forecasters said, um, no … it wasn’t. Did the president own a mistake, a misstatement, a slight bit of confusion? No. He made it worse.

He produced a map with a Sharpie line drawn beyond the official boundaries showing the impact that Dorian would have on the southeastern United States. Who put the line there? Who thought to include Alabama in Dorian’s path? Was it, oh, Donald Trump?

He then blathered on about early “models” showed Alabama in line to be clobbered by Dorian. No. It wasn’t. It never was part of the impact zone.

So this brings me to a critical point. Why does the president continue to lie even when a simple mea culpa would clear him even with his most ardent critics?

There is a growing line of thought that the president’s “pathology” forces him to lie. He is pathologically incapable of telling the truth. He cannot speak with any semblance of honesty on any topic at any time.

He has lied about how he made his zillions. He lies about what he witnesses at the time of national crisis. He has lied about attending funerals of “friends” who died on 9/11. Has lied about his father’s place of birth.

On and on it goes.

He lies about every single issue one can imagine.

The Alabama lie is just the latest. It also just might start to reveal even to his most ardent supporters that he cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything at all.

That prompts another question: How do these Trump fanatics justify their continuing to stand by this pathological liar?

Yesterday’s ‘fib’ becomes a full-blown ‘lie’

It’s hard to remember at times how the media used to treat Donald J. Trump’s penchant for prevarication.

They called his truth-twisting mere “fibs.” Or “misstatements.” Or they used similarly tepid terminology.

Then he got elected president. His telling of fiction continued.

It finally dawned on media members. The president was lying, as in knowingly disseminating false information.

I will admit to being among those who initially were reluctant to use the “L-word” in describing Trump’s unwillingness to tell the truth. I won’t say he is “unable” to speak truthfully; I believe he is fully capable of telling the truth but he merely chooses to lie.

I am not going to equate Trump’s lying to what many conservatives accused former President Obama of saying as he sought to defend the Affordable Care Act. Obama had said Americans could “choose their own doctor” under the ACA; it turned out to be untrue. Did the president lie, as in knowingly say something he knew to be false? I do not believe that’s the case; I happen to believe the president made that statement believing it to be true.

Trump’s lying comes from a different source. His lying is pathological, as former Republican Party presidential primary opponents such as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz have described it. That doesn’t excuse him from speaking falsely.

He stands before the nation and makes false statements about:

The size of his electoral victory, the nation’s economic growth, the state of the nation when he took office, his toughness with Russia, wiretapping of his campaign office in 2016, Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin coming from illegal immigrants voting for president … and, oh yes, Barack Obama’s place of birth.

And on it goes. The lying never stops.

The lies have piled up from the moment he entered the world of politics in June 2015, at the moment he rode down that escalator at Trump Tower.

The media were slow on the uptake at first. They have wised up, awakened and are now calling these falsehoods what they are.

They are lies. The president is a liar.