Sara Sanders has left the White House press secretary
position. She may run for state
office, or enter the private
sector. If the private sector, that might look like this:
Mr. Trump has already announced her successor as press
secretary. Although the following might
have been a better choice:
I got these pictures from my wife, who found them on Facebook, I believe it was. That concludes the “fun stuff” part. For those interested in the “idiocy in
politics” part, read on.
If you want to know why I used the term
Prevaricator-In-Chief, then here is one
of many AP fact check articles, as
posted on the PBS NewsHour website. The
highlighting is mine.
Off the PBS Newshour website Sat 6-22-19, photos left out:
AP fact check: The silent partner in
Trump’s boasts
Nation Jun
22, 2019 2:48 PM EDT
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump
has a silent partner behind several of the accomplishments he likes to boast
about: Barack Obama.
Despite assailing his Democratic
predecessor for waging a “cruel and heartless war on American energy,” for
example, Trump can brag about U.S. energy supremacy thanks to the sector’s
growth in the Obama years.
And the Obama-Trump decade is soon to
yield an economic record if things stay on track a little longer — the most
sustained expansion in U.S. history. Though Trump claims all the credit, the expansion started in Obama’s
first year, continued through his presidency and has been maintained under
Trump.
There are no fist bumps in the offing,
however.
The past week saw the kickoff of
Trump’s 2020 campaign with a rally in Florida. That and other events provided
Trump a platform that he used to exaggerate what he’s done, take some factually
challenged swipes at Obama and Democrats at large, and make promises that will
be hard to keep.
A sampling:
MIGRANTS
TRUMP, on separating children from
adults at the Mexican border: “When I became president, President Obama had a
separation policy. I didn’t have it. He had it. I brought the families
together. I’m the one that brought ‘em together. Now, I said something when I
did that. I’m the one that put people together. … They separated. I put ‘em
together.’ — interview with Telemundo broadcast Thursday.
JOSE DIAZ-BALART, interviewer: “You
did not.”
THE
FACTS: Trump is not telling the truth. The separation of thousands of migrant
children from their parents resulted from his “zero tolerance” policy. Obama
had no such policy. After a public
uproar and under a court order, Trump ceased the separations.
Zero tolerance meant that U.S.
authorities would criminally prosecute all adults caught crossing into the U.S.
illegally. Doing so meant detention for adults and the removal of their
children while their parents were in custody. During the Obama administration,
such family separations were the exception. They became the practice under
Trump’s policy, which he suspended a year ago.
Before Trump’s zero-tolerance policy,
migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for
civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known
to have a criminal record. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child
from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a
parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns.
TRUMP on detention centers at the border: “President Obama is
the one that built those prison cells.” — Telemundo interview.
THE FACTS: He has a point. Whether they are called prison cells
or something else, Obama held children in temporary, ill-equipped facilities
and built a large center in McAllen, Texas, that is used now.
Democrats routinely and inaccurately blame Trump for creating
“cages” for children. They are actually referring to chain-link fencing inside
the McAllen center — Obama’s creation.
Conditions for detained migrants deteriorated sharply during a
surge of Central American arrivals under Trump, particularly in El Paso, Texas.
TRADE
TRUMP: “This will be the largest trade deal ever made, and it
won’t even be close. If you take a look at the numbers, second is so far away,
you don’t even call it second. So it’s very exciting. And very exciting for
Mexico; very exciting for Canada.” — remarks Thursday with Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau.
THE FACTS: That’s wrong, simply by virtue of the number of trade
partners involved.
The proposed new agreement, replacing the North American Free
Trade agreement, covers the same three countries. The Trans-Pacific
Partnership, negotiated by the Obama administration, included the three NAFTA
partners — United States, Canada and Mexico — plus Japan and eight other
Pacific Rim countries. Trump withdrew the United States from the pact on his
third day in office.
Even the Pacific deal pales in comparison with one that did go
into effect with the U.S. on board, the Uruguay Round. Concluded in 1994, the
round of negotiations created the World Trade Organization and was signed by
123 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said the WTO’s initial
membership accounted for more than 90 percent of global economic output.
___
TRUMP on his tariffs: “We are taking in billions and billions of
dollars into our treasury. … We have never taken 10 cents from China.” — rally
Tuesday in Orlando, Florida.
THE FACTS: It’s false to
say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before he took
action. They are simply higher in some cases than they were
before. It’s also wrong to
suggest that the tariffs are being paid by China. Tariff money coming into the
treasury is mainly from U.S. businesses and consumers, not from China.
Tariffs are primarily if not entirely a tax paid domestically.
IRAN
TRUMP: “President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with
Iran – Gave them 150 Billion Dollars plus I.8 Billion Dollars in CASH! Iran was
in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to Nuclear
Weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled … Death to America.
I terminated deal.” — tweet Friday.
TRUMP, on his accomplishments: “And then terminating one of the
worst deals ever made, the Iran deal that was made by President Obama — paid
$150 billion. Paid $1.8 billion in cash. I terminated that and Iran is a much
different country.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.
THE FACTS: There was no
$150 billion payout from the U.S. treasury. The money he refers
to represents Iranian assets held abroad that were frozen until the
international deal was reached and Tehran was allowed to access its funds.
The payout of about $1.8 billion is a separate matter. That
dates to the 1970s, when Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment
that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic
relations ruptured.
That left people, businesses and governments in each country
indebted to partners in the other, and these complex claims took decades to
sort out in tribunals and arbitration. For its part, Iran paid settlements of
more than $2.5 billion to U.S. citizens and businesses.
The day after the nuclear deal was implemented, the U.S. and
Iran announced they had settled the claim over the 1970s military equipment
order, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with
about $1.3 billion in interest. The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to
Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s dramatic accounts of money
stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night. The arrangement
provided for the interest to be paid later, not crammed into containers.
ENERGY
TRUMP: “We’ve ended the last administration’s cruel and
heartless war on American energy. What they were doing to our energy should
never be forgotten. The United States is now the No. 1 producer of oil and
natural gas anywhere in the world.” — Orlando rally.
TRUMP: “We’re now No. 1 in the world in energy.” — Fox News interview
Wednesday.
THE FACTS: As he’s done
many times before, Trump is crediting himself with things that happened under
Obama.
Here’s what the government’s U.S. Energy Information
Administration says: “The United States has been the world’s top producer of
natural gas since 2009, when U.S. natural gas production surpassed that of
Russia, and the world’s top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when
U.S. production exceeded Saudi Arabia’s.”
JOBS
TRUMP: “Almost 160 million people are working. That’s more than
ever before.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: True but
that’s a tribute to Americans making babies and immigrants coming to the
country. Population growth, in other words.
Other than during recessions, employment growth has been
trending upward since 1939, when the Labor Department started counting. The
phenomenon is not a marker of leadership; it has spanned successful and failed
presidents.
More on point, the annual rate of job growth has been within the
same range since roughly 2011. It was 1.6% through May.
Another measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and
that is still below record highs. The Labor Department says 60.6 percent of
people in the U.S. 16 years and older were working in May. That’s below the
all-time high of 64.7 percent in April 2000 during Bill Clinton’s
administration, though higher than the 59.9 percent when Trump was inaugurated
in January 2017.
___
TRUMP: “Women’s unemployment is now the lowest it’s been in 74
years.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: No, the
jobless rate for women of 3.1% in April was the lowest in 66 years, not 74, and
it ticked up in May to 3.2%.
ECONOMY
TRUMP: “It’s soaring to incredible new heights. Perhaps the
greatest economy we’ve had in the history of our country.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: The economy is not one of the best in the country’s
history. It expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of
this year. That growth was the highest in just four years for the first
quarter.
In the late 1990s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight
years, a level it has not yet reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth
even reached 7.2 percent in 1984.
The economy grew 2.9% in
2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under Obama — and simply hasn’t hit
historically high growth rates.
Trump has legitimate claim to a good economy but when it comes
to records, there’s one he will have to share with Obama. The economy is on
track to achieve its longest expansion ever, in July. Much of that decade-long growth came during
Obama’s presidency, an achievement that Trump so far has largely sustained.
Other than in its durability, the economy is far from the finest in history.
THE WALL
TRUMP: “We’ll have over 400 miles built by the end of next
year.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.
TRUMP: “We’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the
end of next year. It’s moving very rapidly.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: That’s highly
unlikely, and even if so, the great majority of the wall he’s talking about would
be replacement barrier, not new miles of construction. Trump has added strikingly little length to barriers along the
Mexico border despite his pre-eminent 2016 campaign promise to get a wall done.
Even to reach 400 miles or 640 kilometers, he would have to
prevail in legal challenges to his declaration of a national emergency or get
Congress to find more money to get anywhere close.
So far, the administration has awarded contracts for 247 miles
(395 km) of wall construction, but that initiative has been constrained by
court cases that are still playing out.
In any event, all but 17
miles (27 km) of his awarded contracts so far would replace existing barriers.
___
TAXES *** (see below)
TRUMP: “We’ve done so much … with the biggest tax cut in history.”
— Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: His tax cuts
are nowhere close to the biggest in U.S. history.
It’s a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the
total economy, a tax cut of that size ranks 12th, according to the Committee
for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cut is the
biggest, followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II.
Post-Reagan tax cuts also stand among the historically
significant: President George W. Bush’s cuts in the early 2000s and Obama’s
renewal of them a decade later.
ENVIRONMENT
TRUMP: “Our water and our air today is cleaner than it ever was.
… Our air — it’s the best it ever was.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.
TRUMP: “Our air and water are the cleanest they’ve ever been by
far.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: Not true about
air quality, which hasn’t gotten better under the Trump administration. U.S. drinking water is among the best by one leading measure.
After decades of improvement, progress in air quality has stalled.
Over the last two years the U.S. had more polluted air days than just a few
years earlier, federal data show.
There were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last
year and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016, the
four years when America had its fewest number of those days since at least
1980.
The Obama administration,
in fact, set records for the fewest air polluted days, in 2016.
On water, Yale University’s global Environmental Performance
Index finds 10 countries tied for the cleanest drinking water, the U.S. among
them. On environmental quality overall, the U.S. was 27th, behind a variety of
European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia and more. Switzerland was No. 1.
___
JUDGES
TRUMP on the confirmation of federal judges: “President Obama
was very nice to us. He didn’t fill the positions.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: Trump’s sarcasm aside, he does have a better success
rate than Obama in filling judicial vacancies. The Republican-controlled Senate in Obama’s last two
years avoided taking action on many of his nominees. Republicans still
control the Senate and have been able to confirm about 120 of Trump’s picks
despite their slim majority. That’s about 35 more than Obama had confirmed at this
point in his presidency.
HEALTH CARE
TRUMP: “We will always protect patients with pre-existing
conditions. Always.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: His
administration’s actions say otherwise. It is pressing in court for full repeal
of Obama’s health law, which requires insurers to take all applicants,
regardless of medical history, and charge the same standard premiums to healthy
people and those who had medical problems before or when they signed up.
Trump and other Republicans say they’ll have a plan to preserve
protections for people with pre-existing conditions, but the White House has
provided no details.
ABORTION
TRUMP:
“Leading Democrats have even opposed measures to prevent the execution of
children after birth.” — Orlando rally.
THE
FACTS: Executing children is already a crime.
Trump is offering here a somewhat toned
down version of a distorted story he’s been telling for months that falsely
suggests Democrats are OK with murder.
His
account arises from extremely rare instances when babies are born alive as a
result of an attempted abortion. When these cases occur, “execution” is not an
option.
When
a baby is born with anomalies so severe that he or she would die soon after
birth, a family may choose what’s known as palliative care or comfort care.
This might involve allowing the baby to die naturally without medical
intervention. Providing comfort without life-extending treatment is not
specific to newborns. It may happen with fatally ill patients of any age.
___
VETERANS
TRUMP:
“We passed VA Choice. …They’ve been trying to get that passed also for about 44
years.” — Orlando rally.
THE FACTS: No, Congress approved the
private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into
law. Trump signed an expansion of it.
___
RUSSIA
INVESTIGATION
TRUMP:
“I’m the most transparent president in history. I let Mueller have everything
they wanted.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.
THE
FACTS: It’s highly questionable to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia
investigation.
Trump
declined to sit for an interview with Robert Mueller’s team, gave written
answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said
more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in
writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire the special
counsel or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry.
In the end, the Mueller report found no
criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the
question of whether Trump obstructed justice.
According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a
prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice
Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted. The report instead factually
laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically
leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter.
*** re: TAXES -- to what is written I would only add that a
variety of sources confirm that most of the tax benefits went to the giant
wealthy corporations instead of the middle class and poor individuals, to whom it was promised by Trump.
-------
This AP fact check is quite typical of all that I have
seen. The pattern is chronic lying in
order to look good to his true believer supporters, with the claims having little bearing on
reality. Nearly 100% of what Mr. Trump
claims is false. That is his track record.
All presidents do both good and bad while in office, that is only human. What we all want is a president who
does more good, than bad, for us.
Chronic lies are not good for the country, they do us damage, in a myriad of ways. So, of
what benefit is a “Prevaricator-In-Chief” in the White House? How many more years must we suffer with this?
He's not the only liar in DC. But he is the worst one.
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