Tag Archives: Newsweek

I must have misremembered (or lies, damned lies and more damned lies)

Evidently The Donald has never met a lie he didn’t like. Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald has provided a well-crafted essay on Trump’s penchant for dishonesty on the magazine’s web site. It’s well-worth your time.

As Don Fanucci in Godfather II might say, “Here’s a little somethingDon Fanucci to wet your beak.”

“In December 2008, just after the Democrats won the White House, Trump wrote on his personal blog, “Hillary is smart, tough and a very nice person and so is her husband.” He then added, “Bill Clinton was a great president.” The words are simple and clear. Earlier this year, in a deposition given in a lawsuit against Trump involving allegations of fraud regarding his real estate courses (called Trump University), the plaintiff’s lawyer asked Trump if he had ever called Bill Clinton a great president. Trump refused to answer directly, saying the scandal involving Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky had damaged his presidency. Finally, the lawyer showed Trump the blog post in which he had praised Bill Clinton as president and asked if Trump believed what he wrote.

“I was fine with it at the time,” Trump replied. “I think in retrospect, looking back, it was not a great presidency because of his scandals.” In other words, in 2008 Trump thought Clinton was a great president, but then because of the Lewinsky scandal—something that occurred a decade before that blog post—he changed his mind. How did he explain the obvious lie? “It’s not something I gave very much thought to then because I wasn’t in politics,” he said.”