Why Would Anyone Trust Trump Or Treat Anything He Says As Credible?

FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | MARCH 15, 2018

“Why in the world would any world leader trust Trump or treat anything Trump says as credible?”

President Trump had made 2,436 false or misleading claims in office as of March 2, according to The Fact Checker at The Washington Post.

Last night, however, Trump did something that, to my knowledge, he hasn’t done before. He bragged about it.

In a can-you-top-this moment, the President told donors gathered at a fundraising event that, in a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he made up the claim that the United States had a trade deficit with Canada. This is patently untrue. In fact, the U.S has a trade surplus with Canada, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Trudeau pushed back, saying that there was no U.S. trade deficit with Canada. In telling the story to donors, Trump said he told Trudeau: “‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’”

Now, let’s just think about this for a minute. The President of the United States makes up false claims about important trade relationships in discussion with the leader of one of our closest allies. The President is a known purveyor of false and misleading claims on an almost-daily basis. The President brags about his deceitfulness.

Why in the world would any world leader trust Trump or treat anything Trump says as credible? Why would the American people believe anything Trump says?

We have come a long, long way from an earlier President who, according to legend, said to his father about his father’s cherry tree, “I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.”

We don’t know what Trump may have said to his father, but we apparently have a President today who cannot tell the truth. This discredits and harms our country, the presidency, and the American people.

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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections.