“The recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and a responsibility as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies.”
–President Joe Biden
Inauguration address
January 20, 2021
How many lies would you tolerate from your child, your spouse, your best friend? Once a year or, if you’re generous, once a month? For many, even once a year would be intolerable. How would you feel about someone who lied twenty-one times a day? According to The Washington Post, that’s the rate of fabrications by the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump: 30,529 false or misleading claims in 1,455 days.
That’s a lot of fibs—even exceeding the lax standards of die-hard criminals. Though his term is over, we should never forget the damage he fomented with his unending exaggerations, deceptions, and fairy tales. If we forget, we risk allowing the worst president in America’s history to run again or, equally abhorrent, promote the candidacy of one of his sycophants.
I don’t have the time or endurance to recall his sea of lies. Still, I would like to give you a taste to refresh your memory. For that task, I’ve summarized a list provided by Daniel Dale of CNN in his January 16, 2021 article “The 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump’s presidency”:
- Trump: “It never rained during my inaugural speech.” Fact: Yes, it did.
- Trump: “The coronavirus is equivalent to the flu” and “totally under control.” Fact: Not even close.
- Trump: “Hurricane Dorian will strike Alabama.” Fact: Nope, not even with the help of a sharpie.
- Trump: “The head of the boy Scouts telephoned to say my address at the Scouts’ National Jamboree was ‘the greatest speech that was ever made to them.’” Fact: The call never happened.
- Trump: “Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar is a supporter of the terrorist group al Qaeda.” Fact: Not true.
- Trump: “The trade deficit with China is $500 billion.” Fact: The deficit never even reached $400 billion.
- Trump: “Burley blue-collar supporters cried tears of gratitude over my leadership.” Fact: Nope. Just a story he liked telling—again and again.
- Trump: “I did not know about the payment to Stormy Daniels.” Fact: Yes, he did.
- Trump: “President Obama separated migrant parents from their children. I was the one that ended it.” Fact: Trump ended his own policy—a plan announced by his attorney general that made family separation standard rather than occasional, as it had been under Obama.
- Trump: “If elected, Biden will destroy protections for pre-existing conditions.” Fact: The Obama-Biden administration created the popular protections, and Biden was running on preserving them. It was Trump who had tried repeatedly to weaken them.
- Trump: “I passed the Veterans Choice program after other presidents tried and failed.” Fact: The Veterans Choice health care program was signed into law in 2014 by Obama. Though Trump did not invent the plan, he did, to his credit, expand the plan.
- Trump: “My health care plan is coming in two weeks.” Fact: It never arrived.
- Trump: “People say windmill noise causes cancer.” Fact: False twitter conspiracy.
- Trump: “I was once named Michigan’s Man of the Year.” Fact: Bald-faced lie.
- Trump: “I won the 2021 election—by a landslide.” Fact: Even the Supreme Court, including three of DJT’s picks, dismissed the election fraud claim.
Another word on the second of these fifteen lies: that, according to Trump, the coronavirus was “equivalent to the flu” and “totally under control.” On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden characterized the virus in a dramatically different manner. In his inauguration speech, he informed every American that “the once-in-a-century virus” took “as many lives in one year as America lost in all of World War II.” That number was 405,000 deaths.
Led by the Trump’s deception, ineptitude, and indifference, the United States reached that awesome Covid-19 number in one year since the first diagnosis on January 20,2020. How bad was his leadership? Consider this: Although the citizenry of the United States is only 4.2 percent of the world population, our country has accounted for 19.6 percent of global deaths. Despite our great wealth and highest medical standards, deaths per capita in the United States is the 11th highest out of 172 countries around the globe—that according to John Hopkins University.
We must never fall again for the lies and skullduggery of Donald Trump or any Trump imitation.
