Here comes that bold-faced liar again!
We were all warned.
On Jan. 21, 2017, brand new White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stood before the assembled world media and told a magnificent whopper about the previous day’s presidential goings-on.
He boasted that it had been the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – (then he added with ear-popping emphasis) PERIOD!
That was a news conference that helped launch a thousand (so it seemed) Saturday Night Live skits. It also led to Spicer getting the nickname “Spicey.”
Yet, nothing about “Spicey’s” breathless inflation of the previous day’s inauguration prepared America for what would follow.
That was 7 years, 3 months, and 22 days ago. The outright lies and deceits from all things Trump commenced on that January day.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority was dragged into the fray, and it pointed out that Donald Trump’s inauguration was attended by fewer people than the inaugurations of George W. Bush, and Barack Obama’s two inaugurations.
Still, Trump’s team didn’t relent. It enlisted a wordsmith unlike any other. U.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway came forward and invented a new term to defend “Spicey’s” false inauguration claims. “Alternative facts” would be the go-to solution when any of those news media scoundrels tried to get her, or the brand new president, to tell the truth – about anything.
Conway defined “alternative facts,” as providing “additional facts and alternative information.”
Translation: Donald Trump can lie about anything, and that’s OK. Since there are legions of people willing to believe anything he says, then what he says are “alternative facts.”
Trump, according to the Washington Post’s fact-checkers, amassed a list of 30,573 false or misleading statements during his presidency.
The man can downright lie. (Or employ “alternative facts” in bulk)
When Trump bragged that, “We built the greatest economy in the history of the world, best unemployment numbers, best everything,” the Washington Post noted that Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Clinton each had much better economic growth during their presidencies.
That didn’t matter to him. He repeated that lie 492 times.
When Trump wanted to, he’d put his mouth on autopilot, and he would allow it to float into some outlandish territory.
On Oct. 31, 2020, while campaigning for reelection, he repeated one lie that he would eventually tell 294 times: “And I gave you the biggest tax cut in the history of our country.”
Naw!
Too bad he hadn’t looked and discovered that not only had Ronald Reagan created bigger tax cuts, but Trump’s own nemesis, Barack Obama, created larger ones too.
Trump’s tax cuts were only the 8th largest in U.S. history.
Mr. Trump’s antipathy for fact-checkers increased with each new fact-check.
“These fact-checkers,” he said at one campaign rally, “They’ll check facts with me, and it’s like 99% right, and they’ll say, ‘and therefore, he lied.'”
On the 2020 campaign trail, he made the false claim that “Twelve years ago, I was named Man of the Year of Michigan,” despite never having lived in Michigan. And despite the fact that nobody in Michigan knew of such an award.
Most of Trump’s lies are harmless. But there were a few that proved to be quite dangerous. On June 15, 2020, when he feared the growing number of COVID-19 cases could jeopardize his reelection he convened a cabinet meeting, and said, “If you don’t test, you don’t have any cases.”
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Of course, the one lie that’s the “Granddaddy of them all,” is Trump’s lingering lie that he won the 2020 presidential election.
These days, it’s obvious that anybody who entertains the possibility of becoming Trump’s vice presidential running mate has to adroitly navigate the obvious question: “Do you think Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election fair and square?”
One truthful answer, and the VP hopeful gets sent back to the political minor leagues.
To serve alongside a liar, you probably have to become a cagey liar, too.
That isn’t an “alternative fact.”
It’s most likely the truth.
Al Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.