From the start, this has been a say-anything presidential administration.
A White House led by President Donald Trump, who lies frequently and brazenly, has rarely appeared concerned about factual accuracy. And guided by Trump’s no-apologies ethos and penchant for dogged repetition, the administration has almost never retreated from even the most outlandish of its falsehoods even after they have been thoroughly debunked.
This past week has been different.
Both Trump himself and his administration more broadly have backed off when faced with blowback to their inaccurate rhetoric — first the president’s minimization of NATO countries’ military contributions in Afghanistan, then top administration officials’ groundless accusations about Alex Pretti, the registered nurse killed by Border Patrol in Minneapolis.
In an interview that aired last week on Fox Business, Trump claimed of NATO countries: “We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
But the US has certainly asked for things from NATO countries, notably a request to help fight a war in Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. And while there was a kernel of truth behind Trump’s claim that NATO members “stayed a little back,” since some coalition countries placed restrictions on their troops’ Afghanistan activities, Trump’s...
From the start, this has been a say-anything presidential administration. A White House led by President Donald Trump, who lies frequently and brazenly, has rarely appeared concerned about factual...