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A NOTE FROM FRED
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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MUST READS
D21 NEWS
Six Ways Trump Can Help Stop Russian Meddling
“[L]et’s look at what a president would do if he actually cared about protecting our country against Russia or another foreign power sabotaging our elections,” D21 President Fred Wertheimer and Norm Eisen, former chief ethics counsel to President Obama, write. Their op-ed lays out six workable steps to protect our democracy from foreign interference, via CNN. Read more
Watch Out For The “Blue Wave” Overriding Political $ in 2018
Wertheimer: In the Pennsylvania Congressional Special Election this week, apparently won by Democrat Conor Lamb over Republican Rick Saccone, “Saccone’s huge financial advantage met the wave last night, and the wave won. Watch out for the blue wave – or maybe the blue tsunami – flooding political money in the 2018 congressional elections.” Read more
“TRUMP & FRIENDS”
Out of Public View, Trumps and Kushners Are Talking Business
“The long-running talks blur the line between family, business and politics in ways that lack precedent,” via The New York Times. Read more
Where’d Trump’s Record Inauguration Spending Go?
“[E]ven experienced inaugural planners are baffled by the Trump committee’s massive fundraising and spending operation. We also noticed that two members of the inaugural committee have been convicted of financial crimes, and a third — the committee’s treasurer — was reportedly an unindicted co-conspirator in an accounting fraud,” via ProPublica. Read more
Ivanka Trump Never Cut Ties With The Trump Organization. That’s Turned Into A Problem, via McClatchy. Read more
Trump Aides Blur Legal Line Between Partisans And Public Servants
“A handful of high-profile violations and the increased number of complaints suggest that [Trump] … is surrounded by aides who blur the line between their roles as partisans and public servants, sometimes skirting or disregarding altogether decades-old standards that govern the behavior of senior White House officials,” via The New York Times. Read more
Trump Shows Little Interest In Beefing Up The Federal Election Commission
All four current FEC commissioners are serving on expired terms, and if one resigns, the FEC will lose quorum and be “effectively paralyzed,” via The Washington Post. Read more
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HEADLINE OF THE WEEK
The 9 People Donald Trump Might Fire Next
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CABINET CHAOS
Trump Cabinet Members Accused Of Living Large At Taxpayer Expense, via The Washington Post. Read more
Emails Show HUD Sec’y Ben Carson & His Wife Picked $31K Dining Set Themselves, Despite Claims That They Had Little Or No Involvement, via CNN. Read more
Defense Dept Employees Charged Nearly $140K At Trump-Branded Properties, via CNN. Read more
Sec’y Of State Nominee Mike Pompeo Owes His Political Career To The Koch Brothers, via Quartz. Read more
“IGNORE THE DRAMA. WAIT FOR MUELLER.”
The Republican Coverup For Trump Just Got Much Worse
“House Republicans may have the power to prevent important facts about President Trump and Russia from coming to public light. But here’s what they don’t have the power to do: prevent important facts about their own conduct on Trump’s behalf from coming to public light,” via The Washington Post. Read more
Dep’y AG Rod Rosenstein Says Robert Mueller Is “Not An Unguided Missile,” via USA Today. Read more
“A Reminder, America: Ignore The Drama. Wait For Mueller,” via The Charlotte Observer editorial board. Read more
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FACT OF THE WEEK
People who requested records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) last year received censored files or had their requests denied 78% of the time, a record over the past decade. (The 823,222 requests made in 2017 was also a record.)
“In more than one-in-three cases, the government reversed itself when challenged [in an appeal] and acknowledged that it had improperly tried to withhold pages.”
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MIDTERM$ (& BEYOND)
Provisions Attached To Budget Bills Could Reshape Campaign Finance Laws
“One measure would roll back limits on churches, which are prohibited under current law from advocating for candidates because of their tax-exempt status. Other changes would relax rules affecting secret and wealthy donors and increase the amount of cash that political parties could spend on candidates,” via The Washington Post. Read more
Trump Wants New Authority Over Polling Places
Trump “would be able to dispatch Secret Service agents to polling places nationwide during a federal election, a vast expansion of executive authority, if a provision in a Homeland Security reauthorization bill remains intact,” via The Boston Globe. Read more
DCCC Tops $50M In Online Fundraising For Midterms, via CNN. Read more
Flush With Cash And Bracing For November, The RNC Builds An Army, via NBC News. Read more
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