Viewers who watched it themselves saw a rambling, misleading performance. But those who relied on conservative cable newscasts or talk radio hosts got a very different impression.
On Thursday, Donald Trump gave a press conference that was rife with untruths and evasions. Let’s begin with specific examples of demonstrable falsehoods, so that readers who are favorable to the president won’t have to trust my characterization:
- Bragging about all the electoral votes he won, Trump said, “We got 306 because people came out and voted like they've never seen before so that's the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.” That is false. As CBS News notes, “In 2012, President Obama defeated his GOP rival, Mitt Romney, with 332 electoral votes. In 2008, Obama won the election against Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, with 365 electoral votes. In 1996, President Clinton defeated Republican Bob Dole with 379 votes. In 1992, Clinton won against President George H.W. Bush, the incumbent, with 370 electoral votes. In 1988, Bush won the presidency with 426 votes.” And Trump even misstated how many votes he won. It was 304.
- “Let me tell you about the travel ban,” Trump said, referring to the executive order that his press secretary, Sean Spicer, heatedly said wasn’t a travel ban. “We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. Got a bad decision.” Even apart from multiple unfavorable court rulings, the roll-out was anything but smooth. There was massive confusion about whether the surprise policy would affect permanent U.S. residents with green cards. Many were detained or turned away as protesters flocked to airports. Later the administration reversed itself. Ben Wittes went deep in the weeds on the rest of the incompetent, dysfunctional implementation of the order. Trump later said, “the only problem that we had is a bad court. We had a court that gave us what I consider to be, with great respect, a very bad decision. Very bad for the safety and security of our country. The rollout was perfect.”
- Trump was asked, “Can you say whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with Russia during the course of the election?” He said aside from Mike Flynn, the answer is no. In fact, he went even farther. “Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven't made a phone call to Russia in years. Don't speak to people from Russia. Not that I wouldn't. I just have nobody to speak to. I spoke to Putin twice. He called me on the election. I told you this. And he called me on the inauguration, a few days ago. We had a very good talk, especially the second one, lasted for a pretty long period of time … I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge no person that I deal with does. Now, Manafort has totally denied it. He denied it. Now people knew that he was a consultant over in that part of the world for a while, but not for Russia. I think he represented Ukraine or people having to do with Ukraine, or people that—whoever.”
In doing so, Trump effectively denied the veracity of a recent New York Times report asserting, “phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”
I don’t know if Trump or his team are guilty of any wrongdoing with regard to Russia. But Trump’s statement that he has “nothing to do with Russia” elides the fact that Trump made millions partnering with a Russian billionaire, Aras Agalarov, to host the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013. And in April 2016, when his campaign hosted an invitation-only campaign speech in Washington, D.C., that focused on foreign policy, Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak attended Trump’s speech and sat in the front row.
As for people that he deals with, Rex Tillerson, his new secretary of state, was longtime director of a U.S.-Russia oil firm, and was awarded the Russian Order of Friendship by Vladamir Putin. “Carter Page, an early foreign policy adviser to Donald J. Trump who was scrutinized by the F.B.I. on suspicion of private communications with senior Russian officials over the summer, was back in Moscow on Thursday,” the New York Times reported in December. Page, Flynn, and Manafort all resigned over murky Russia ties.
Perhaps this is all a series of innocent coincidences. But Trump misleads Americans into thinking there is no valid reason for suspicion when he falsely claims outright that neither he nor any person he deals with has ties to Russia.