Whatever people may think of Donald Trump I think we can all agree that he is the most pilloried President of the United States ever. Alleged Trump lies have been written about so many times it’s becoming boring. So we’ve decided to strike a balance by publishing lies that have been told about the President.
The bust of Martin Luther King
In January 2017 a Time Magazine reporter, Zeke Miller, published a tweet that was a complete fabrication. It intimated that a bust of Winston Churchill (removed by Obama) had replaced that of Martin Luther in the Oval Office. The motive behind the tweet was clearly to enforce the narrative that the President is a racist.
In an absolute frenzy of tweeting thereafter Miller sought to correct the lie and finally apologised for it. But he only apologised to his colleagues and not to the President. By this time the original tweet was all over twitter. Here is a press conference where Sean Spicer, the then White House Press Secretary, addresses the issue:
Anti -Trump lies hit an all time low
An edited video emerged on YouTube which appeared to show Trump refusing to shake the hand of a disabled child. Credibility was given to the lie by the author of Harry Potter books, JK Rowling tweeting the video with disparaging remarks about the President. The video she tweeted had been edited to remove the first part of a meeting that had been arranged with Trump. As you will see in the full version below Trump indeed shook the hand of the disabled child first. But the edited version only showed him leaving the room and not entering it. Ms Rowling was obliged to apologise for her tweet.
Fishgate
On a visit to Japan Trump joined Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in feeding some Koi carp in the grounds of the Government Palace. A video of this ‘momentous’ occasion was published on YouTube showing the President apparently dumping a whole carton of food into the pond. Social Justice Warriors across the globe suddenly developed an interest in Koi carp and fish feeding. There was outrage about how overfeeding these fish can kill them. CNN and the New York Daily News among many others headlined with the ‘Dump’ story. Again, the video had been edited to suit a narrative. In reality what Trump did was follow the Prime Minister’s lead as can be seen below:
Audience at Trump’s inauguration
One alleged lie we’ve read about so often on the net makes reference to what Trump said about the crowd a few days after his inauguration. What he actually said was “The overall audience was, I think, the biggest ever to watch an inauguration address, which was a great thing”
Anti-Trump websites and news channels went to great lengths to point out that the audience was far greater when Obama was inaugurated for the first time. And Obama beat Trump’s 30.6 million TV viewers by over 7 million. With glee they proclaimed that Reagan had more TV viewers for his 1981 inauguration than Trump or Obama at almost 42 million.
However, despite all this wondrous research even if these figures are correct, anti-Trumpers missed or chose to ignore two words – “I think”. Those two little words effectively mean he didn’t lie. Had he said that it was the biggest audience ever, it’s conceivable it might have been a lie. We say “might” because if he had known the aforementioned figures it would have been a lie. If he didn’t, then he was mistaken. But the fact that he said “I think” means he wasn’t certain. His adversaries might have saved themselves a lot of time and effort, if they had realised the meaning of those two words. So we are dismissing that alleged lie.
Opinions are not lies
Is it any wonder that the public are losing faith in the media? As Trump describes it, “Fake News” is abundant wherever you look. So whilst it is generally accepted that most politicians lie, including Trump, how many of the news stories we see on a daily basis are actually lies about them? As far as anti Trump lies v Trump lies are concerned we think there are more told about him than he actually tells. Lie Detector Test UK bases this on our analysis of hundreds of alleged lies published on the internet. There appears to be much confusion between what is a lie and what is merely opinion.
