Partial Score

I don't know why PolitiFact has checked him only 1,078 times in 14 years, but there it is.

Shit, even WaPo managed to tally more the 30,000 in just his 4 years in office.

Better'n nuthin', I reckon.

Overheard

Why do you let this jerk hang around?

via Facebook

I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency before and I still am.

But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than when he incited an insurrection against the government, and ...

1. Mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans
2. Called neo-Nazis “very fine people”
3. Separated children from their families
4. Lost those children in the bureaucracy
5. Tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church
6. Tried to block all Muslims from entering the country
7. Got impeached
8. Got impeached again
9. Had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history
10. Pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden
11. Fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia
12. Bragged about firing the FBI director on TV
13. Took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community
14. Diverted military funding to build his wall
15. Caused the longest government shutdown in US history
16. Called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate"
17. Lied over 30,000 times
18. Banned transgender people from serving in the military
19. Ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions
20. Vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers
21. Refused to release his tax returns
22. Increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion
23. Had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history
24. Called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers
25. Coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist
26. Refused to concede the 2020 election
27. Hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House
28. Walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl
29. Suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID
30. Abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey
31. Pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans
32. Incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic
33. Withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords
34. Withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal
35. Withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances
36. Insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter
37. Pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op
38. Failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies
39. Called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries
40. Called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation"
41. Claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere
42. Forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader
43. Believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
44. Berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe
45. Suggested the US should buy Greenland
46. Colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices, after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges
47. Repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people”
48. Claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases
49. Violated the emoluments clause
50. Thought that Nambia was a country
51. Told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public
52. Called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “pussy” for following the Constitution
53. Nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet
54. Nominated a corrupt head of the EPA
55. Nominated a corrupt head of HHS
56. Nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department
57. Nominated a corrupt head of the USDA
58. Praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies
59. Refused to allow the presidential transition to begin
60. Insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death
61. Spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president
62. Falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote
63. Called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser”
64. Falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year
65. Considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions
66. Mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID
67. Locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones
68. Used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus”
69. Hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser
70. Pardoned several of his shady associates
71. Gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his bat shit crazy conspiracy theories
72. Got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!)
73. Had a Secretary of State who called him a moron
74. Forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history
75. Botched the COVID vaccine rollout
76. Tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him
77. Charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties
78. Constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate
79. Claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear
80. Called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas”
81. Used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom's when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise
82. Opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling
83. Got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers
84. Claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US
85. Ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings
86. Blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining
87. Redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle
88. Got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters”
89. Threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution
90. Botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
91. Threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them
92. Pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes
93. Thought that the Virgin islands had a President
94. Drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane
95. Allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing
96. Rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos
97. Pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID
98. Rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers
99. Held blatant campaign rallies at the White House
100. Tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man
101. Refused to attend his successors’ inauguration
102. Nominated the worst Education Secretary in history
103. Threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted
104. Attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci
105. Promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)
106. Allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues
107. Struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble
108. Called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ”
109. Threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders
110. Went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic
111. Claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts”
112. Seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution
113. Demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director
114. Praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles
115. Completely gutted the Voice of America
116. Placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service
117. Claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower
118. Suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country
119. Suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public
120. Overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported,
121. Reduced the number of refugees the US accepts
122. Insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames,
123. Gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address
124. Named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties
125. Eliminated the White House office of pandemic response
126. Used soldiers as campaign props
127. Fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him
128. Demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade
129. Hired a shit ton of white nationalists
130. Politicized the civil service
131. Did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government
132. Falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts
133. Claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won
134. Insulted reporters of color
135. Insulted women reporters, insulted women reporters of color
136. Suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs
137. Attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him
138. Summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House, to pressure them to overturn the election
139. Spent countless hours every day watching Fox News
140. Refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas
141. Hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer
142. Tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him
143. Acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney,
144. Attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault
145. Held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present
146. Didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media
147. Stopped holding press briefings for months at a time
148. “Ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power
149. Led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform
150. Claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers
151. Tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course
152. Suggested that the government nuke hurricanes
153. Suggested that wind turbines cause cancer
154. Said that he had a special aptitude for science
155. Fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure
156. Blurted out classified information to Russian officials
157. Tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida
158. Fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban
159. Hired Stephen Miller
160. Openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them
161. Interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel
162. Abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war
163. Tried to get Russia back into the G7
164. Held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden
165. Seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive
166. Lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated
167. Falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t
168. Shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies
169. Still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan
170. Still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks”
171. Forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID
172. Told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”
173. Screwed up the Census wording
174. Withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic
175. Did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings”
176. Allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act
177. Seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican
178. Stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win
179. Constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president, (which presumably includes four that were assassinated, and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump)
180. Claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened
181. Said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake
182. Claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him
183. Claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President
184. Created a commission to whitewash American history
185. Retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain
186. Claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there
187. Hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent "Bowling Green Massacre" as a reason to ban Muslims
188. Had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others
189. Bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties
190. Apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House
191. Stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians
192. Falsely claimed Biden wanted to de-fund the police
193. Said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about
194. Tried to rescind protection from DREAMers
195. Gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic
196. Tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax
197. Said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states
198. Deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented
199. Claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln
200. Touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile, which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile, or may not exist at all
201. Retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile
202. Forced through security clearances for his family
203. Suggested that police officers should rough up suspects
204. Suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs
205. Tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender identification
206. Suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher
207. Nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy
208. Retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event
209. Hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags
210. Accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address
211. Claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter
212. because they were “spending too much time” on Russia
213. Mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault
214. Obsessed over low-flow toilets
215. Ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release
216. Called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek)
217. Hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech
218. Took advice from the MyPillow guy
219. Claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists
220. Said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure
221. Never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign
222. Falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent, though he (himself) votes by mail
223. Announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest
224. Insulted the leader of Canada
225. Insulted the leader of France
226. Insulted the leader of Britain
227. Insulted the leader of Germany
228. Insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!?!)
229. Falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues
230. Blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually
231. Continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,
232. Said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked
233. Left a NATO summit early in a huff
234. Stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that
235. Called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary
236. Refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power

... and a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment.

But other than that - yeah, hey - great guy - great President.

He Can't

Trump makes it up, and internalizes it to the point where he's going to swallow his foot no matter what.

It's like he doesn't know it's not true, or he doesn't know that he can't just blurt it out in front of somebody who's going to call him on it.

Or maybe, he's so far gone that he believes he can say anything he wants, and everybody either has to accept it as gospel, or keep their mouths shut and do whatever they have to do to make it so.

It's just too fuckin' bizarre with this guy.

Watch his face when Macron calls bullshit.

Macron has to interrupt Trump and correct a lie about Europe’s contribution to the Ukraine War
byu/ExactlySorta inPublicFreakout

A Poem

THE TRUTH AND THE LIE

Samantha Stephens

The Lie said to the Truth, "Let's take a bath together, the water is very nice."
The Truth, still suspicious, tested the water and found out it really was nice.

So they got naked and bathed.

But suddenly, the Lie leapt out of the water and fled, wearing the clothes of the Truth.
The Truth, furious, raced out of the pond to get her clothes back.
But the World, upon seeing the naked Truth, looked away, with anger and contempt.

Poor Truth returned to the pond and disappeared forever, hiding her shame.
Since then, the Lie runs around the world, dressed as the Truth, and society is very happy -because the world has no desire to know the naked Truth.

Today's Belle

It Fits The Pattern

By now we're all very familiar with Trump's pattern of ducking responsibility - it's just what liars and losers do.

"I didn't know the election wasn't stolen"

"I didn't know Michael Cohen paid her off"

"I didn't know they were going to sack the Capitol"

"I didn't know about the Taylor Swift AI thing"

Trump Suddenly Looks Very Afraid of Being Sued by Taylor Swift

Donald Trump now wants nothing to do with the A.I. images he shared just a few days ago.

Donald Trump is trying to brush off the fact that he shared A.I.-generated images of Taylor Swift endorsing his campaign to his Truth Social account earlier this week, now claiming that he doesn’t know “anything about them.”

“I don’t know anything about them, other than somebody else generated them,” Trump told Fox Business correspondent Gary Trimble after his campaign event in Asheboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday. “I didn’t generate them.”

One fabricated image shared by Trump of the notoriously litigious pop star had Swift clad in red, white, and blue, posing like Uncle Sam before an American flag emblazoned with the text: “Taylor wants YOU to vote for Donald Trump.”

“I accept!” Trump captioned the image.

Another Swift-related post shared by the former president depicted a group of women marching in “Swifties for Trump” shirts (the post was labeled satire by its creator).

If Trump truly can’t tell the difference between an A.I. generated image and a genuine photograph, especially one that’s doctored to illustrate a campaign endorsement, then that’s a significant problem. But it’s far from the only A.I.-generated image that Trump has shared in recent weeks. Shortly after he began posting to his Twitter account—the first time he’d done so in earnest since the January 6 riot—the former president shared an A.I.-generated video of himself and X owner Elon Musk dancing.

Still, Trump warned Trimble, “A.I. is always very dangerous.”

“Somebody came out. They said, ‘Oh look at this,’” Trump attempted to explain to the reporter on Wednesday. “These were all made up by other people. A.I. is always very dangerous in that way.”

It’s not the first time this summer that Trump has obsessed over Swift. During a closed-door meeting between Trump and House Republicans in June—his first visit to Capitol Hill since before the January 6 insurrection—Trump insisted on discussing the pop phenom, lamenting that she might endorse President Joe Biden while he was still in the race. Days before the meeting, Variety reported that Trump had spoken at length about Swift in a one-on-one interview, describing her as “unusually beautiful.”

About That "Speech"

Trump's acceptance speech was another 93-minute Festival Of Prevarication.

And the question for the Press Poodles is: Where the fuck is all this good-journalism fact checking in real time - as the lies are falling out of that prick's mouth? Like when it actually matters, and might do some good?

Trump Be Droopin'

It may be premature - very premature probably - but Trump's armor may be getting quite thin.

When your bluff-n-bluster begins to fade, and not even the usual stochastic shit sticks - well, maybe that sound we hear way off in the distance is the fat lady warming up.

Reporter Fact-Checks Trump’s Claim Cops Are Keeping Out Crowds of MAGA Protestors:

Trump just claimed that the police have shut down the streets around the courthouse for blocks & that his protesters can’t be here.

Just…not true. There is one pro-Trump person here & the main street along the courthouse is open to traffic. pic.twitter.com/JyrH3ZkNrX

— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) April 23, 2024

Former President Donald Trump lied about his crowd size (again) on Tuesday.

NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard was in New York City to cover Trump’s hush money trial, so he was able to get a firsthand look at the crowds who were expected to gather either in support of the ex-president or against. Trump, while speaking to press before entering the courtroom on Tuesday, claimed that there was such a big police presence in the area that his supporters “can’t get near this courthouse.”

Hillyard, unless he was at the wrong courthouse, painted a very different picture of the scene outside — plainly stating, “Just…not true.”

He pointed out: “There is one pro-Trump person here & the main street along the courthouse is open to traffic.”

Trump is well-known for wildly exaggerating the size of his crowds, or getting his staff to do it for him.

Today's Gaslighting

How it started

How it's going

Today's Beau

Trump pumps out the lies faster than I can write them down.

Fact check: 14 of Trump’s false claims on ‘Meet the Press’

Former President Donald Trump delivered a laundry list of his familiar election lies and other false claims – plus some new falsehoods on subjects ranging from abortion laws to his policy on dealing with drug cartels – in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The show’s new moderator, Kristen Welker, promptly corrected some of the false claims; others were aired unchallenged. Here’s a fact check of 14 of the false claims, plus a check on another important claim for which there is no evidence.

This is not a comprehensive list of the inaccurate remarks Trump made in the interview.

Infanticide

Trump, attacking Democrats on abortion policy, claimed, “You have some states that are allowed to kill the child after birth.” He also said specifically, “You have New York state and other places that passed legislation where you’re allowed to kill the baby after birth.”

Facts First: This is false. Killing a child after birth is not allowed in any state, and New York did not pass legislation permitting infanticide.

A law New York approved in 2019 makes abortion illegal after 24 weeks with the exception of cases where the fetus is not viable or the abortion is “necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.” The law does not legalize post-birth murder. Since its passage, however, it has been the subject of online misinformation falsely claiming it does.

There are some cases in which parents decide to choose palliative care for babies who are born with deadly conditions that give them just minutes, hours or days to live. That is simply not the same as killing the baby.

Brad Raffensperger’s comments

Trump, who is facing criminal charges over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia, defended the January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump told numerous lies about supposed election fraud and pressured Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to give him a victory in the state.

Trump said: “Brad Raffensperger, the head – who, by the way, last week said I didn’t do anything wrong. He said, ‘That was a negotiation.’ Brad Raffensperger, who I was dealing with, I appreciate that he said that. But he said last week, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. Raffensperger did not say Trump didn’t do anything wrong on the January 2021 call; Raffensperger has been sharply critical of Trump’s behavior on the call.

Trump did not specify what he was talking about, but it’s possible he was mischaracterizing Raffensperger’s testimony at a late-August court hearing on the attempt by former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to get his own Georgia criminal case moved from state court to federal court. Nowhere in Raffensperger’s testimony did he say Trump didn’t do anything wrong or defend Trump’s words.

Rather, Raffensperger testified that “I didn’t take it as inappropriate” when Meadows told him on the January 2021 call that he (Meadows) hoped they could reach an agreement to allow the Trump side to look more fully at the election data. (Meadows had asked if, “in the spirit of cooperation and compromise,” they could “at least have a discussion” to seek a “less litigious” path forward.) That Raffensperger remark was in response to a question that was solely about Meadows’ words, not Trump’s words.

Raffensperger published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in early September criticizing efforts to use the 14th Amendment to get Trump disqualified from the 2024 ballot on the grounds that Trump engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the US – Raffensperger argued that “denying voters the opportunity to choose is fundamentally un-American” – but Raffensperger didn’t even mention the call in that op-ed. When he was then asked about the call in a Fox interview about the op-ed, he said he had done due diligence before the call and knew that Trump’s various fraud claims were unfounded. He offered no defense of Trump’s conduct.

In his 2021 book, Raffensperger criticized Trump’s behavior on the call at length. He wrote “the president was asking me to do something that I knew was wrong, and I was not going to do that.” He wrote that, regarding some of Trump’s language on the call, “I felt then – and still believe today – that this was a threat.” And he wrote that, at another point in the call, Trump was doing “nothing but an attempt at manipulation” by “using what he believes is the power of his position to threaten [another Georgia elections official] and me with prosecution if we don’t do what he tells us to do.”

A New York Times article about presidential records

Trump denounced the criminal charges against him over his retention of classified documents after his presidency. He said, “I fall within the Presidential Records Act. It’s very simple. It’s a civil thing. In fact, The New York Times of all institutions did a story, and it was headlined, ‘Please, please, please, Mr. President, could we take a look at the documents.’ And they said in the story that the only way you can get documents from a president is if you go there and say please. Because this is civil.”

Facts First: Trump inaccurately described this New York Times article. The January article did not say the only way “you” can get documents from a president is saying please. Rather, the article explained that one particular entity, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), lacks “independent” enforcement power and is limited to polite requests – but that another entity, the Justice Department, enforces laws governing presidential documents and classified records. In other words, contrary to Trump’s suggestion here, the article did not say that the existence of the Presidential Records Act means there can be no enforcement, period, over presidential documents.

The Times article, whose online headline is “As Archives Leans on Ex-Presidents, Its Only Weapon Is ‘Please,’” explained that NARA is unable to compel ex-presidents to take action. But then the article said this: “Enforcement of the laws governing presidential records and classified documents is up to the Justice Department, which has opened investigations into the actions of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, who have each discovered classified records at their homes.” The article subsequently included a paragraph in which an expert was quoted as saying, “If there are violations of law, they can be referred to the Justice Department for action…But NARA itself has no police force or ability to enforce its own actions.”

Biden’s false claims

Trump said of Biden: “Look at all the lies he’s told over the last couple of weeks. He said he was at the World Trade Center and he wasn’t. He said he flew airplanes, right? He didn’t. He said he drove trucks, and he didn’t. Everything he says is, like, a lie.”

Facts First: Trump made a false claim here while denouncing Biden for making false claims: Biden has not said that he flew airplanes. This was not a one-time Trump mistake; he was even more specific at a September 8 rally, suggesting that Biden had claimed he “used to be a fighter jet pilot.”

It’s true that Biden has falsely claimed to have driven a tractor-trailer truck, though we aren’t aware of him saying this “over the last couple of weeks” as Trump said here. And Biden did make a false claim last week about when he visited the World Trade Center after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001; Biden visited Ground Zero, but he did so nine days after the attacks, not “the next day” as he claimed.

Trump’s comments about drug cartels

Welker said to Trump, “If elected, you say you would order the Defense Department to use special forces to inflict maximum damage on drug cartels.” But Trump responded, “I didn’t say that. No. People said I said that.” He repeated, “I didn’t say that.”

Facts First: Trump said that. In a video he released in January, which remains on his website, he said that, if elected president again, “I will order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber-warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations.”

The media and the war in Ukraine

Trump claimed, “I will say this: something’s going on, and it’s not good for Ukraine. Because the news is no longer reporting about the war. The fake news. They don’t report about the war anymore. You don’t find much reporting. That means that Ukraine’s losing. Okay? I see very little reporting from NBC, your network. I see very little reporting from NBC, ABC, from CBS, from anyone about the war.”

Facts First: It’s not true that news outlets “don’t report about the war anymore,” though the amount of television coverage on broadcast news networks has certainly declined from the first months after Russia’s invasion in 2022.

CNN continues to do extensive daily reporting on the war on television and online. NBC News wrote in its own fact check of this Trump claim: “That is demonstrably false. In the last two weeks alone, NBC News has published dozens of stories and broadcasts on all platforms about the Ukraine war.” The fact check cited specific examples, then continued, “CBS News and ABC News have had dozens of articles and videos on their websites, too.”

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Trump criticized President Joe Biden for releasing a large quantity of crude oil from the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to keep prices down in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and Trump claimed that this is a reserve “I had a lot to do with filling up for the first time ever.” Trump added later in the interview, “He wanted to have low gas prices for an election. And now, we have nothing left.”

Facts First: Trump made two false claims here. First, contrary to his repeated assertions, it’s not true that he filled up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; the reserve actually contained fewer barrels of crude oil when he left office in early 2021 than when he took office in 2017. Second, while the amount of crude in the reserve is at a 40-year low, it’s not even close to true that “we have nothing left” at present; the reserve remains the world’s largest even at its current level, with about 350.6 million barrels of crude as of the week ending September 8.

The fact that the amount of oil in the reserve fell during the Trump presidency is not all because of him. The law requires some mandatory sales from the reserve for budget reasons, and when Trump issued a 2020 directive to buy tens of millions more barrels and fill the reserve to its maximum capacity, Democrats in Congress blocked the required funding. Nonetheless, he didn’t fill up the reserve as he claims.

The size of the national debt

Trump said, “We have to save our country. We have $35 trillion in debt.”

Facts First: The national debt is very large, but Trump exaggerated its size. It is right around $33 trillion (it was $32.99 trillion as of Thursday, the latest day for which we have official data), not “$35 trillion.”

We didn’t publish a fact check when he claimed at a campaign rally on September 8 that it was $34 trillion, but this is now an exaggeration of an exaggeration – and $2 trillion is certainly a significant difference.

The price of bacon

While discussing inflation, Trump said, “Things are not going, right now, very well for the consumer. Bacon is up five times.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim that the price of bacon has quintupled over the last few years – which CNN previously debunked when he made it earlier this month – is grossly inaccurate.

The average price of bacon is higher than it was when he left office, but it is nowhere near “up five times.” The average price of sliced bacon was $6.502 per pound in August 2023, compared with $5.831 in January 2021, according to federal data – an increase of about 11.5%, not even close to the 400% increase Trump keeps claiming.

Military equipment left to the Taliban

Criticizing the way Biden handled the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Trump repeated a claim about how much military equipment was left to the Taliban when the Afghan government and armed forces collapsed.

“We gave $85 billion worth of equipment to the Taliban,” Trump said.

Facts First: Trump’s $85 billion figure is false. While a significant quantity of military equipment that had been provided by the US to Afghan forces was indeed abandoned to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal, the Defense Department has estimated that this equipment had been worth about $7.1 billion – a chunk of the roughly $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021. And some of the equipment left behind was rendered inoperable before US forces withdrew.

As other fact-checkers have previously explained, the “$85 billion” is a rounded-up figure (it’s closer to $83 billion) for the total amount of money Congress appropriated during the war to a fund supporting the Afghan security forces. A minority of this funding was for equipment.

Trump and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline

Trump said of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Look, I had a very good relationship with him. And yet nobody was tougher on Russia than me. I stopped Nord Stream 2. You never heard of Nord Stream 2 – that was the pipeline – until I got involved. I said, ‘Nord Stream 2.’ People that were sophisticated, military people, and political people never heard of Nord Stream 2. I had it ended. The pipeline was dead.”

Facts First: It’s not true that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany was “dead” during Trump’s presidency or that he “had it ended.” While he did approve sanctions on companies working on the project, that move came nearly three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already estimated to be 90% complete – and the state-owned Russian gas company behind the project said shortly after the sanctions that it would complete the pipeline itself. The company announced in December 2020 that construction was resuming. And with days left in Trump’s term in January 2021, Germany announced that it had renewed permission for construction in its waters.

Second, while we don’t know what any particular “military people” and “political people” might have said to Trump, it’s not true that, in general, “you never heard of Nord Stream 2” before he began discussing it as president. Nord Stream 2 was a regular subject of media, government and diplomatic discussion before Trump took office. In fact, Biden publicly criticized it as vice president in 2016. Trump may well have generated increased US awareness of the project, but he certainly wasn’t the one to bring it to the federal government’s attention.

The pipeline never began operations; Germany ended up halting the project as Russia was about to invade Ukraine early last year. The pipeline was damaged later in the year in what has been described as an act of sabotage.

Trump blames Pelosi for January 6

Trump repeatedly attempted to blame Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who was speaker of the House on January 6, 2021, for the riot that day at the US Capitol – claiming she rejected his offer, days prior, of 10,000 National Guard troops. Trump said, “Listen: Nancy Pelosi was in charge of security. She turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn’t turn down the soldiers, you wouldn’t have had January 6.” He said explicitly, “She’s responsible for January 6.”

Facts First: Trump’s claims about Pelosi are comprehensively inaccurate.

First, the speaker of the House is not in charge of Capitol security. Capitol security is overseen by the Capitol Police Board, a body that includes the sergeants at arms of the House and the Senate. (The Senate was led at the time by a Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell; McConnell is not at fault either, but Trump has not blamed him while casting blame on Pelosi.)

Second, there is no evidence for the claim that Pelosi rejected a Trump offer of 10,000 National Guard troops in advance of January 6. Her office has explicitly said she was not even presented with such an offer, telling CNN last year claims to the contrary are “lies.” Pelosi said on MSNBC on Sunday: “The former occupant of the White House has always been about projection. He knows he’s responsible for [the riot], so he projects it onto others.”

Third, even if Pelosi had been told of an offer of National Guard troops, she would not have had the power to turn it down. The speaker of the House has no authority to prevent the deployment of the District of Columbia National Guard, which reports to the president (whose authority is delegated, under a decades-old executive order, to the Secretary of the Army).

Fourth, it’s worth noting the House select committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol found “no evidence” Trump gave any actual order for 10,000 Guard troops, and the Biden-era Pentagon told The Washington Post in 2021 it has no record of any such order. Miller testified to the House select committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol that Trump had, in a January 5 phone call, briefly and informally floated the idea of having 10,000 troops present on January 6 but did not issue any directive to that effect. Miller said, “I interpreted it as a bit of presidential banter or President Trump banter that you all are familiar with, and in no way, shape, or form did I interpret that as an order or direction.”

Fifth, at around 3:49 p.m. during the riot, Pelosi was filmed while on the phone with Miller urging him to hurry Guard troops to the Capitol, telling him “just get them there” and to “just pretend for a moment this was the Pentagon or the White House or some other entity that was under siege.” Trump made no such plea; the House select committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol found that Trump did not call any “high-level Defense official” during the riot, that Trump never ordered a Guard deployment – Miller did so – and that Trump never instructed any law enforcement agency to assist.

Pelosi said on MSNBC on Sunday: “Chuck Schumer and I begged him to send the troops, again and again.” She added, “These Trumpites were attacking the Capitol, fighting the police, threatening my life and the life of the vice president — we’re turning down the troops?”

Trump’s indictments

Trump referred to the four indictments against him as “Biden indictments.” He repeatedly claimed that Biden told Attorney General Merrick Garland to “indict him,” saying at one point that Biden “went to the attorney general of the United States, and he told them, ‘Indict Trump.’”

Facts First: This claim is not supported by any evidence. There is no sign that Biden has been involved in the decision to criminally investigate or prosecute Trump, let alone any proof that he personally went to Garland and urged him to indict Trump. Biden said in June that he had not spoken to Garland on the subject and was “not going to speak with him.”

Grand juries made up of ordinary citizens – in New York, Georgia, Florida and Washington, DC – approved the indictments in each of Trump’s criminal cases. The two federal indictments were brought by a special counsel, Jack Smith. Smith was appointed in November 2022 by Garland, a Biden appointee, but that is not proof that Biden was involved in the prosecution effort, much less that Biden directed it.

The 2020 election

Trump repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him and he claimed that he was the real winner.

Facts First: These claims are false. The election was not rigged, Trump lost fair and square to Biden by an Electoral College margin of 306 to 232, and there is no evidence of any fraud even close to widespread enough to have changed the outcome in any state.

With Bated Breath

• Evidence Obama spied on his campaign = flop
• Healthcare plan = dud
• Infrastructure = fizzle
• Steel & coal jobs = face plant
• COVID = splat
• The wall = pffft

This time for sure!

Kevin McQarthy

... is a gutless wonder among gutless wonders. And try as he might to play that stoopid game of Newspeak, he just kinda sucks at it - like he kinda sucks at just about everything.

(translating): "That audio recording of my own exact words in my own voice is totally false and wrong. Only the biased liberal media would report on what I said, rather than relying on what my PR team says I said. To play my own words in my own voice to a TV audience is fake news at its worst."

Rachel last night, citing Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

Kevin McCarthy is a straight-up flat-out bald-faced fuckin' liar.

And can we stop a minute to notice the audio starts with a reference to a previous conversation of the 25th Amendment?

While there's never an overwhelming surplus of honesty flowing from our government, it has to be acknowledged that these Republicans have created a kind of black hole that tries to suck in every tiny particle of truth while emitting a steady stream of pure low-grade bullshit.

Classified Schmlassified

More from the President Stoopid Just Runnin' His Mouth file:

Raw Story:

Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump declared that he had declassified all documents related to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election — but now his own chief of staff is saying under oath that isn’t true.

On October 6th, the president claimed on Twitter that “all Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago,” and then added that “Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country.”

In a follow-up tweet, the president similarly wrote, “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax.”

For good measure, the president also insisted on “no redactions.”

This claim of declassification inspired BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold to file a Freedom of Information Act to get access to those documents.

However, as USA Today reporter Brad Heath reveals, Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows submitted a reply to Leopold’s request indicating that those documents have not been declassified.

“The President indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and to not require the declassification of any particular documents,” Meadows said in a filing with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Today's Poodle

Maggie Haberman can be the poodle-iest of Press Poodles.

Today's "effort" wins her top honors.

Maggie Haberman, NYT:

Trump Admits Downplaying the Virus Knowing It Was ‘Deadly Stuff’

In taped interviews with the journalist Bob Woodward, the president said as early as February that the virus was more dangerous than the flu, even as he told the country otherwise

President Trump acknowledged to the journalist Bob Woodward that he knowingly played down the coronavirus earlier this year even though he was aware it was life-threatening and vastly more serious than the seasonal flu.

“This is deadly stuff,” Mr. Trump said on Feb. 7 in one of 18 interviews with Mr. Woodward for his coming book, “Rage.”

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” the president told Mr. Woodward in audio recordings made available on The Washington Post website. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

But three days after those remarks, Mr. Trump told the Fox Business anchor Trish Regan: “We’re in very good shape. We have 11 cases. And most of them are getting better very rapidly. I think they will all be better.” A little less than two weeks later, he told reporters on the South Lawn that “we have it very much under control in this country.”

By Feb. 26, the president was publicly dismissing concerns about the lethality of the virus. “It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for,” he said at a White House news conference. “And we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner.”

And by Feb. 28, at a rally in South Carolina, Mr. Trump denounced Democrats for their concerns about the virus as “their new hoax,” after the Russia investigation and his impeachment.

The audio recordings show that as Mr. Trump was absorbing in real time the information he was given by health and national security experts, he made a conscious choice not only to mislead the public but also to actively pressure governors to reopen states before his own government guidelines said they were ready.

By March, Mr. Trump was straightforward with Mr. Woodward about his tactics. “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said in an audio recording of an interview on March 19. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

Despite the president’s own words in the recordings, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, told reporters on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had never publicly played down the virus.

The Post and CNN were given advance copies of the book and published details on Wednesday. The New York Times obtained its own copy.

As part of the White House’s effort at damage control, Mr. Trump told reporters that his recorded remarks to Mr. Woodward were vastly different from what he was telling the public because he was worried about frightening people.

“We don’t want to instill panic,” the president said on Wednesday. “We don’t want to jump up and down and start shouting that we have a problem that is a tremendous problem” and “scare everybody.”

But his acknowledgment that he was fully aware by early February of the perils of the virus only intensified questions about why he was so slow to respond, and why he did not tell Americans the truth to better prepare them for the worst public health crisis in the United States in more than a century.

Mr. Woodward’s book also illustrated that as much as Mr. Trump tries to change the subject before the November election to law and order and a call for a crackdown on nationwide protests against police brutality, he is unable to escape scrutiny for his response to a virus that has killed nearly 190,000 people in the United States and upended the lives of millions more.

The president also told Mr. Woodward on March 19 of the virus: “Part of it is the mystery. Part it is the viciousness. You know when it attacks it attacks the lungs. And I don’t know — when people get hit, when they get hit, and now it’s turning out it’s not just old people, Bob.” He went on: “Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older. Young people too — plenty of young people.”

And yet in an interview broadcast by “Fox and Friends” on Aug. 5, Mr. Trump asserted: “If you look at children, children are almost, and I would say almost definitely, but almost immune from this disease. I don’t know how you feel about it, but they’ve got stronger immune systems than we do somehow for this.”

Two days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that “children are at risk for severe Covid-19.”

One question swirling in Washington on Wednesday was why Mr. Trump had given Mr. Woodward such extensive access. Mr. Woodward, a longtime editor and reporter at The Washington Post who with Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, has written books on most of Mr. Nixon’s successors, many of them critical. Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s former top political adviser, noted on Fox News on Wednesday that nearly every president who has cooperated with Mr. Woodward regretted it.

Current White House officials said that Mr. Trump opened his door to Mr. Woodward in the hope that the eventual book would be positive. Mr. Trump did not speak to Mr. Woodward for his first book on the Trump presidency, “Fear,” and the president has maintained that it would have turned out better had he participated. Officials also said that Mr. Trump, who has great faith in his ability to sell people on his version of events, was eager to have Mr. Woodward’s seal on his time in office.

Although Mr. Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, spoke extensively to Mr. Woodward, White House officials were pointing fingers at one another on Wednesday about who was responsible for giving the journalist such access.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump repeatedly bragged about his limited ban on travel into the United States from China at the end of January, and falsely claimed that almost everyone disagreed with him at the time. Mr. Woodward’s book documents that the majority of the president’s advisers urged him to go ahead with the ban during a meeting in the Oval Office before he ultimately did.

When pressed on why he did not do more in February and March, knowing what he knew, Mr. Trump maintained that he had not expected the virus to spread as far and as fast as it did.

“You didn’t really think it was going to be to the point that it was,” he said. “All of a sudden the world was infected. The entire world was infected. Everyone was scrambling around looking where to buy face masks and all of the other things.”

"You didn't really think it was going to be to the point that it was."

45* had already established that he knew it was bad, and that his people had told him it was going to get worse - in a hurry - cuz that's kinda what happens with a pandemic. 

You can't know something, and not know it at the same time.

On Capitol Hill, several Republicans defended the president.

“I don’t think he needs to go on TV and scream that we’re all going to die,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and an ally of the president who White House aides said encouraged the president to participate in the book. “But his actions of shutting the economy down were the right actions. I think the tone during that time sort of spoke for itself. People knew it was serious.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said he had not seen the book and directed questions to the White House.

Democrats were quick to slam Mr. Trump for his comments. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said that the book offered “damning proof that Donald Trump lied and people died.”

Let's review:

1. Lindsey Graham is not "several Republicans"
2. 45* didn't downplay or mislead or falsely claim - he lied outright 
3. The word "lie" is never used except under cover of a quote from Chuck Schumer
4. 45* wasn't "slow to respond" - he fucking failed

Oy

Just how far will Cult45 go to cover their asses on the COVID-19 thing?

Way fuckin' far.

Mother Jones:

This month, Stephen Miller, the extremist anti-immigrant Trump adviser who has promoted white nationalist ideas, lost a relative to the coronavirus pandemic, and his uncle tells Mother Jones that the Trump administration is partly to blame for this death.

On July 4, David Glosser, the brother of Miller’s mother, posted a Facebook note announcing the death of his mother, Ruth Glosser, who was Miller’s maternal grandmother:

This morning my mother, Ruth Glosser, died of the late effects of COVID-19 like so many thousands of other people; both young and old. She survived the acute infection but was left with lung and neurological damage that destroyed her will to eat and her ability to breathe well enough to sustain arousal and consciousness. Over an 8-week period she gradually slipped away and died peacefully this morning.

David Glosser is a retired neuropsychologist and passionate Trump critic who has publicly decried Miller for his anti-immigrant policies, and he contends that Trump’s initial “lack of a response” to the coronavirus crisis led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans who might have otherwise survived. In an interview, he says, “With the death of my mother, I’m angry and outraged at [Miller] directly and the administration he has devoted his energy to supporting.”

In response to a request seeking comment from Miller, a White House spokesperson sent Mother Jones this statement:

This is categorically false, and a disgusting use of so-called journalism when the family deserves privacy to mourn the loss of a loved one. His grandmother did not pass away from COVID. She was diagnosed with COVID in March and passed away in July so that timeline does not add up at all. His grandmother died peacefully in her sleep from old age. I would hope that you would choose not to go down this road.

Glosser, a former health professional, posted his mother’s death announcement on a public Facebook page. Responding to the White House statement, he writes in an email, “Keeping the tragic facts about COVID deaths of our countrymen and women, young and old, from the American public serves no purpose other than to obscure the need for a coherent national, scientifically based, public health response to save others from this disease. My mother led a long, satisfying, productive life of family and community service. She had nothing to be ashamed of, and concealing her cause of death to offer ‘privacy’ to me, our family, her hundreds of relatives and friends, does nothing to assuage our regret at her loss.”

Moreover, Ruth Glosser’s death certificate—which her son shared with Mother Jones—lists her cause of death as “respiratory arrest” resulting from “COVID-19.”

Informed that Ruth Glosser’s death certificate cited COVID-19, the White House spokesperson replied, “Again, this is categorically false. She had a mile [sic] case of COVID-19 in March. She was never hospitalized and made a full and quick recovery.”
Miller has played a role in the Trump White House’s ineffectual response to the coronavirus crisis. He was credited with helping to write the Oval Office address Trump delivered on March 11 that was widely panned. In that speech, Trump branded the coronavirus as the “foreign virus” and downplayed the damage already caused by it. He hailed his administration’s actions regarding the growing pandemic, ignoring his recent and repeated efforts to dismiss the threat posed by the virus. Trump announced in this speech that he would suspend all travel from Europe to the United States—a statement that caused panic, as Americans overseas rushed back to the United States and ended up in crammed and unsafe conditions at US airports. (The ban only applied to foreign citizens.) In the months since, Miller has attempted to exploit the pandemic to implement anti-immigration measures.

 

Oh Yeah - He Said It

Brian Tyler Cohen

Overheard

Fake News:
When the media reports what you said, shows video of you saying it, and asks you questions about it.

For The Record

I can't count the times I've done battle with some dipwad "conservative" who insists on shoving everything down the memory hole when it suits their need - which is pretty much all the fucking time.

So, for safekeeping here's a recap of 45*'s attempts to pretend COVID-19 was no biggie, from NYT, David Leonhardt:

President Trump made his first public comments about the coronavirus on Jan. 22, in a television interview from Davos with CNBC’s Joe Kernen. The first American case had been announced the day before, and Kernen asked Trump, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?”

The president responded: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

By this point, the seriousness of the virus was becoming clearer. It had spread from China to four other countries. China was starting to take drastic measures and was on the verge of closing off the city of Wuhan.

In the weeks that followed, Trump faced a series of choices. He could have taken aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus. He could have insisted that the United States ramp up efforts to produce test kits. He could have emphasized the risks that the virus presented and urged Americans to take precautions if they had reason to believe they were sick. He could have used the powers of the presidency to reduce the number of people who would ultimately get sick.

He did none of those things.

I’ve reviewed all of his public statements and actions on coronavirus over the last two months, and they show a president who put almost no priority on public health. Trump’s priorities were different: Making the virus sound like a minor nuisance. Exaggerating his administration’s response. Blaming foreigners and, anachronistically, the Obama administration. Claiming incorrectly that the situation was improving. Trying to cheer up stock market investors. (It was fitting that his first public comments were from Davos and on CNBC.)

Now that the severity of the virus is undeniable, Trump is already trying to present an alternate history of the last two months. Below are the facts — a timeline of what the president was saying, alongside statements from public-health experts as well as data on the virus.

Late January

On the same day that Trump was dismissing the risks on CNBC, Tom Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years, wrote an op-ed for the health care publication Stat. In it, Frieden warned that the virus would continue spreading. “We need to learn — and fast — about how it spreads,” he wrote.

It was one of many such warnings from prominent experts in late January. Many focused on the need to expand the capacity to test for the virus. In a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic,” Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb — both former Trump administration officials — wrote:

If public-health authorities don’t interrupt the spread soon, the virus could infect many thousands more around the globe, disrupt air travel, overwhelm health care systems, and, worst of all, claim more lives. The good news: There’s still an opening to prevent a grim outcome. … But authorities can’t act quickly without a test that can diagnose the condition rapidly.

Trump, however, repeatedly told Americans that there was no reason to worry. On Jan. 24, he tweeted, “It will all work out well.” On Jan. 28, he retweeted a headline from One America News, an outlet with a history of spreading false conspiracy theories: “Johnson & Johnson to create coronavirus vaccine.” On Jan. 30, during a speech in Michigan, he said: “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”

That same day, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus to be a “public-health emergency of international concern.” It announced 7,818 confirmed cases around the world.

Jan. 31

Trump took his only early, aggressive action against the virus on Jan. 31: He barred most foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the United States. It was a good move.

But it was only one modest move, not the sweeping solution that Trump portrayed it to be. It didn’t apply to Americans who had been traveling in China, for example. And while it generated some criticism from Democrats, it wasn’t nearly as unpopular as Trump has since suggested. Two days after announcing the policy, Trump went on Fox News and exaggerated the impact in an interview with Sean Hannity.

“Coronavirus,” Hannity said. “How concerned are you?”

Trump replied: “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. We have a tremendous relationship with China, which is a very positive thing. Getting along with China, getting along with Russia, getting along with these countries.”

By the time of that interview, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the world had surged to 14,557, a near doubling over the previous three days.

Early February

On Feb. 5, the C.D.C. began shipping coronavirus test kits to laboratories around the country. But the tests suffered from a technical flaw and didn’t produce reliable results, labs discovered.

The technical problems were understandable: Creating a new virus test is not easy. What’s less understandable, experts say, is why the Trump administration officials were so lax about finding a work-around, even as other countries were creating reliable tests.

The Trump administration could have begun to use a functioning test from the World Health Organization, but didn’t. It could have removed regulations that prevented private hospitals and labs from quickly developing their own tests, but didn’t. The inaction meant that the United States fell behind South Korea, Singapore and China in fighting the virus. “We just twiddled our thumbs as the coronavirus waltzed in,” William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist, wrote.

Trump, for his part, spent these first weeks of February telling Americans that the problem was going away. On Feb. 10, he repeatedly said — in a speech to governors, at a campaign rally and in an interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business — that warm spring weather could kill the virus. “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” he told the rally.

On Feb. 19, he told a Phoenix television station, “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” Four days later, he pronounced the situation “very much under control,” and added: “We had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered.”

His message was clear: Coronavirus is a small problem, and it is getting smaller. In truth, the shortage of testing meant that the country didn’t know how bad the problem was. All of the available indicators suggested it was getting worse, rapidly.

On Feb. 23, the World Health Organization announced that the virus was in 30 countries, with 78,811 confirmed cases, a more than fivefold increase over the previous three weeks.

Late February

Trump seemed largely uninterested in the global virus statistics during this period, but there were other indicators — stock-market indexes — that mattered a lot to him. And by the last week of February, those market indexes were falling.

The president reacted by adding a new element to his public remarks. He began blaming others.

He criticized CNN and MSNBC for “panicking markets.” He said at a South Carolina rally — falsely — that “the Democrat policy of open borders” had brought the virus into the country. He lashed out at “Do Nothing Democrat comrades.” He tweeted about “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer,” mocking Schumer for arguing that Trump should be more aggressive in fighting the virus. The next week, Trump would blame an Obama administration regulation for slowing the production of test kits. There was no truth to the charge.

Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving. On Feb. 26, he said: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” On Feb. 27, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” On Feb. 29, he said a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and “very rapidly” and praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.” None of these claims were true.

By the end of February, there were 85,403 confirmed cases, in 55 countries around the world.

Early March

Almost two decades ago, during George W. Bush’s presidency, the federal government developed guidelines for communicating during a public-health crisis. Among the core principles are “be first,” “be right,” “be credible,” “show respect” and “promote action.”

But the Trump administration’s response to coronavirus, as a Washington Post news story put it, is “breaking almost every rule in the book.”

The inconsistent and sometimes outright incorrect information coming from the White House has left Americans unsure of what, if anything, to do. By early March, experts already were arguing for aggressive measures to slow the virus’s spread and avoid overwhelming the medical system. The presidential bully pulpit could have focused people on the need to change their behavior in a way that no private citizen could have. Trump could have specifically encouraged older people — at most risk from the virus — to be careful. Once again, he chose not to take action.

Instead, he suggested on multiple occasions that the virus was less serious than the flu. “We’re talking about a much smaller range” of deaths than from the flu, he said on March 2. “It’s very mild,” he told Hannity on March 4. On March 7, he said, “I’m not concerned at all.” On March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

The first part of March was also when more people began to understand that the United States had fallen behind on testing, and Trump administration officials responded with untruths.

Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, told ABC, “There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been.” Trump, while touring the C.D.C. on March 6, said, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”

That C.D.C. tour was a microcosm of Trump’s entire approach to the crisis. While speaking on camera, he made statements that were outright wrong, like the testing claim. He brought up issues that had nothing to do with the virus, like his impeachment. He made clear that he cared more about his image than about people’s well-being, by explaining that he favored leaving infected passengers on a cruise ship so they wouldn’t increase the official number of American cases. He also suggested that he knew as much as any scientist:

I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.

On March 10, the World Health Organization reported 113,702 cases of the virus in more than 100 countries.

Mid-March and beyond

On the night of March 11, Trump gave an Oval Office address meant to convey seriousness. It included some valuable advice, like the importance of hand-washing. But it also continued many of the old patterns of self-congratulation, blame-shifting and misinformation. Afterward, Trump aides corrected three different misstatements.

This pattern has continued in the days since the Oval Office address. Trump now seems to understand that coronavirus isn’t going away anytime soon. But he also seems to view it mostly as a public-relations emergency for himself rather than a public-health emergency for the country. On Sunday, he used his Twitter feed to lash out at Schumer and Joe Biden and to praise Michael Flynn, the former Trump aide who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.

Around the world, the official virus count has climbed above 142,000. In the United States, scientists expect that between tens of millions and 215 million Americans will ultimately be infected, and the death toll could range from the tens of thousands to 1.7 million.

At every point, experts have emphasized that the country could reduce those terrible numbers by taking action. And at almost every point, the president has ignored their advice and insisted, “It’s going to be just fine.”

Susan Beachy and Ian Prasad Philbrick contributed research.