Katy Tur went there and called Trump a liar on the air after a guest danced around the subject of Trump’s inability to tell the truth.
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Tur said, “Peter, is there concern he may have agreed to something one on one, when there was just translators in that room, that he didn’t realize he agreed to? Asked whether or not there will be a readout of that meet, the president said, well, I have one of the world’s greatest memories so I’ll remember what was said. I’m not being glib here. He said the same thing to me on the phone about a campaign issue in 2015 when he was claiming that thousands of Muslims were cheering on streets as the towers went down. There’s no evidence to back that up that did not happen. When I asked him for it, he said, I know what happened because I have the world’s greatest memory. Flash forward about a year when he’s under a deposition and lawyers ask him for one of the lawsuits he’s in, he’s bragging he has the world’s greatest memory, and he says, I don’t remember saying that.”
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Peter Baker tried to be diplomatic about Trump’s lying, “Yes. It’s the world’s greatest selective memory. The truth is, probably would have been better for everyone if there were note takers in there. Having said that, it wouldn’t surprise me if later on there was a claim an agreement was made in that room just between the two of them that they didn’t report and if the president decided it wasn’t convenient, he would say no, we didn’t make that agreement. So he is — he does tend to reinvent things. If he decided it wasn’t convenient or it wasn’t the right course to take six months from now, I think he would back off whatever it was that was said in that room. The question is whether that could blow up, you know, this trust they are trying to build between the leaders. You put two leaders in the room and the idea is to forge a bond. President Trump said it would take just one minute to understand how well he would get along with Kim Jong-un. A real relationship of trust takes time. You want to have a partner that you believe is going to live up to the things he said. Both cases, we have leaders who have been all over the map on some issues. It’s going to be interesting to see whether they can genuinely over time develop a relationship to lead someplace.”
Katy Tur bluntly responded, “Peter, I’ll say it because I believe it’s fact, not opinion, he has a tendency to lie.”
A person who has a tendency to lie is a liar
Before anyone parses Tur’s words, a person who has a tendency to lie is a liar. Donald Trump has told more than 3,000 verifiable lies already during his presidency. This number does not include the thousands of lies that he told while running for president. Tur was correct. It is a proven fact that Donald Trump lies. Trump never admits his lies or tries to correct them. He only build new lies on top of old ones.
Journalists like Peter Baker, who is one of the best in the profession, need to stop sugarcoating it. The reason why Trump gets away with lies is that too many journalists remain too timid to call his statements what they really are.
If journalists want to survive Trump’s assault on their credibility, they need to start calling a lie a lie and a liar a liar.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
