Category: News

“I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ ”

That, as reported by The Washington Post, was Donald Trump boasting during a private fund-raising dinner about lying to Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, our northern neighbor and closest ally.

When caught in the lie, Trump did what Trump does: Repeats the lie, louder, stronger, and more stridently.

After the lie was reported, Trump tweeted:

“We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive). P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the U.S. (negotiating), but they do … they almost all do … and that’s how I know!”

By the way, here is PolitiFact’s fact-check of Trump’s claim:

“In 2017, the United States had a $23.2 billion deficit with Canada in goods. In other words, the United States in 2017 bought more goods from Canada than Canada bought from the United States.

However, the United States had a $25.9 billion surplus with Canada in services — and that was enough to overcome that deficit and turn the overall balance of trade into a $2.8 billion surplus for the United States in 2017. The same pattern occurred in 2016.”

It bears repeating that Donald Trump is a pathological, unrepentant liar. We must state this truth for as long as he revels in untruth.

But there is something about the nakedness of this confession, the brazenness of it, the cavalier-ness, that still has the ability to shock.

First, why does the president of the United States not know whether we have a trade surplus or deficit with Canada? A pillar of his campaign was to renegotiate Nafta. Surely he understood the basic fundamentals before making wild accusations and unrealistic promises, right? Wrong.

Trump’s recalling of the story suggested that he was somehow overpowering and outmaneuvering Trudeau, free to best him because he was unencumbered by an allegiance to the truth.

But in fact, the story makes Trump look small and ignorant and unprincipled.

Lying to your friends and then bragging behind their backs that you lied to them is the quickest way to poison a friendship.

This is lying for sport, for the thrill of it, because you can and feel that there is no penalty for it.

Our relationship with our allies around the world depends on some degree of mutual trust and respect. What must they think when they watch Trump demolish those diplomatic tenets? How are international agreements supposed to be negotiated when one party is a proven, prolific liar?

We have no idea just how damaged the American brand has become under Trump.

As a June 2017 Pew Research Center report pointed out:

“Although he has only been in office a few months, Donald Trump’s presidency has had a major impact on how the world sees the United States. Trump and many of his key policies are broadly unpopular around the globe, and ratings for the U.S. have declined steeply in many nations.”

The report continued:

“According to a new Pew Research Center survey spanning 37 nations, a median of just 22 percent has confidence in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to international affairs. This stands in contrast to the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency, when a median of 64 percent expressed confidence in Trump’s predecessor to direct America’s role in the world.”

Surely, some may think this lie to Trudeau is a small matter, particularly in light of the waves of Trump chaos and scandal that wash over us several times a day.

One of Trump’s most lasting legacies will likely be the damage he’s doing to the fundamental idea that truth matters.

The world is watching, and that includes the world’s children, some of whom will register him as their first American president. How will they regard this absence from world leadership that Trump is enacting? Will they grow up repulsed by it? Most hopefully will. But there will undoubtedly be others that draw a different lesson from the Trump philosophy: Create your own reality; populate it with “facts” of your own creation; use lying as a tactic; remember that strict adherence to truth is a moral barrier and morality is a burden.

This is what this man is projecting: A debauched character and a hollow place where integrity should exist.

Rather than preserving the nobility of the presidency, he is debasing it. Rather than burnishing the image of America, he is tarnishing it.

It is an awful fact that the most powerful man in America may also represent the worst of America. In a way, Trump is the un-American president.

“@realDonaldTrump is now set for war on 3 fronts: political vs Bob Mueller, economic vs China/others on trade, and actual vs. Iran and/or North Korea. This is the most perilous moment in modern American history — and it has been largely brought about by ourselves, not by events.”

I agree fully with this assessment.

Some have viewed President Trump’s recent moves as a sign of rising self-assuredness in the man.

I see quite the opposite. I see a man growing increasingly irascible as his sense of desperation surges. The world is closing in on Trump and he is in an existential fight for his own survival.

This is precisely what makes him so dangerous: As the personal threat to him grows, his threat to the country grows. The power of the American presidency is an awesome power, and Trump will harness and deploy it all as guard and guarantee against his own demise.

Add to his sense of panic his compounding emotional and psychological liabilities: He has an inflated view of his own skills, talents and expertise. He knows only a fraction of what he has convinced himself that he knows.

He prefers casual conversation to literary examination, opting to listen rather than to read, which is both a sign of a severely compromised and restrained intellect and an astounding arrogance about one’s information absorption.

While pundits mull whether the cloud of chaos Trump keeps swirling around him is simple incompetence or strategic plotting, The New York Times reported Friday:

“Aides said there was no grand strategy to the president’s actions, and that he got up each morning this week not knowing what he would do. Much as he did as a New York businessman at Trump Tower, Mr. Trump watched television, reacted to what he saw on television and then reacted to the reaction.”

This is all gut and instinct. This is all reactionary emoting by a man of poor character, one addicted to affirmation. He desperately needs to be the king-of-every-hill he sees in the mirror: He was the ladies’ man, businessman, smartest man, toughest man. There was nothing beyond him, and he didn’t have to follow the rules, he only had to follow his instincts.

But Washington politics is a long way from New York City real estate. Wrangling Senate votes is a long way from prowling for playmates. This is the big leagues and this little man is feeling the stress and strain of

Even if he can’t be good, he at least wants to look good, to fake it to try to make it. This may be one of the reasons he is inviting so many television personalities into his cabinet.

This is all just window dressing. Trump is truly in the cross hairs, and he knows it.

Just as he is going to war on three fronts, he is being attacked on three fronts.

The Robert Mueller investigation is bearing down on him as an inevitable in-person interview with Trump — and all of its potential pitfalls — draws nearer. I have resisted predictions about what could come of the investigation because it would be little more than conjecture. Only Mueller knows what Mueller knows. But, it appears to me that the president is surely acting like a guilty man, or at least someone trying to shield another who is guilty.

Then there is the porn star, the playmate and the reality star: Three women currently in litigation over sexual contact with Trump — two admittedly consensual and one allegedly not. The most tantalizing and threatening of the three is the case with porn star Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels. Daniels and her attorney, as well as language in the nondisclosure agreement that she signed, suggests that she has some compromising written and photographic evidence about her encounters with Trump.

Furthermore, in Daniels, Trump seems to have met his match as an internet troll. When someone on Twitter asked Clifford, “What snack foods do you recommend for watching you on “60 Minutes” tomorrow night? Nachos and wings feel so January, you know?” Clifford responded: “Tacos and mini corndogs just seems so right … and yet, so wrong. I believe the more traditional choice is popcorn, however.”

Yes, the subtext of that tweet is exactly what you think it is. Note to self: Never pick a fight with a porn star.

And now with the massive March For Our Lives, we see that going into the midterms not only are black voters and suburban white women energized against this president and his congressional protectors, so are young people who feel betrayed, particularly on the issue of gun control, by politicians beholden to the N.R.A.

Trump talked big about standing up to the N.R.A., and then summarily caved to the N.R.A.

If this surge of enthusiasm leads to Democrats flipping the House — and the long shot, the Senate — and something comes of the Mueller investigation or the women’s lawsuits, you can rest assured that impeachment proceedings will be in the offing. This is why Trump is going to war.