Truth can be defined as that which is accurate in accordance with fact or reality.
By the aforementioned definition, the current President does not appear to be able to relay facts based on documented reality.
Following the surfacing of an Access Hollywood videotape back in October, 2016 in which the current president was overheard talking about grabbing women in inappropriate places, he apologized almost immediately over the airways for words he recognized as his own. Subsequently, he referred to his apology to the American people for his indecent statement in a later television debate with Hillary Clinton (October 9, 2016), chalking his offensive words up to “locker room talk.”
Currently, though, various sources are reporting the current president is attempting to cast doubt on whether the voice on the Access Hollywood videotape was indeed his. Didn’t the current President know whether the voice on the videotape was his when it first aired for which he quickly apologized on a televised segment?
Apparently, he recognized his own voice and words in October, 2016. Did he forget he already apologized for these self-admitted actions within a short time after they were first broadcast in October 2016?
The current president’s grip on reality seemed questionable when, shortly after his Inauguration, he stated in an interview that, “We had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches.”
Historic photos prove otherwise. Did the President forget what the Washington Mall looked like during the 2009 Presidential Inauguration when the Mall overflowed with attendees throughout its entire length — as compared with the comparatively sparse crowd present in 2017?
During a speech in St. Charles, Missouri on Nov. 29, 2017, our current president declared the GOP tax bill is, “going to cost me a fortune” and the bill is “not good for me.”
When the president made the aforementioned statements, did he forget the GOP tax bill included the elimination of the estate tax (a tax that only affects multi-million dollar plus inheritances)?
Did the president forget the elimination of the estate tax would result in his heirs receiving an estimated extra billion dollars in inheritance?
Did the president forget the GOP tax bill included the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Income Tax….which would seemingly result in a windfall of cash for him?
As we attempt to discern why the president seems not to let truth get in the way of statements he purports as fact, we may want to consider some salient points he related in his own book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”
When discussing selling apartments in Trump Tower, Donald Trump stated in the aforementioned book, “We positioned ourselves as the only place for a certain kind of very wealthy person to live — the hottest ticket in town. We were selling fantasy” (Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition, 2015, p. 181).
Fantasy usually never lets reality get in its way. Sound familiar?
According to the aforementioned book, in the early 1970s when Donald Trump’s company ‘had no formal name,’ he “….began to call it the Trump Organization. Somehow the word ‘organization’ made it sound much bigger. Few people knew that the Trump Organization operated out of a couple of tiny offices on Avenue Z in Brooklyn” (p. 105).
Exaggeration? Deception? You decide.
As detailed in “Trump:The Art of The Deal,” in the early 1980s, Donald Trump’s construction site was going to be visited by a board of directors considering partnering with him in Atlantic City (pp. 210- 214).
In his book, Donald Trump relates, “ …the board would have an opportunity to see the proposed site and also to assess our progress in construction. It was the latter that worried me, since we had yet to do much work on the site….I called in my construction supervisor and told him that I wanted him to round up every bulldozer and dump truck he could possibly find, and put them to work on my site immediately….What the bulldozers and dump trucks did wasn’t important, I said, so long as they did a lot of it. If they got some actual work accomplished, all the better, but if necessary, he should have the bulldozers dig up dirt from one side of the site and dump it on the other. They should keep doing that, I said, until I gave other instructions” (pp. 214-215).
Purposeful deception to appear like real work was being done or not? You decide.
What is indisputable, in my opinion, is the current president, with his repeated, manipulative, inaccurate statements, has been shoveling something at the American public. And, it isn’t dirt.
Kathy Rittel
East Williston
