You have to hand it to Trump, he has a lot of nerve.
Not that it will matter to people who love Trump or hate him, but Trump and his influencers have been on the sort of roll that is calculated to infuriate his critics and many of us who would be willing to support him should he win the nomination.
Take a look at some whoppers he told during his town hall. The first is his claim that Ron DeSantis was the actual Fauci supporter, not Trump:
“If you go back and look at the records, you will see that the biggest fan of Dr. Fauci was Ron DeSantis.” — Donald Trump, who promoted the vaccine, sent Fauci state to state to push for lockdowns and adherence to CDC social distancing guidelines, scolded DeSantis, Kemp and… pic.twitter.com/YiAOJuzXAt
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) January 11, 2024
Then Trump went on to say that he wasn’t a supporter of shutdowns and that he is a big federalist and supported governors who didn’t want to shut down.
Imagine having the balls to say this when you literally did exactly that. https://t.co/6cLDn0vZOM
— David Reaboi, Late Republic Nonsense (@davereaboi) January 11, 2024
That there is video of him criticizing Kemp and DeSantis for opening their states against federal demands–demands that Trump put in place as the Chief Executive–is no barrier to his making this absurd claim. Watch:
The Trump administration even pressured local officials to prolong mandates in defiance of state governors who wanted to reopen.
“You started to have federal agencies working directly with local governments to impose restrictions over the state.” 14/pic.twitter.com/BG6RewOzoL
— Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) January 10, 2024
It’s not even remotely true that Trump pursued a federalist policy during the COVID-19 lockdowns–he was even the one to announce the “15 Days to Stop the Spread”. He spent weeks platforming Fauci and Birx with the ridiculous daily updates on COVID. He criticized governors who defied the mandates. The only barrier to his going further was the fact that the governors had the police power in their own states, and Trump didn’t.
Trump laughed along with Fauci and Birx when they were announcing their shutdown of the country, for God’s sake.
March 16, 2020: Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, and Donald Trump smile as they announce “15 Days to Slow the Spread”—arguably the most destructive domestic policy ever implemented in the United States. 5/pic.twitter.com/UehUNnPyus
— Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) January 10, 2024
He attacked Governor Brian Kemp and berated him in private for pushing to open his state, giving aid and comfort to the Left’s attack on Kemp that culminated in The Atlantic claiming that Kemp was “experimenting with human sacrifice.” Trump was on the wrong side of that one. Now he even claims that Stacey Abrams would have been a better governor than Kemp.
Trump worked tirelessly to tie himself to Fauci, up to and including Anthony Fauci in his reelection advertising. Yet he now claims that Ron DeSantis was Fauci’s biggest fan. Yeah, right. Uh huh.
On several occasions, Fauci recalled that Trump never disagreed with any of his advice to implement lockdown measures. 19/pic.twitter.com/H5ibels8om
— Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) January 10, 2024
Trump bragged in rallies that he was a big fan of shutdowns and, of course, deferred to “very smart people” like Fauci and Birx. Before leaving office he gave Fauci a parting kiss–a presidential commendation. He threw in Mark Milley, too, who is an honest-to-God traitor.
Far from sidelining Fauci, at the end of his term, Trump even gave Fauci an award for his contributions to the “Operation Warp Speed Team.” 22/ pic.twitter.com/67PRc4tHtW
— Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) January 10, 2024
Even at the very end of Trump’s term, the federal government–run by Donald Trump–was pushing Red state governors like Ron DeSantis to reimplement COVID mitigation measures. DeSantis said no f’ing way.
Here’s the letter Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force sent to Florida on January 10, 2021. Just a few days before Trump left office, his task force was STILL urging @RonDeSantis to lockdown Florida with “strict physical distancing” and force everyone to wear masks. pic.twitter.com/AtbDrQN2Ml
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) September 7, 2023
No doubt Trump supporters will attack me as a “Never Trumper” for pointing out simple truths, but these are the receipts, and there are many, many more.
The fact is former president Trump led the opposition to my decision to reopen Georgia – the first state in the country to do so.
While he listened to Fauci & parroted media talking points, I listened to hardworking Georgians.
He may not remember, but I sure as hell do. https://t.co/8eWPidlnfP
— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) September 9, 2023
Instead of lying about who did what–transparent lies–Trump should do the honorable thing and say, “I learned my lesson, and it will never happen again.” How hard is that?
I have no problem with a person admitting an error–it is called learning, and all of us do it. I have screwed up and on big things. When I screw up, I try to man up, as any intelligent and decent person would do. I don’t always do the right thing even in this, but it is my aspiration.
It is called honor.
Support Trump or not for whatever reason. I can respect that. If he is the candidate this November, I will fill in that oval for him. But I won’t do it imagining that he is our George Washington or Abraham Lincoln–a president that Trump has criticized, by the way–as inferior to Trump himself. I will do it because he is better than the alternative. If you expect your preferred politician to be a savior and infallible and convince yourself that he is, you are deluding yourself.
Trump is a narcissist, and he has done great things. Both of these things are true.
His narcissism led him to make outlandish and provably false claims. It infuriates us when Democrats and the MSM lie to our faces, and it should outrage you when a Republican, including Trump, does too.
Trump has spent the past two years attacking the best Republican governors in the country because they were right and he was wrong. He has attacked Ron DeSantis, Brian Kemp, and Glenn Youngkin. He started attacking Kim Reynolds when she announced her support for DeSantis.
That is petty. Since when has Trump supported people he disagreed with? As for loyalty, how many people who carried water for him has Trump thrown under the bus? Almost every single one of them, that’s who. And for those of you who say they deserved it, ask yourself this: if that is true, what does that say about Trump’s ability to pick his appointments and his confederates?
Am I angry about Trump’s lies? You bet I am. He is slandering the good guys. Even if you support Trump–which is fine–can you really defend these ridiculous claims?
