Celebrating ignorance, Trump boasts about making stuff up
03/15/18 08:00 AM—Updated 03/15/18 09:07 AM

By Steve Benen
About a year ago, Donald Trump sat down for an interview with the Associated Press, which touched on the president’s criticisms of NATO. He referenced an exchange he had during the campaign with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, in which then-candidate Trump expressed deep concerns about the security alliance despite “not knowing much about NATO.”
In other words, according to Trump, he spoke with great conviction about a key area of U.S. foreign policy, despite the fact that – by his own admission – he had no idea what he was talking about.
Yesterday, something very similar happened. The president spoke at a fundraiser about a conversation he had with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in which the two leaders discussed which country had a trade deficit with the other. As the Washington Post reported, Trump bragged last night that he made the private comments without having a clue as to whether or not he was correct.
“Trudeau came to see me. He’s a good guy, Justin. He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please,’ ” Trump said, mimicking Trudeau, according to audio obtained by The Washington Post. “Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in – ‘Donald, we have no trade deficit.’ He’s very proud because everybody else, you know, we’re getting k**led.
“… So, he’s proud. I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know…. I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart. I said, ‘You’re wrong, Justin.’ He said, ‘Nope, we have no trade deficit.’ I said, ‘Well, in that case, I feel differently,’ I said, ‘but I don’t believe it.’ I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, ‘Check, because I can’t believe it.’”
So, Trump started with the premise that the United States is “stupid” – a curious assumption for an American president – and then based his assumptions on that dubious foundation. It then led him to assume, without having any facts or having done any homework ahead of his meeting with the Canadian prime minister, that we have a trade deficit with our neighbors to the north.
According to last night’s story, Trump’s aide then came back to him to assure the president that he was, in fact, correct about the trade imbalance – which is bizarre, since, according to the Trump administration’s own data, the United States has a trade surplus with Canada.
What’s amazing about this story, however, isn’t just the American president being wrong about a simple issue he’s talked about for years.

Rather, what we have here is a president bragging about making stuff up, then assuring his audience that his evidence-free claims are accidentally true, without realizing that he’s still wrong. It’s like a lie wrapped in a gaffe inside propaganda.
For most presidents, this would be a deeply embarrassing moment that he hoped the public would never find out about. For this president, it’s an anecdote that Trump thinks makes him look better, not worse.
What’s more, given the circumstances, we have no reason to believe any of the conversations Trump described last night – the one with Trudeau or the one with the aide who looked up the trade details – actually happened in reality. It’s entirely possible the president just made up this part of the story, too.
After all, according to Trump, this is just what he does. Why anyone would ever take his word at face value is something of a mystery. When someone boasts about making stuff up, their credibility necessarily evaporates.
Donald Trump is not the nation’s first ignorant president. He is the first American president to brag about his ignorance, as if it’s worthy of celebration.

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Listening to Rush was where you made your mistake, bahmer. Rush is no more capable of understand theoretical physics than he can understand something as simple as 1+2=3. What he does know is that he LOVES pain meds and washing them down with lots of whiskey. Just ask all of his ex’s if you don’t believe me.

Of course, that could explain why he’s so mentally and emotionally deranged. All those chemicals have totally messed-up what little mind he started out with.

When I think of the right wing nuts, tea part and conservatives.. I see the murder and assaults in Chancellorsville, the murder of church goers as they pray and the theft of our nations property and lands by the bundy and their henchmen..

The fact that all you guys do not like brown skin or the dress of foreign born and raised women bring to mind the taunts toward Polish neighbors and use of "old Country" language in half the homes of my school mates as a child...


Your willingness to give even more money and power to those people born to that silver spoon live at the expense of your fellow taxpayers and workers, brings the image of middle age Europe and the system of tribute which ran the western world for centuries..

When you toss mountain of money to the makers of war machines and cut the life lines to daily food for the old and infirm.. It bring images of stalogs and the slow death of dying invalids..

If it were my children walking out of class to protest, I would have called off work and waited outside for them to come out. When seeing my kids come out I would have snatched the hell out of them and made them to get their asses back to class. Then i would have faced the teacher to ask WTF are YOU doing? Get your ass back in class too. You are on MY damn dime with my tax dollars paying you. Then I would have marched down to the school board and raised hell and filed a complaint.

To parents I say get control of your children. They are out of control because you let go of control. Now they think they can just walk out of class. They are protesting against themselves seeing that THEY are the ones doing the mass shootings. But according to those stank ass snots it is everybody else's fault. Whip their asses and stop taking this guff from them! They DON'T know their place. Past time to remind them.

WRONG! These kids are not fighting their own battle, they are the tools of the gun hating msm.

The msm doesn't care that more school kids die as a result of suicide than mass shootings.
The msm doesn't care that more school kids die as a result of cell phone usage than mass shootings.
The msm doesn't care that law enforcement failed at all levels.
The msm doesn't care about the "diversion" program that kept Cruz out of the criminal justice system, thus enabling him to by guns.
The msm doesn't care what CAUSED this tragedy, they only care about what they can use it for.
The msm doesn't care at all about these kids, except for their current usefullness!