Day 1,299: Trump: 1917 pandemic ended WWII
Donald Trump held a typically false and bombastic press briefing on Monday.
He made strange and wildly false assertion, claiming the “1917 pandemic” — presumably referring to the 1918 Spanish flu — ended World War II.
To be clear, the 1918 pandemic did not end the WWI. Similarly, it did not end WWII, which began in 1939. Ironically, Trump has highlighted every bobble and misstatement by Joe Biden, claiming they’re proof of a diminished mind.
There were plenty of other gaffes and lies, including the standard fare about tariffs, mail-in ballots, the Affordable Care Act and deaths and destruction caused by COVID-19.
And Trump accused his predecessor, yet again, of committing treason.
Trump said, “Well, look, the Obama campaign spied on our campaign, and they’ve been caught, all right?” He added, “It’s probably treason. It’s a horrible thing they did. … They used the intelligence agencies of our country to spy on my campaign, and they have been caught.”
Facts First: This is comprehensively wrong. Term-limited President Barack Obama did not run a “campaign” in 2016, when the FBI investigated the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia; there is no evidence that Obama personally directed the FBI to surveil people in the Trump campaign; nothing related to the Russia investigation comes remotely close to meeting the Constitution’s definition of treason.
Trump also claimed Russia wants him to lose the presidential election. U.S. intelligence has come to the exact opposite conclusion.
The fact that Trump did the briefing from the White House, as opposed to his private club, was visually more appropriate. However the substance from Trump continued to be a total farce, filled with more pomp and fiction than accurate information.
1,299 days in, 163 to go
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