In the rapidly changing world fashioned by
digital communications, our current President is not only the
Commander-in-Chief, but also the King of the Twitterverse. As such, his regular
tweet screeds often determine the course of the daily news cycle. While his
regime routinely complains and “blamesplains” that his policy agenda suffers
due to the Main Stream Media’s (MSM) fixation with fake news, it is
paradoxically not infrequent that the fake news emanates from the Twitter King
himself. Such is the case in the instance I will discuss in today’s brief post.
Courtesy of CNN Politics, I will deconstruct
one of #45’s tweets from yesterday. At 6:10 A.M. yesterday, @realDonaldTrump
tweeted:
"Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions
of dollars spent, the Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with
Russia - so now they are moving on to the false accusations and fabricated
stories of women who I don't know and/or have never met," he wrote. "FAKE NEWS!"
Following @realDonaldTrump
Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions of dollars spent, the
Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with Russia - so now they are
moving on to the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don’t
know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!
6:10 AM - 12 Dec 2017
·
32,701 Retweets
·
121,638 Likes
This one tweet contains three seeds of deception, three elements of deflection, three statements that if made by anyone else, would be called lies. Full stop! They are:
1.
Trump says that “the
Democrats” have spent “millions of dollars” and “wasted” thousands of hours in
an attempt to prove he colluded with Russians during the 2016 campaign.
Not even remotely true. Robert Mueller,
Special Counsel; a former GOP appointed FBI Director, was appointed Special
Council by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who works under Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, a longtime Republican. Sessions was nominated for his AG
position by Trump, of course. Democrats have certainly promoted the idea that
the available evidence suggests collusion occurred. But, Democrats, as we know,
do not control the Justice Department, or the House, or the Senate. Republican
appointees or Republican elected officials are leading all the current
investigations.
2.
Trump says no collusion
with Russia has been shown
Doesn’t move the truth meter at all. #45 has
consistently insisted that there is no collusion. In the wide world of
conceivable possibilities, that could be true. But from the perspective of Mr.
Trump’s assertion, at best, that is an unknown at this moment in time. No one –
not Robert Mueller, and not the Congressional committees investigating the
matter – has said anything definitive about collusion. Speaking of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, which he chairs, Republican NC Sen.
Richard Burr said in October, “The committee continues to look into all
evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion.” Mr. Mueller hasn’t spoken
publicly about the investigation.
3.
Trump has said he doesn’t
know and has never met the women accusing him of sexual harassment
That makes it a tidy three for three. Ms.
Summer Zervos, one of Trump’s accusers appeared on the fifth season of “The
Apprentice.” Obviously, Mr. Trump met her. In fact he even conceded he did. He
said, “I vaguely remember Ms. Zervos as one of the many contestants on “The
Apprentice” over the years.” Moreover, as with all things “Apprentice,” there
is film of Trump firing her in the first episode of Season 5, which aired in
2006: (https://www.thedailybeast.com/watch-donald-trump-fired-his-apprentice-accuser-summer-zervos-for-interrupting-him)
In the previous year, 2005, Natasha Stoynoff
went to Mar-A-Lago to do a story for People magazine on Trump's marriage to
Melania Trump on the one-year anniversary of their nuptials. She
interviewed Donald and Melania. It’s fair to say, they met each other.
And for the cherry on top, to start the week, White House
press secretary Sarah Sanders insisted during her briefing on Monday that,
"in terms of the specific eyewitness accounts (disputing the allegations)
there have been multiple reports, and I'd be happy to provide them to you after
the briefing has completed." Here’s the rub. If Trump has never met these
women, and doesn’t know them, how can there be “eyewitness accounts” that call
into question the veracity of the accusations made against Trump?
That’s three, er um, shall we say, inaccuracies in one King of
Twitter tweet. People who follow this kind of thing closely note this is the
rule, rather than the exception for His Majesty. Several outlets, including the
New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN have reported that Trump
frequently operates in the realm of the untrue. According to WaPo’s Fact
Checker, #45 is making 5.5 misleading
or totally false statements every day he is in office. I guess when
that’s one’s M.O., it’s good to be the King…”TheTwitter King: Fake it ‘Til You Make It!”
I’m done; holla back!
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