Dishonesty is the defining characteristics of Trump and his administration, and lies are a daily occurrence. While there are far too many lies to track, I thought a thread dedicated to the worst and most notable lies would be useful. There’s a lot of material to choose from.
(I could have tapped into a rich vein of lies simply by linking to Trump’s Truth Social account — hence the OP title.)
Allan:
Bill must have an enormous emotional investment in Trump given that he’s willing to debase himself day after day by denying what’s obvious to everyone else here. I wonder how many MAGA types are as bad as Bill. I would expect — and perhaps I’m being optimistic here — that most of them would acknowledge that Trump’s a liar but would try to find ways to minimize the importance of it, by for example arguing that Trump never lies about the important stuff (even though that’s clearly false). The cognitive dissonance of denying all of Trump’s lies would be too much for them. But maybe I’m being optimistic and most of them are as bad as Bill.
I wonder if anyone has done research on this.
I’ve said before (I’ve said everything before, it’s just Groundhog Day) that maybe Trump’s lies are so vast it’s impossible for some people to accept any as valid. No-one could really lie that prodigiously; it must all be a leftist plot. As plots go, it is enormously overcooked. After making up the thousandth lie, the Washington Post could say “enough?”. No, we need more, more, MORE!!!
And still he doesn’t sue.
Allan:
And no one debunks the Washington Post database and collects their Pulitzer.
Allan Miller,
The challenge we all have is separating propaganda from real information. The 30000 lie claim is a red flag as it is a pure unvetted assertion as many statistical claims are. What a claim like this does with people who trust the source is create cognitive bias. Some multimodal AI operates the same once it accepts a single fact it tries to prove that fact is right and loses its objectivity.
And that’s why Trump’s suppression of statistics is a good thing, right?
Except when the source is Trump, then it’s the other way round – anybody who does *not* trust Trump’s statistical claims suffers from cognitive bias and TDS, right? Whereas you have no bias in trusting Trump’s claim that he ended 8-10 wars, because Trump cannot lie. He says so many numbers in rapid succession that they cannot all be lies…
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
We are, at least, trying. You appear happy to avoid the challenge altogether.
No. It’s 30,000 claims, each one of which you are at liberty to challenge. There’s an 80% concordance when compared with other fact-checking operations, so 24,000 of those claims HAVE been vetted, and “Nearly complete agreement was observed for bottom-line attributed veracity. ” And again, anyone is welcome to challenge any of them. The absence of any attempt to rebut them is telling. I mean, you are disputing the error in “bring down prices 500%”, whilst offering up bromides about cognitive bias. It’s comedy gold.
You make no effort in that regard. You just regard anything Trump-critical as propaganda.
Feel free to pick one and dismantle it. You are rather proving my point. If someone lies so prodigiously as to be able to amass 30,000 instances, not one of them can be true.
In which case, why doesn’t he sue?
How objective is it to consider that a politician has not been shown to lie even once? Imagine it’s Biden.
Fox could have an absolute field day with this. They could show, one by one, how every one of those 30,000+ reports is incorrect. Destroy Washington Post’s credibility. Trump could extort billions.
Those dogs are not barking. Why is that?
colewd:
Some of us are better at it than others. You keep falling for propaganda. We don’t.
This is not some “how to lie with statistics” scheme. It’s a frikkin’ count, and the count is 30,573. Each of those falsehoods is documented in a publicly available database. According to you, not a single one of those 30,573 entries amounts to an actual lie. Do you realize how preposterous that is?
As Jock points out, the database has been vetted. Also, apply a little common sense. Why would the second most prestigious newspaper in the country publish a database of 30,573 entries, every single one of them fabricated, knowing that they would get caught? If the database is full of errors, why was it nominated for the NYU journalism school’s Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade list?
If the database is fraudulent, why hasn’t a single reporter exposed it? Do they think “Pulitzer, Schmulitzer — who cares about prizes”? Why aren’t Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham crowing about this? Is it because they don’t want to own the libs and they want the Washington Post to maintain its reputation? Why haven’t we seen Jesse Watters, veins throbbing, denouncing the Post on The Five?
And as Allan asks, why hasn’t Trump sued? If the database is a complete hoax, he’s guaranteed to win in court. Does he not want the money? Does he not want to humiliate the Post, a newspaper that he hates? It’s ludicrous.
Here’s the database. Go look for yourself:
In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims
This is the first entry that shows up at that page:
Go ahead and debunk it. Then we can move on to other entries. Or you can do the Bill thing and run away.
colewd:
You keep forgetting: we’re not like you. We don’t blindly trust sources. When I first heard about the WaPo database, I didn’t just assume it was correct, even though the Post has a good reputation. I went and checked a few entries for myself, verified them using other sources, and observed how carefully they were documented. I searched the internet to see if anyone had debunked the database. I also simply thought about it and concluded that if the database were fraudulent, it would have been headline news and I would have heard about it.
It isn’t that difficult.
‘Multimodal AI’? Someone’s been cribbing from the internet, I see. Ironic that the guy who incessantly and blindly quotes Grok is suddenly skeptical of AI.
AI is a tool. You have to use it correctly. I have six AIs on my taskbar, so it’s easy for me to use two or three of them to cross-check each other. Even if they all agree, it doesn’t mean that they’re correct, but it certainly improves the odds. If the question is important enough, I’ll ask the AI to point me to its sources so I can verify them firsthand.
If you think the WaPo database is bogus, then start debunking entries, or point to someone who has done so exhaustively. If you can’t do either of those things, then what’s your basis for claiming that it’s unreliable?
Allan Miller,
I am not claiming he has never lied. That would be extraordinary for anyone. I do have evidence from an attorney that deposed him years before he ran. ” He is the most straight for CEO I have ever deposed.”
The lack of ability for anyone here to nail down a lie like we can with Clinton is supporting evidence that for a politician he is pretty straight forward. He does, however, use hyperbolic language.
The problem with the discussions Keiths is setting up is it is about bashing a candidate not about policy where we could actually have some interesting discussions.
colewd:
Um, aren’t you forgetting that you didn’t hear it from the attorney — you heard it secondhand through a friend? We had an amusing exchange about that:
keiths:
Your position is that a single bit of hearsay outweighs 30,573 meticulously documented lies, plus all of the other lies we’re constantly pointing out. Does that make sense to you? Particularly when you (falsely) criticize us for relying on hearsay?
We’ve nailed down dozens of Trump lies and the WaPo has nailed down tens of thousands. Where are your rebuttals? Why do you run away whenever I ask you to explain why you think Trump isn’t lying about this or that?
I offered you the easiest, most harmless Trump lie to consider. He clearly lies about his golf wins. That should be an easy lie to acknowledge because it doesn’t impact policy, or affect national security, or jeopardize due process, etc. He’s just lying about golf, but you can’t even admit that. If it’s about policy for you and not about character, then why not acknowledge his obvious but harmless golf lies?
I know why. It’s because you do care about character, despite pretending not to, and in particular you care about the character of your Dear Leader. The golf lies don’t impact the country but they do reveal your Dear Leader’s dishonesty, and that distresses you. As a cult member, you simply cannot abide the notion that he’s a liar — not even when the lies are harmless.
Here’s a fill-in-the-blank question, since you like to flee from these:
colewd:
You keep repeating that as if hyperbolic language can’t be dishonest. When I tell you that I’m as rich as Elon Musk, am I merely exaggerating, or am I being dishonest? When Trump claimed to have gotten 200 trade deals when it was actually zero, was that merely hyperbolic, or was it dishonest?
For the umpteenth time, Trump isn’t a candidate, he’s the president. And since the topic of the thread is Trump’s dishonesty, doesn’t it make sense that we’re discussing Trump’s dishonesty? Honesty matters in a president, and Trump lacks it.
Says the guy who ran away from our discussion of the OBBBA when asked to explain why he supported it. You don’t want a policy discussion, you just want us to stop showing that Trump is a pathological liar. It upsets you, and the fact that you’re helpless to defend him upsets you even more.
I genuinely feel some sympathy for you, seeing how upset you are and how you’re struggling to preserve your false image of Trump. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop telling the truth about him, though.
Here’s Secretary of Treasury issuing a statistical claim that is “not a debate” according to him, yet it’s instantly proved false.
It is no wonder that colewd sees himself as a perfectly functional human being in the context of this level of proud and brazen incompetence and ignorance at the highest levels of government in USA right now. Online posting cannot cure colewd’s clinical insanity when the irl environment is that cultish ideological lying is rewarded and facts do not matter.
keiths,
Keiths: Why do you trust the Washington post as a reliable source to support your arguments?
Why is Eric supporting his arguments with edited video clips?
colewd,
Why does colewd give Grok’s answers instead of his own? Is it because he is a brainwashed cultist moron who never has a single point of his own to make?
These were the questions already over half a year ago when there was some semblance of discussion going on. It’s gotten far worse since then.
colewd:
Your question reveals something about your own approach to the media, and you appear to be assuming that I approach it in a similar way. I don’t. I don’t blindly trust media outlets, and I don’t blindly distrust them either. The most reliable outlets in the world can still make mistakes or succumb to bias, and the sleaziest and most unreliable ones sometimes report the truth. I would never say (to paraphrase the evangelical bromide) “The WaPo says it; I believe it; that settles it”.
I already explained why I accept the WaPo database as accurate:
Use a little common sense. Ask yourself the obvious questions.
The Washington Post is one of the most prestigious newspapers in the US, second only to the New York Times. Their reputation means everything to them.
You’re also forgetting that I don’t rely solely on the WaPo database to make my case. The database corroborates my claim, but I have tons of evidence from other sources including the Orange Pinocchio himself.
If you want to try to debunk the WaPo database, be my guest. I gave you the link. Go grab some of those fabrications and bring them back here for discussion. But the WaPo database only covers Trump’s first term. There have been thousands of lies since then, and we’ve pointed many of them out to you.
Here’s one that should be easy: Trump says he’s won 38 golf tournaments. He hasn’t. Golfers think he’s lying. I think he’s lying. You claim he isn’t. If Trump isn’t lying, then fill in the blank:
Your alternatives:
You’ll fail if you try #1. You won’t choose #2, because that’s anathema to you as a cult member. That leaves #3: Trump hasn’t won 38 tournaments, but he truly believes that he has.
How do you explain that? Is he delusional? Is he imagining tournament victories that never happened? Is he just misremembering? Do you think that anyone as obsessed with golf as Trump is can’t keep track of his tournament wins?
The caddies at one club called Trump ‘Pele’ behind his back for his habit of kicking balls back onto the fairway. We also saw him cheat in Scotland. Is it surprising that someone who regularly cheats at golf also lies about his victories?
For once, could you not avoid the question, Bill? If Trump isn’t lying about his golf wins, then what is actually going on?
Bill might have a point in the case of golf tournaments. Trump only “wins” in tournaments he controls, and he declares himself the winner because he can. He has declared himself winner even in at least one case where he didn’t even play the final round, but made up a score for that round anyway. Trump plays Calvinball golf, where the rules are whatever he needs them to be when he needs to make them up. So in this sense he really has won those 38 tournaments. Now most people wouldn’t be entirely satisfied with winning simply by declaring themselves winner, but Trump doesn’t seem any less proud of his “wins” than if he’d actually won.
And I think the same goes for all the wars he stopped or prevented. From where I sit, he has a truly amazing capacity to believe whatever fits his preferences, but I need to bear in mind that he has carefully surrounded himself with people who will assure him he’s right about everything, and fired those who told him the truth even once. For Trump, what the MSM report really is fake news, his advisors all tell him so.
colewd,
Hearsay. Proves nothing. I heard a cleaner say he was a lying twonk.
It’s not that anyone has ‘failed to ‘nail down a lie’, it’s that you have your fingers in your ears shouting “LA-LA-LAAAA” at every one.
Washington Post details over 30,000. Pick any one and argue against it.
Or point to a lie you will concede.
If you can’t do this, you are essentially taking the position that he never lies. Or at least, is indistinguishable from someone who never lies. And that – in view of the extent of evidence – is extraordinary.
Sure. When I said groceries were down when they were up, or won 38 golf champs when it was none, I was just being hyperbolic.
Not a candidate. The incumbent.
As interesting as that on tariffs, where you failed to brook any criticism of your hero's policy?
Allan Miller,
This is way stronger to me than bias news sources. From the posts so far it is pretty clear that no one else here has private insight on who Trump really is. This is only one of 3 I know who have had encounters with him. One did claim he spoke crudely in a meeting. If this, however, made him unfit for office we would have a big challenge finding a fit President.
This hero claim is part of the lefts lack of understanding of why they are on life support right now. People want affordability and safety and the left has misserably failed here. We have a democratic mayor in San Francisco providing this and holding solid popularity. On the national stage the Dems are a train wreck and you guys are following along with their losing policies and practices like demonising their opponents.
As the long time democrat Steven A Smith said Trump is schooling you guys.
Which Trump and the republican party never does of course. Never have they or he called them things like radical left lunatics, sick, evil, dangerous, the enemy within, america haters, stupid, seditious, traitors, low-iq, marxist communists or anything of the sort. Trump never suggested Hillary Clinton should be locked up (and didn’t suggest that maybe “the 2nd amendment people” could do something about her). Nor has he ever vaguely suggested any of his political opponents are doing the bidding of China. Nope. Not even once. Never ever happened.
Nobody, spurred by demonization of the left, came to Nancy Pelosi’s house with a hammer seeking to murder her. Simply didn’t happen. The mob wanting to hang Mike Pence were all joking of course. Or paid crisis actors.
Colewd is in full-blown, epic denial. This is fascinating to watch. He’s now arguing that we shouldn’t judge Trump on the basis of what he has actually said and done, which we have seen with our own eyes, but instead rely on hearsay. Hearsay is now the evidentiary gold standard, “way stronger” than the news, when a short while ago Bill was complaining that
He’s flailing, looking for anything he can latch on to in defense of his Dear Leader, without even realizing that he’s contradicting himself.
Flint:
Trump knows they aren’t legitimate. Here’s what he said during his Thanksgiving Day video call with the troops:
He doth protest too much. If they were legitimate wins, he wouldn’t feel the need to say it three times.
Regarding Trump’s actual skill, sportswriter Rick Reilly comments:
Favorability Ratings: U.S. Political Leaders
Favorable Unfavorable Spread
Donald Trump 43.5 52.9 -9.4
J.D. Vance 40.1 45.6 -5.5
Mike Johnson 31.7 38.8 -7.1
Hakeem Jeffries 31.0 38.4 -7.4
John Thune 23.3 29.8 -6.5
Chuck Schumer 27.8 50.2 -22.4
Favorability ratings should be put in context. This is from RCP average ratings. Keiths hero Chuck Schumer is not fairing very well also Jeffries with 31% approval. This Trump bashing strategy is really working :-).
colewd:
You’ll need to explain your reasoning here. Are you saying that it’s fine that Americans think Trump is doing a shitty job as long as they think that other politicians are also doing a shitty job? Does that make sense to you?
And by the way, approval ratings are yet another thing that Trump lies about. I’ll comment on that later.
When have I indicated that Chuck Schumer is my hero? When has anyone here indicated that Chuck Schumer is their hero? I actually wish the Democrats would replace him.
I know you’re desperate, Bill, but making shit up only makes things worse for you.
If our goal were to improve Schumer’s and Jeffries’ approval ratings, you might have a point. It isn’t. We’re criticizing Trump, and our criticisms are hitting the mark while you watch helplessly, unable to defend him.
The topic of this thread is Trump’s dishonesty. We’ve shown you dozens of Trump’s lies since this discussion began eight months ago. We’ve referred you to a Washington post database of over 30,000 more. I can’t think of a single time you’ve proven us or the WaPo wrong. Can you? If so, when? And be aware that when you run away from this question, you will be confirming that you haven’t scored a single point in the debate.
colewd:
Earlier in the thread, I gave you statistics showing that Trump has been a complete failure on affordability. Your one attempt at defending him was to argue that gas and energy prices are down. They aren’t. In fact, gas prices aren’t down and household energy costs are up by over 6% from a year ago. If you think affordability is an important issue, then why aren’t you criticizing Trump for his abject failure in that area?
He’s not just a failure on affordability. He’s so out of touch that he thinks ‘affordability’ is a new word, a hoax invented by the Democrats, and he refers to it awkwardly as “the affordability”, as if English were his second language:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And:
Some advice: If you’re trying to defend Trump, affordability is the last thing you should bring up.
colewd,
It’s biased. Why have people on the Right almost universally decided to drop the ‘ed’ from the adjectival form?
For the rest, just more hearsay. You can’t address a single one of the Washington Post’s detailed lies, nor any other brought to your attention, but think some guy’s vague assessment renders every one invalid.
Why’s he not sued, Bill? Why has Fox not exposed the Post as concocting 30,000 fabricated claims of lying? I have my suspicions. What about you?
colewd,
Might I remind you I’m not in the US? Not interested in your party politics, but in the lying, vain, compulsive manchild you have elevated to high office. Trump would be a liar whatever party he stood for (and I bet my bottom dollar if he was a Democrat you would be agreeing).
Allan Miller,
Yet you cannot parse our 1 statement out of the 30000 claim and validate it is a lie. At what point do you have credibility of being able to spot propaganda vs letting it indoctrinate you?
Is your only interest in this discussion demonising Trump?
keiths,
Politics in a democracy is a game of choices. We constantly elect the best of bad choices. Your posts will remain convoluted until you face this reality.
Does it make sense to you to talk about a single candidate without any comparison to alternatives?
colewd:
That’s interesting. You’re acknowledging that Trump is a bad choice, then? Why do you revere him if he’s a bad choice? Why not condemn him for things like lying, which make him a bad choice?
Politics is about far more than just elections. It’s about governance, and elections are just the way we select (some of) those who govern us. What elected officials do affects us year-round, including in non-election years. That matters. Trump’s dishonesty affects all of us, right now, and in fact he wouldn’t even be president if it weren’t for his lying.
The reality is that Trump is a liar, and it’s a reality that you are still unable to face. It’s the topic of this thread. If you think he isn’t a liar, then defend him. Rebut our claims. Show that the lies we’re pointing to aren’t actually lies. And if you can’t defend him, then be honest (unlike him) and admit that he’s a liar.
Instead of defending him, which you’re unable to do, you’re falling back on your usual tactic of claiming that we shouldn’t be criticizing him, which is ridiculous. What he does has an immediate effect on the country. For example, he tried to force 42 million Americans to go hungry in order to win the shutdown fight. That’s sleazy, and to argue that we shouldn’t criticize him for it is absurd. It matters when people go hungry, Bill, even if it isn’t an election year.
Jesus H. Christ. How many times do we have to explain to you what a candidate is, and why Trump isn’t one? Is it really that difficult?
Candidates aren’t the only people subject to criticism. It makes perfect sense to criticize presidents when they do a bad job. Americans have always done it, and they always will. Trump’s doing a terrible job, and you don’t have to compare him to anyone else in order to see that. For instance, forcing people to go hungry for political gain is a bad thing, period. No comparison necessary.
colewd, to Allan:
That was pretty garbled, but if you think the WaPo database is wrong, then debunk it. Start picking entries and show us why they’re wrong. Or ask yourself: “If no one on the right has debunked the WaPo database despite the fact that they would love to, what is the probability that I’ll be able to debunk it?” If you can’t debunk it, it stands, and if it stands, it shows that Trump is a liar.
If you want to argue that Trump didn’t know that any of his 30,573 claims were actually false (which is ridiculous on its face), then be brave and follow through. Explain why he said them and why he didn’t know that they weren’t true.
You can do that right now for some of the lies we’ve discussed in this thread. I’ve demonstrated that Trump is lying about prices. You dispute that. I’ve given you the statistics showing that what he’s saying is false. If he isn’t lying, as you claim, then he doesn’t know that what he’s saying is false. How do you explain that? Why does Trump think that gas prices and energy prices are down when they’re actually up? Why does Trump think inflation is dead when it’s alive and kicking? Why does he think he inherited high inflation from Biden when in fact it was only 3.0%? Why is he so completely deluded about the state of the economy?
And then you can ask yourself, “Why do I support a president who is utterly delusional and unable to deal with the realities of the job?” The answer is straightforward and obvious: you support Trump because he is your cult leader. Whether he is dishonest, corrupt, amoral, incompetent, or criminal doesn’t matter to you. He’s your leader, and that’s all that matters in the mind of a cult member.
This thread is about Trump’s dishonesty, of which there are countless examples. Dishonesty matters in a president. It’s fair game for criticism. If you think dishonesty doesn’t matter, then tell us why.
And yet you cannot show me that a single statement out of that 30,000 is not in fact a lie.
You have no credibility. To believe that someone has gone to the considerable trouble of making up 30,000 lies, yet Trump has not sued, nor Fox feasted on the Post’s embarrassment, is beyond ridiculous. It is impossible for you to accept a flaw in your glorious hero. Give him a medal.
This thread is specifically about Trump’s lying. I have contributed to other threads about his policies. Your defence of “let’s talk about something else” is not working.
Allan Miller,
Hard so sue against a vague statement and there is no reason if enough people think it is nonsense as the election showed. The burden is on those making the claim to substantiate the claim.
If you had a strong case you would not need to repeatably post here. What thread do you recommend to best discuss policy or is Trump bashing more fun for you 🙂
colewd,
He is suing the BBC over an edit of his actual words. It didn’t damage his election chances. He’s just vindictive and greedy, all the motivation he needs.
Nothing vague about the accusations of lying. 30,000+, fully documented.
Your claim is that the entirety of Washington Post’s substantiated claims of lying are propaganda. So substantiate it.
Trump cultism is what keeps me posting here. I respond to your posts. I just find it extraordinary that someone can whitewash someone so widely acknowledged as a liar; cannot acknowledge any but the most anodyne flaws – “He’s a bit abrasive”. “He’s a bit hyperbolic”. “He’s too dumb to know he’s lying”…
Allan Miller,
They did not prove a single lie as far as I can tell. The statements that were spin are the hallmark of all politicians.
This is the problem with having a political discussion that is not about alternatives like Biden, Harris Newsome etc. It’s spin type propaganda because Trump was targeted by a strong left leaning news organisation and Keiths had the audacity to use it as support for his claim.
Trump like all politicians uses spin for persuasion. In a perfect world I would prefer he did not do this but politics is not a perfect world.
Fair enough. Anti Trump cultism is what keeps my interest.
Which this thread serves as conclusive proof is a distance most appropriately measured in angstroms.
Actually, the problem illustrated here displays exactly why it is pointless to have a conversation with you, Bill. We cannot even start to have a conversation about alternatives, as you apparently so eagerly desire, until we can triage what aspects of reality we agree on, and where there may be regions of disagreement, regarding what is real. How can we discuss the potential effects of alternate energy policies or immigration policies, when you refuse to acknowledge simple, extremely-well-established truths about the current economic situation? What would be the point of discussing alternative tax structures with a person who cannot bring themselves to admit that tariffs are a tax levied on the consumer, not the exporter? You are sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “La la la la la la laa! Can’t hear you!”
We keep posting because your behavior is fascinating, and not in a good way.
colewd,
And there we have it. With fingers jammed firmly in ears, no-one can prove anything to a confirmed cultist.
The charge of lying is not a relativistic claim. It does not matter what anyone else does: Trump lies. There is documentary proof.
So it would be a simple matter to illustrate how this left-leaning propaganda organisation has fabricated this list. You don’t have to do the whole thing. One example will do. Otherwise it’s just you digging your heels in and saying ‘propaganda’. Hardly a convincing argument.
Jock, to colewd:
That’s it. I’ve long since abandoned any hope of having a rational discussion with Bill. He’s a slowly unfolding cognitive trainwreck, addled by devotion to his orange demigod, and I stop by every day just to see the next car slam into the tangled mess.
colewd, to Allan:
Are you trying to say “hard to argue against a vague statement”? There’s nothing vague about what we and the WaPo are saying. Trump is a liar, we’ve given you dozens of examples, and the WaPo has documented more than 30,000 of them. Specific lies, with detailed rebuttals.
Here’s a precise, not-at-all-vague statement for you to respond to: Trump is lying about prices, as I’ve shown. He’s lying about the price of gas, electricity, energy generally, groceries, housing, and even airfares. He’s lying about the rate of inflation he inherited from Biden, and he’s lying about having brought it down and even “defeated” it. He’s even saying inflation is “dead”. All documented in this thread, and all of it false.
You say he isn’t lying. Fill in the blank:
This is your chance, Bill. Show everyone how I’ve fallen for “spin-type propaganda”. Correct the record. Demonstrate to us that your Dear Leader isn’t lying. Vindicate yourself and your hero. Or do what you always do and run away with your tail between your legs (yawn).
You’re claiming that everyone who voted for Trump thinks he never lies? Where did you get your information? Are you assuming it as you are wont to do, simply because you want it to be true?
Also, are you really back to your “the people are never wrong” argument? If you are, then you agree that Trump is a shitty president, because that’s what the people think. The latest Gallup poll has Trump at a pathetic 36% approval and 60% disapproval. 60%! Independents, whose opinions you used to value until they started disagreeing with you, are down to 25% approval and 68% disapproval. A whopping 43 points underwater. Are the people right, or was that only true in 2024?
Which we and the WaPo have done, in detail. You claim that we’re wrong. That’s your claim, and the burden is on you to substantiate it. We’re waiting, but we might as well be waiting for Godot.
Be brave, and show me that I’m wrong and that Trump isn’t lying about prices. Since you know he isn’t lying, that should be easy for you to demonstrate.
…says a guy who repeatedly posts here. Boomerang, meet Bill’s forehead.
If you truly wanted to discuss policy, you wouldn’t have fled from our discussion of the OBBBA. This isn’t about policy for you. It’s all about your distress at seeing your Dear Leader’s dishonesty in the spotlight. You’re desperate to change the subject because we’re right and you know it.
colewd:
So you’ve looked at the database? Excellent! Then you can show us the entries you looked at and how you know they aren’t lies. I can show you entries that I’ve looked at and explain how I know they are lies. We can have an actual discussion of the evidence — a discussion of the kind you’ve been running away from. Do we have a deal? Or are you going to run away yet again?
That’s a nonsequitur. If I were actually spouting “spin type propaganda”, how would discussing alternatives like Biden, Harris, Newsom et al change that? Couldn’t I use spin-type propaganda to support them and criticize Trump? And of course your propaganda accusation is bogus. I’m still waiting for you to point to a single factual claim that I’ve made about Trump that is actually false and based on propaganda.
Yes, how dare I audaciously cite a database of meticulously documented entries. It’s almost as if I think we can trust the evidence instead of just discounting something because of its source.
Do you think that everything Fox News says about Democrats is wrong? They’re a strong right-leaning news organization, so by your logic, we should ignore everything derogatory they say about the left. Does that make sense to you? Why not do what intelligent people do, which is to judge the truth or falsity of a statement based on the evidence, not on the source?
He doesn’t just spin, he flat-out lies. He said he had 200 trade deals at a time when he had zero. He says his approval rating is higher than it’s ever been when in fact it’s lower than it’s ever been, except in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. He says prices are down when they’re up. He says Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets. He lies like he breathes. That’s dishonesty, not mere spin.
Allan:
colewd:
No, it isn’t, because you know we’re not cultists. What keeps you here is your distress at seeing your Dear Leader exposed for the amoral, childish, insecure, stupid and incompetent person that he is.
ABC’s Rachel Scott, today:
Trump:
Scott:
Trump:
Scott:
Trump:
[At this point Trump went into a long attempt at justifying the attack.]
Scott:
Trump:
Yet just five days ago, Trump said this:
Reporter:
Trump:
He’s now lying about something he said last week. Bill, what’s your opinion? Is he lying, or is he an addled and confused old man who can’t remember what he said five days ago?
It’s obvious that he’s lying, and it isn’t surprising. He’s trying to cover up that video, just like he’s trying to cover up the Epstein files and the video of Tom Homan accepting a bag with $50,000 in it. You’ve praised Trump for being “straight forward”. What’s straightforward about coverups? What’s straightforward about lying to the American people over and over?
Also, do you think Trump should be attacking reporters who are just doing their jobs and holding him responsible for the things he says?
Trying to get Bill to admit Trump lies all the time is almost like trying to get the right-wingnuts on the Supreme Court to admit that breaking the law is illegal. Neither Bill nor those justices has any interest in the facts, but SCOTUS decisions matter while Bill simply epitomizes the Trump cult. The Trumpies might actually be voted out of office, but not those justices.
Someone once asked a Chess grandmaster who often played exhibitions against 50 opponents at once (and who moved from board to board making moves quickly) how he could possibly remember 50 different positions. And the grandmaster explained that he didn’t – he simply looked at each board as he came to it, made what looked like the best move offhand, and moved on.
What Trump is doing is analogous. He gets asked questions and makes what he thinks is the most expedient response at the time. This might be making a promise, it might be passing the buck, it might just be insulting the reporter. But the point is that Trump doesn’t need to know what he said in the past (or what he promised during the campaign, or any of the details or background of the subject of the question). He produces a meaningless response and moves on. He knows his loyalists will do whatever they think will please him, and get fired if they guess wrong.
Allan Miller,
In this case it’s a false claim as far as I can tell until someone can deliver documentary proof. Your attempt so far is to lower the burden of proof but when you do this you no longer have support for a lie. You can have spin or a mistaken claim but a lie has a much higher burden of proof.
If you want to lower the burden of proof of lying to spin and misstatements then all politicians lie and I ask myself what’s the point of the discussion. Do you have certain politicians that you trust over others? On what basis do they earn your trust?
DNA_Jock,
You cannot start a conversation unless I yield to the President bashing mantra the group here is pushing? This is where the democratic party at the national level is. Luckily here we have some rational democrats at the local level.
colewd,
Funny how the burden of proof applies to us, but never to you. You are making a (ridiculous) claim: that Trump doesn’t lie. You have a burden of proof. We are making the opposite claim: that Trump lies. We have a burden of proof, and we have satisfied it many times over.
If you disagree, let’s discuss. Let’s look at a variety of false things that Trump has said which we think are lies but you think are not. You can make your case, we’ll make ours, and we can compare to see whose position makes more sense.
Let’s start here: Trump is making a bunch of false claims about prices and inflation. I’ve provided the statistics that prove his claims are false. If he isn’t lying, as you claim, then he must genuinely believe everything he’s saying. Why do you think that? What leads you to the conclusion that he isn’t lying? Why is a grown man, the president of the United States no less, so completely out of touch with reality that he actually thinks prices are down, when any halfway intelligent person can see that they’re up?
Give it your best shot.
colewd,
The burden of proof has been satisfied on the “Trump lies” side. Look at WaPo, channel 4, cases made here. You have not explained why the entirety of those documented falsehoods – nor even one – is “left-leaning propaganda”. This simply has the status of blinkers, not an argument. It is definitionally true that no-one can persuade you with evidence, because evidence is de facto ‘left-leaning propaganda’.
Burden shift is a hoary old Internet fallacy. You learnt the trick in your ID days.
Try this: The earth is a globe, for reasons x, y and z. It can’t be flat for reasons a, b and c.
You: “Left leaning propaganda. No-one has proved to my satisfaction that it’s not flat. Just look outside. The burden of proof is on you”.
Did your schizo meds drop 500% in price yet? No?