Political Irony

Yesterday, Donald Trump said he was going to end birthright citizenship, which is the right of people born on US soil to become US citizens. Trump claims he can do this with an executive order.

Most of the response to this concentrated on pointing out that you can’t just overrule the 14th amendment to the US constitution with an executive order. For example, House Speaker Paul Ryan responded “You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.”

And of course, these days Trump does not seem to be able to open his mouth without a lie coming out, and an easily disproved lie at that. Trump claimed that the US was the only country that has birthright citizenship. Turns out that our two nearest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, both have it. As do many other countries in the western hemisphere. In fact, there are three dozen countries that have it. Here’s a map:

Yes it is true. Donald Trump, who says that Hillary Clinton should go to jail because she used a supposedly unsecured email server, is using an unsecured iPhone, and there is evidence that Chinese and Russian spies are listening in on his phone calls.

Even crazier, if you listen to what Trump is saying about his “middle class tax cut”, he contradicts himself one sentence later (in the video below). First he says they will pass such a tax cut before November. Then, when asked about the fact that Congress isn’t even in session until after the November election, he admits that Congress won’t vote on it until after the election. So he isn’t going to pass it before November at all, is he? He isn’t even very good at making stuff up!

On top of that, Trump claims that he is currently working with the Republican leadership on this, but none of them knew anything about it until after Trump started promising it.

There is more about this fictional tax cut starting at 6:10 in Stephen Colbert hilarious monologue on the Late Show. You should watch the whole video, as it is all about Trump’s exploding number of lies, often featuring clips of Trump lying.

UPDATE: On Saturday, Trump tried to justify his decision to hold two campaign events (a campaign rally in Illinois and a speech at an agricultural convention) the same day as a mass shooting killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

And 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 remember Dick Grasso, a friend of mine, great guy. He headed up the New York Stock Exchange on September 11. 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.

There’s just one problem. Trump made this all up. The NYSE didn’t reopen until Sept 17, the longest amount of time it was shut down since the Great Depression.

“I like the Saudis; they are very nice. I make a lot of money with them. They buy all sorts of my stuff — all kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundreds of millions.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by CNN at a July 2015 campaign rally.

“For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more fake news (of which there is plenty)!”

— Trump, on Twitter yesterday.

I know none of this is a surprise, but given that Trump’s campaign rallies have gotten so old and tired that even Fox News isn’t broadcasting them live anymore, this seems particularly germane.

Yesterday, Donald Trump defended his decision to proceed with a political rally in Pennsylvania as hurricane Michael devastated the Florida panhandle and wreaked havoc across the SE US. His excuse? He claimed that he could not disappoint his many fans. Seriously.

On a telephone call to “Fox and Friends”, Trump said:

We had thousands of people standing on line. It’s a great thing that’s happening. It’s a great movement in our country. I go make a speech in a 12,000-seat auditorium, and people start lining up two days early. I mean, literally, they bring tents.

But the local newspaper reports that the capacity of the auditorium is 9000, something that is easily verified. And the line for the rally did not start two days early, as Trump claims, it started earlier the same day as the event, around 12 hours early.

Trump lies for absolutely no reason. Even if the lies are easily disproved. And just to feed his own ego. But it gets worse.

Add hypocrisy to this. Trump excoriated Barack Obama in 2012, tweeting:

Yesterday Obama campaigned with JayZ & Springsteen while Hurricane Sandy victims across NY & NJ are still decimated by Sandy. Wrong!

And that was for Obama campaigning days after hurricane Sandy dissipated, while Trump was happy to campaign while hurricane Michael was actively killing people and destroying whole towns. Talk about fiddling while your country burns.

And to add insult to literal injury, during the campaign rally Trump mocked the #MeToo movement.

Trump also found time to have lunch with Kanye West the same day. Priorities.