Tag: fake news
Donald Trump

Fake Man Starts Fake War And Makes Fake Peace

Leave it to Donald J. Trump to come up with a purely performative war, and folks, he’s done it. His big air assault on Iran Saturday night accomplished exactly nothing. The New York Times reported on its front page yesterday that a secret report from the Defense Intelligence Agency has found that the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities at three sites around the country set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months. Additionally, the vaunted bunker buster bombs, 30,000-pound projectiles designed to penetrate the surface of the earth before detonating far underground, failed to destroy the underground nuclear facilities at Fordo.

The report contained some new information as well. Israeli sources said that Iran has built smaller nuclear plants in secret locations “so the Iranian government could continue its nuclear program in the event of an attack on the larger facilities,” according to the Times. This information had not been made public previously. The report confirmed that Iran moved “almost all of its nuclear material” before the U.S. bombed its nuclear facilities on Saturday night, the Times reported on Tuesday afternoon.

Hegseth’s breathless announcement on Sunday morning --- 125 combat aircraft! 14 bunker busters! 75 other bombs and cruise missiles launched from submarines! – was all for show. The administration is so far back on its heels that a Congressional briefing on the attack scheduled for Tuesday has been pushed back until Thursday.

Iran responded Monday night by firing 14 missiles at the U.S. base in Doha, Qatar…after warning the Pentagon the attack was coming so the missiles could be easily shot down. The number of missiles was said to be calculated to match the number of U.S. bunker busters so that Iran’s retaliatory strike would not be seen as an escalation. The U.S. dutifully hit 13 of the Iranian missiles with anti-missile fire. One Iranian missile was said to have hit an unoccupied small building on the American base. There were no American casualties.

Trump went on Truth Social to announce that he had engineered “a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE… when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!” He then mumbled something about 12 hours for this and 12 hours for that, until the “end, what should be called, “THE 12 DAY WAR.”

On Tuesday morning at 10:50 a.m., Representative Earl A. “Buddy” Carter, Republican of Georgia, formally nominated Donald J. Trump for the Nobel Prize “in recognition of his extraordinary and historic role in brokering an end to the armed conflict between Israel and Iran.” Buddy didn’t mention that Trump was himself a participant in the “war” he ended.

As he departed the White House this morning for the NATO summit, Trump bragged that he was able to get the two nations to stop fighting despite the fact that “We have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

Every television network, broadcast and cable alike, shifted immediately into Full Tape Vault mode looking for another instance that an American president had dropped “the F-bomb” on camera live, and finding none, announced that Trump was first to achieve this momentous accomplishment.

From Air Force One on his way to Europe, Trump continued to brag, “It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR! Both Nations will see tremendous LOVE, PEACE, AND PROSPERITY in their futures. They have so much to gain, and yet, so much to lose if they stray from the road of RIGHTEOUSNESS & TRUTH.”

Trump ordered a major attack on Iran. The bombs dropped. The cruise missiles flew. The satellite photos were published. Trump’s own Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that, “Iran retains control of almost all of its nuclear material, meaning if it decides to make a nuclear weapon it might still be able to do so relatively quickly.”

Trump’s fake war produced fake peace. Everything is the same as it was before. Israel still has its nukes. Iran is still a few months away from a developing its own nuclear weapon.

Relax. Trump is going for his Nobel. All is well.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. He writes every day at luciantruscott.substack.com and you can follow him on Bluesky @lktiv.bsky.social and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter.

Economy

Ignore Trump's Distractions -- This Is His Economy Now

Many people have complained about New York Times headlines, with reason. All too often an equivocating, sanewashing headline belies the excellent reporting that follows. But yesterday the Times got it right about the first-quarter decline in GDP: “Trump boasts about the economy, but says weak data is Biden’s problem.”

There will be much more of this as the data get worse, which they will. (I’m going to keep treating “data” as plural unless it refers to a Starfleet commander.) In fact, I worry a lot about Trump putting pressure on the statistical agencies to report better numbers. He has already said that reports of rising prices are “fake news”.

For now, however, it’s important to be clear that the bad news is all on Trump’s head, and we mustn’t let him get away with claiming otherwise.

It’s true that most of the time presidents have much less impact on the economy than many people believe. It’s also true that a president’s policies usually don’t have large economic effects in the first few months of their administration.

But Trump’s policies have been so extreme that they are already making the economy visibly worse. In particular, expectations of high tariffs began distorting business decisions even before the tariffs went into effect. If you look at the GDP numbers released yesterday, you see a huge surge in imports coupled with a large surge in inventories. Both of these clearly reflected businesses “front-running” expected tariffs, racing to buy as much from China in particular as they could before the tariffs went into effect.

And the effects of Trump’s policies will become even clearer, and even worse, over the next few months. Those insanely high tariffs on China have led to a collapse in shipments from China to the United States, which will soon be reflected in soaring prices and, probably empty shelves.

We’re also already seeing signs of Trump’s policies causing broad economic weakness:

Trump himself seems to be aware that he’s causing major supply-chain disruptions.

“You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be open,’” Mr. Trump said. “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

OK, having Trump come out as a critic of consumerism and proponent of the higher, spiritual side of life wasn’t on my bingo card.

What I and everyone else did expect was that when the economy turned bad, Trump would refuse to accept responsibility and blame his predecessor. And right on cue, that’s what is happening.

So this is a good time to remember that Trump actually inherited a very good economy, one that was outperforming all its peers. From The Economist, last October:

When Trump moved into the White House, America had historically low unemployment and inflation only slightly above the Federal Reserve’s (arbitrary) target of 2 percent. Look at the “misery index,” the sum of inflation and unemployment — a crude but usually pretty good measure of how the economy is doing. As of January that index was quite low by historical standards:

Were there deep underlying problems, reasons to believe that the appearance of prosperity was somehow misleading? No. I’ll probably write at some point about claims by Trump’s minions that the Biden economy was somehow bad despite low unemployment and inflation combined with rising real wages. But for now let me just say that none of these claims stands up to even casual scrutiny.

In short, pay no attention to Trump’s excuses. The U.S. economy was in good shape when he came in. If everything is going to hell — which it is — he has nobody but himself to blame.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and former professor at MIT and Princeton who now teaches at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. From 2000 to 2024, he wrote a column for The New York Times. Please consider subscribing to his Substack, where he now posts almost every day.

Reprinted with permission from Paul Krugman.


President Volodymyr Zelensky

Blaming Zelensky For Ukraine War, Trump Attacks Media And Spews Fake History

President Donald Trump is victim-blaming Ukraine after Russia carried out a missile attack on civilians at a Palm Sunday celebration in the city of Sumy, killing at least 34 people, including two children.

On Sunday night after the bombing, Trump said in an interview on Air Force One that the ballistic missile attack was “a mistake" and a “horrible thing”—even though a ballistic missile attack has to be directed and thus could not have been a benign error as Trump suggested.

But on Monday morning, Trump’s tone grew angry as he blamed former President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the attack that Russia carried out, writing in one of his embarrassing Truth Social missives:

The War between Russia and Ukraine is Biden’s war, not mine. I just got here, and for four years during my term, had no problem in preventing it from happening. President Putin, and everyone else, respected your President! I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS WAR, BUT AM WORKING DILIGENTLY TO GET THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION TO STOP. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED, and it was, in so many ways, that horrible War would never have happened. President Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past. Now we have to get it to STOP, AND FAST. SO SAD!

Let’s set aside the fact that it’s sociopathic to bring everything back to the 2020 election, which Trump still says was rigged, even though it wasn’t. To again blame Biden and Zelensky for a war that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is 100% responsible for is sick and twisted—and raises questions about why Trump refuses to assign Putin any fault for his actions.

Trump dug in later on Monday as well. In the Oval Office, Trump told reporters, “[Zelensky is] always looking to purchase missiles. … Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”

Trump has repeatedly blamed Zelensky over Putin.

In February, Trump repeated Russian propaganda when he ridiculously accused Zelensky of being a “dictator” for not holding an election in his war-torn country.

Later that month, Trump attacked Zelenskyy in a disgraceful Oval Office ambush, in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance teamed up on Zelensky to demand he be more grateful for American aid in the war.

And on March 31, Trump threatened Zelenskyy with “big, big problems” if Zelenskyy were to back out of a minerals deal.

Trump’s change of tone on Monday over the horrific attack Russia carried out on Ukrainian civilians is likely a response to an interview Zelensky gave to 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday night.

"I believe, sadly, Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S.,” Zelensky said. “How is it possible to witness our losses and our suffering, to understand what the Russians are doing, and to still believe that they are not the aggressors, that they did not start this war? This speaks to the enormous influence of Russia's information policy on America, on U.S. politics, and U.S. politicians.”

That clearly pissed off Trump, who demanded CBS News lose its broadcast license for airing the segment. Trump wrote on Truth Social:

They [“60 Minutes”] are not a “News Show,” but a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as “News,” and must be responsible for what they have done, and are doing. They should lose their license! Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior. CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Trump is angry that he hasn’t been able to end the war on Day 1, as he repeatedly promised during the campaign.

Worse for Trump is that his embrace of Putin and attacks on Zelensky are losing him support from voters.

A Gallup survey released on March 18 found that 46 percent of Americans believe the United States is not doing enough to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s attacks—a 16-percentage-point increase since December.

An NBC News poll from about the same time found that 61 percent of registered voters side with Ukraine over Russia. Yet a plurality (49 percent) thinks Trump sides with Russia over Ukraine.

“I cannot recall a moment in history when American public opinion and voters’ views of a president, as to which country they are more aligned with, have been more in conflict with each other,” Jeff Horwitt, a Democratic pollster who jointly conducted the poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, told NBC News.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Named To VOA, Lake Hates 'Fake News,' Called Fox 'A Globalist Network'

Named To VOA, Lake Hates 'Fake News,' Called Fox 'A Globalist Network'

Donald Trump's pick to lead the federal government's international news agency is an unhinged conspiracy theorist who lashes out at the press, hobnobs with far-right and antisemitic extremist outlets, and has criticized Fox News as “a globalist network.”

Trump announced Wednesday that he wants Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor who was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and governor in Arizona over the last two election cycles, to serve as the director of the Voice of America in his next administration. VOA claims a weekly international audience of more than 350 million people across TV, radio, and digital platforms; U.S. officials say it promotes democratic values, including the free press, and serves as a counterweight to foreign propaganda.

It’s unclear whether Lake will ever actually ascend to the VOA post. It is unusual for a president to name someone for the position and there are statutory and bureaucratic guardrails that could stall or prevent her installation, as CNN’s Brian Stelter noted.

But Trump’s selection of Lake — who he asserted will “ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media” — is a nakedly partisan assault on journalistic values that demonstrates the level of fealty he expects from the press.

Lake’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign was a Fox-fueled fever dream. An obsequious backer of Trump and supporter of his election fraud lies, she campaigned alongside MAGA extremists and drew support from figures linked to QAnon and white nationalism.

She habitually attacked reporters during the campaign, describing them as “the right hand of the devil” and running an ad in which she said “it’s time to take a sledgehammer to the mainstream media’s lies and propaganda” before smashing several televisions depicting cable news hosts, whom she accused of following “a communist playbook.” On Election Day, she promised journalists that after she won, she would “be your worst fricking nightmare.”

Lake lost. But in true Trumpian fashion, she spent the next two years claiming the governorship had been stolen from her, even as courts savaged her complaints.

As she prepared to run for Senate (even as she claimed to be Arizona’s rightfully elected governor), Lake expanded her attacks on the press to Fox itself. “Fox has proven that they are a globalist network,” she said on its competitor Newsmax in July 2023, adding that Fox supported the “uni-party swamp.” Speaking at this year’s Republican National Convention, she continued to go after the “fake news” for “lying about President Donald Trump and his amazing patriotic supporters.”

What type of media does Lake prefer? She is a friend and supporter of Laura Loomer, the deranged pro-Trump sycophant; praises the “massive following” of a QAnon show; embraces antisemitic streamers who sympathize with Nazis and claim that Jews are “taking over the world,” control the media, and “control us”; and cozies up to Brenden Dilley, the far-right podcaster who heads Trump’s “meme team.”

Lake would replace the journalist Michael Abramowitz if she actually becomes head of VOA. Abramowitz previously served as head of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that supports journalists and human rights advocates, after more than two decades at The Washington Post. But Trump wants U.S. journalists pumping out propaganda, and Lake represents his bid to get it.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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