Pants. On. Fire.

This Call-Out goes to our Fabricator-In-Chief, Donald Trump.  After the shooting at Tree Of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, well, the show had to go on, didn't it?  So in Illinois for a campaign rally, Trump rationalized:

"With what happened early today, that horrible, horrible attack in Pittsburgh, I was saying maybe I should cancel both this and that. And then I said to myself, I remembered Dick Russell, a friend of mine, great guy (he means his 'great friend' Dick Grasso, but it's an interesting Freudian slip), he headed up the New York Stock Exchange on September 11th, and the New York Stock Exchange was open the following day.  He said—and what they had to do to open it you wouldn’t believe, we won’t even talk to you about it. But he got that exchange open. We can’t make these sick, demented, evil people important.”

Sounds lovely, doesn't it?  Only problem?  100% BS.  But Mr. Trump is nothing if not an opportunist, is he?  At an appearance earlier in the day in Indianapolis:

"I remember when we had the attack in Manhattan, we opened the stock exchange the next day,” Trump said. “People were shocked.”

Then Trump went on:

"Remember the teams, the Yankees, George Steinbrenner,” Trump said. “He said we have got to play, even if nobody comes, nobody shows up, we have got to play."

Again, not true.

Why does Trump lie?  And why is he so infrequently called into account for it?  Yes, the Trumpettes constantly whine that poor Donnie is always getting picked on, but the Fourth Estate is largely hands off on any but his most egregious lies.

Trump's lies are not much in the league of Iran-Contra, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," or, "I am not a crook," they are more along the lines of small, constant, unexplainable.  Silly.  As in, why bother, unless he is a pathological liar?

I remember reading in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, the main character, Francie, begins to "tell stories."  Then a sympathetic teacher tells her to say the truth, and write the lie, crafting it into a story.  Trump is very creative, I'll give him that.

Too bad he didn't have the same teacher.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/trump-falsely-says-nyse-opened-day-after-sept-11-to-justify-holding-campaign-rally-after-synagogue-shooting.html


(Addendum, April 29, 2019:  Hmmph!  Glad somebody else noticed!)

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/04/29/president-trump-has-reportedly-made-more-than-10000-false-or-misleading-claims/23718809/


And just over another year to double that number!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/13/donald-trump-20000-false-or-misleading-claims