Donald and Melania Trump
During a panel discussion about President Donald Trump’s embarrassing switcheroo to avoid Iranian attacks (while leaving aides and reporters to take the blow), Bulwark Editor Sam Stein could not subdue a tirade on the president’s consummate lying.
Stein’s explosion preceded a clip of Trump unleashing yet another legion of lies before a Tuesday night press gaggle.
“The country is doing well,” Trump said, ignoring bad job reports and consumer and voter polls. “Iran is going fine — going just absolutely fine. We totally control the Strait of Hormuz. We have control over it. Nobody else, only us. Our Navy is unbelievable and things are going great for our country.”
“I mean, the only true statement there, Sam, is that the Navy is unbelievable,” said “Deadline: White House guest host Alicia Menendez on Wednesday. “Everything else — Iran is not going great. The Strait of Hormuz is not going great. And nothing is as the president described, being smuggled in a catering truck with your Diet Coke valet. Is that supposed to express confidence to the American people, from an administration that purports to be the most transparent administration in American history?”
“This is the underlying thread that ties all this together, which is dishonesty,” said Stein “I mean, I couldn't agree more with … [panelist] Carol [Leonnig]. Like, obviously it was a serious enough threat that the president should have been moved, that a decoy flight was totally acceptable. The Secret Service made a determination. No one should begrudge the president for getting on the catering truck, as silly as that is, and going to this other military aircraft, you can even make the case that a bit of sort of deception was probably necessary in order to make sure that nothing leaked.”
“However,” raged Stein, “there is a widespread lack of honesty and transparency and outright lying that is accompanying the administration throughout this. And Carol is too kind to say it because she's a good person. But when she initially reported that they had to switch from the Qatari jet to the Air Force One … the White House was very public in saying that she was a liar. They did. They went out there and said, ‘she's a liar.’ And it turns out she was right and they were wrong.”
“And that's just the M.O. for this administration,” said Stein. “And you saw with President Trump last night where he's saying,’ oh, we control the state of Strait of Hormuz. We do not. There's nothing going through the Strait of Hormuz. Eight ships, when there used to be 130! Things in Iran are fine? They are not. We are a couple of days before the 60-day target for the MOU, when we're supposed to have a negotiated a settlement. No one's acting like that's going to happen. Things are not going well, but they're asking you to believe that the sky is green, that two-plus-two is five. And there was no security threat to air force One.”