One of Donald Trump\u2019s superpowers as a politician is his ability to spread false and misleading claims without any apparent shame or indication that he knows better. Most politicians will stumble over themselves when confronted with their own whopper, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) did in this month\u2019s vice-presidential debate. Trump just charges forward with all the assurance of a man who is surprised to hear you even question his ridiculous claims. That gives his devoted supporters license to embrace his alternate reality.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, does not have Trump\u2019s superpower. But what he does pack is a remarkable willingness to defend false claims in blatant, almost Machiavellian terms.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s done it again, this time in response to Trump\u2019s false claims about a Venezuelan gang taking over a city in Colorado.<\/p>\n
This first example cropped up last month when Trump and Vance promoted the false claim about Haitian migrants stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Vance ultimately all but acknowledged they were saying these debunked things to draw attention to a related but distinct issue: the fraught situation brought on by an influx of Haitians in Springfield and other large numbers of migrants coming to this country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,\u201d Vance told CNN\u2019s Dana Bash, \u201cthen that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do, Dana. Because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vance engaged in a similar exchange Sunday on ABC News with regard to Trump\u2019s claim \u2014 which Trump made alongside the Springfield one at last month\u2019s presidential debate \u2014 that a Venezuelan gang had taken over Aurora, Colo.<\/p>\n
When ABC\u2019s Martha Raddatz brought up the subject and noted that Republican Mayor Mike Coffman had called such claims \u201cgrossly exaggerated,\u201d Vance saw his opening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, Martha, you just said the mayor said they were exaggerated,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThat means there\u2019s got to be some \u2014 that means there\u2019s got to be some element of truth here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raddatz noted that, in fact, there were \u201cincidents\u201d with Venezuelan gang members that \u201cwere limited to a handful of apartment complexes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMartha, do you hear yourself?\u201d Vance said. \u201cOnly a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem, and not Kamala Harris\u2019s open border?\u201d<\/p>\n
Vance added: \u201cI really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign and conservative media and social media users have hailed Vance for fighting back and winning against the supposedly censorious and biased liberal media.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s worth reflecting on the exchange, the actual details in Aurora, and what it says about one side of our political divide\u2019s view of the importance of truth.<\/p>\n
Despite Vance\u2019s framing, Raddatz had not granted the premise that the apartment complexes had been \u201ctaken over\u201d by a Venezuelan gang; she merely cited \u201cincidents\u201d involving the gang.<\/p>\n
Plenty of local officials, too, have described the problem as incidents, not a takeover. In fact, Coffman, after initially saying the gang took over apartment complexes, backed off that claim and said more than a month ago that \u201ca Venezuelan gang is not in control of either of these two apartment complexes.\u201d Local police and other officials also debunked this long ago, including before Trump said it at the Sept. 10 debate.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also worth emphasizing just how far removed that reality is from what Trump continues to say about the situation. Trump has said not only that apartment complexes were taken over, but that the gang \u201ctook over large sections of a town, large sections of an area of Colorado.\u201d He mentioned Aurora at the debate while accusing migrants of \u201ctaking over the towns.\u201d<\/p>\n
The difference here isn\u2019t between taking over a city and taking over some apartment complexes; it\u2019s between taking over a city and taking over \u2026 nothing.<\/p>\n
Vance\u2019s argument is apparently that Trump is using some license here to highlight a real issue \u2014 to use a falsehood to draw attention to an underlying truth. As with Springfield, he\u2019s suggesting that the political ends justify the dishonest means.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s certainly a calculation that politicians make. But it\u2019s rare you see them acknowledge it so forthrightly, because implicit in it is that you can\u2019t strictly believe what they\u2019re saying. And if you can\u2019t trust Trump on this, what else can you trust him on? (The answer is: Not much, given Trump\u2019s 30,000 false and misleading claims as president.)<\/p>\n
Vance himself once asked such a question about Trump. He suggested in 2016 that Trump\u2019s dishonesty made it hard to believe him when he denied sexually assaulting a woman.<\/p>\n
Vance is making a far different calculation today \u2014 one that conveniently gives the guy he\u2019s running with license to say pretty much whatever he wants. Which, perhaps not coincidentally, is what Trump was going to do anyway.<\/p>\n
Eight years ago, it was Kellyanne Conway\u2019s infamous claims that Trump had \u201calternative facts.\u201d Today, Vance is putting a new sheen on that.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s basically, \u201cTrump 2024: There\u2019s got to be some element of truth here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
One of Donald Trump\u2019s superpowers as a politician is his ability to spread false and misleading claims without any apparent shame or indication that he knows better. Most politicians will stumble over themselves when confronted with their own whopper, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) did in this month\u2019s vice-presidential debate. Trump just charges forward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}