All over the world today, people are reading that NY Times Trump interview and concluding the U.S. is being led by someone severely mentally ill. How many times did he use the phrase “no collusion?” How many people haven’t figured out his techniques for trying to distort reality? How low of an IQ does someone have to have to still be suckered by this jackass? Welcome to the Grill Room-- which serves crappy overpriced food at Mar-a-Lago-- and a gaggle of Trumpanzee amigos sitting around while the orangatang-in-chief granted an interview to Michael Schmidt. It was so noisy that much of the interview was inaudible. No doubt it was planned that way.Trumpanzee was still bitching about Jeff Sessions not protecting him. Discussing Sessions’ recusal, the orange ape said “I thought it was a terrible thing he did. [Inaudible.] I thought it was certainly unnecessary, I thought it was a terrible thing. But I think it’s all worked out because frankly there is absolutely no collusion, that’s been proven by every Democrat is saying it…Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what’s going on-- and in fact, what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been. Great congressmen, in particular, some of the congressmen have been unbelievable in pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is. So, I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion. And by the way, I didn’t deal with Russia… I can only tell you that there is absolutely no collusion. Everybody knows it. And you know who knows it better than anybody? The Democrats. They walk around blinking at each other… There’s been no collusion… Everybody knows the answer already. There was no collusion. None whatsoever… I think that Bob Mueller will be fair, and everybody knows that there was no collusion. I saw Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion. She’s the head of the committee. The Republicans, in terms of the House committees, they come out, they’re so angry because there is no collusion. So, I actually think that it’s turning out-- I actually think it’s turning to the Democrats because there was collusion on behalf of the Democrats. There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats. A lot of collusion… There was tremendous collusion on behalf of the Russians and the Democrats. There was no collusion with respect to my campaign. I think I’ll be treated fairly.”That quote was a compilation of Trump responses to 4 questions. To another, he added “I think it’s bad for the country. The only thing that bothers me about timing, I think it’s a very bad thing for the country. Because it makes the country look bad, it makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner it’s worked out, the better it is for the country… But there is tremendous collusion with the Russians and with the Democratic Party. Including all of the stuff with the-- and then whatever happened to the Pakistani guy, that had the two, you know, whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the D.N.C.?” And then a cockamamie threat: “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department. But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.” And he was off and running about his collusion obsession: “For purposes of the Justice Department, I watched Alan Dershowitz the other day, who by the way, says I, says this is a ridiculous… He’s been amazing. And he’s a liberal Democrat. I don’t know him. He’s a liberal Democrat. I watched Alan Dershowitz the other day, he said, No. 1, there is no collusion, No. 2, collusion is not a crime, but even if it was a crime, there was no collusion. And he said that very strongly. He said there was no collusion. And he has studied this thing very closely. I’ve seen him a number of times. There is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime. But there’s no collusion. I don’t even say [inaudible]. I don’t even go that far.”Finally, he found something else to bitch about: Joe Manchin. “We started taxes. And we don’t hear from the Democrats. You know, we hear bullshit from the Democrats. Like Joe Manchin. Joe’s a nice guy. But he talks. But he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t do. “Hey, let’s get together, let’s do bipartisan.” I say, “Good, let’s go.” Then you don’t hear from him again. I like Joe. You know, it’s like he’s the great centrist. But he’s really not a centrist. And I think the people of West Virginia will see that. He not a centrist... I’m the one that saved coal. I’m the one that created jobs. You know West Virginia is doing fantastically now.”And then his delusions about Alabama-- and the now fearful ‘Trump Kiss of Death’-- out of nowhere, “Just so you understand, Alabama.… I wasn’t for him. I was for Strange… and I brought Strange up 20 points. Just so you understand. When I endorsed him, he was in fifth place. He went way up. Almost 20 points. But he fell a little short. But I knew what I was doing. Because I thought that... If you look at my rhetoric, I said the problem with Roy Moore is that he will lose the election. I called it. But as the head of the party, I have a choice: Do I endorse him or not? I don’t know. Um… And by the way, when I endorsed him, he went up. It was a much closer race... I feel that I have to endorse Republicans as the head of the party. So, I endorsed him. It became a much closer race because of my endorsement. People don’t say that. They say, Oh, Donald Trump lost. I didn’t lose, I brought him up a lot. He was not the candidate that I thought was going to win. If you look at my statements, you’ve seen them, I said, ‘Look, I’m for Luther Strange because I like him, but I’m also for Luther Strange because he’s going to win the election.’ There wouldn’t have been an election. He would have won by 25 points... The problem with Roy Moore, and I said this, is that he’s going to lose the election. I hope you can straighten that out. Luther Strange was brought way up after my endorsement and he almost won. But... Almost won... He lost by 7 points, 7 or 8 points. And he was way behind. Because of two things, you know, what happened… But I never thought Roy was going to win the election, but I felt… I never thought he was going to win the election, but I felt... And I said that very clearly… And I wish you would cover that, because frankly, I said, if Luther doesn’t win, Roy is going to lose the election. I always felt Roy was going to lose the election. But I endorsed him because I feel it’s my obligation as the head of the Republican Party to endorse him. And you see how tight it was even to get a popular... In Republican circles, to get a very popular tax cut approved, actually reform. Two votes. Now we have one vote, all right?”Ah, yes, Trump’s Tax Scam. Here’s his excuses for raising taxes on the middle class:
TRUMP: And if I did bipartisan, I would have done something with SALT [the state and local tax deduction]. With that being said, you look back, Ronald Reagan wanted to take deductibility away from states. Ronald Reagan, years ago, and he couldn’t do it. Because New York had a very powerful group of people. Which they don’t have today. Today, they don’t have the same representatives. You know, in those days they had Lew Rudin and me... I fought like hell for that. They had a lot of very good guys. Lew Rudin was very effective. He worked hard for New York. And we had some very good senators... You know, we had a lot of people who fought very hard against, let’s call it SALT. Had they come to me and said, look, we’ll do this, this, this, we’ll do [inaudible]. I could have done something with SALT. Or made it less severe. But they were very ineffective. They were very, very ineffective. You understand what I mean. Had they come to me for a bipartisan tax bill, I would have gone to Mitch, and I would have gone to the other Republicans, and we could have worked something out bipartisan. And that could’ve been either a change to SALT or knockout of SALT....I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected...But, just so you understand, Ronald Reagan wanted to take deductibility away and he was unable to do it. Ronald Reagan wanted to have ANWR approved 40 years ago and he was unable to do it. Think of that. And the individual mandate is the most unpopular thing in Obamacare, and I got rid of it. You know, we gained with the individual... You know the individual mandate, Michael, means you take money and you give it to the government for the privilege of not having to pay more money to have health insurance you don’t want. There are people who had very good health insurance that now are paying not to have health insurance. That’s what the individual mandate... They’re not going to have to pay anymore. So when people think that will be unpopular... It’s going to be very popular. It’s going to be very popular.Now, in my opinion, they should come to me on infrastructure. They should come to me, which they have come to me, on DACA. We are working... We’re trying to something about it. And they should definitely come to me on health care. Because we can do bipartisan health care. We can do bipartisan infrastructure. And we can do bipartisan DACA… We can do a great infrastructure plan through bipartisanship. And we can do on immigration, and DACA in particular, we can do something that’s terrific through bipartisanship.
Within hours he was explaining his ideas of bipartisan DACA: no wall and he sends all the Dreamers back to where they were born.At the end Schmidt asked him to explain his latest crackpot tweet about North Korea— “the caught red handed one,” which China disputes. “Which one?” Said the monkey-man in a suit.
“I like very much President Xi. He treated me better than anybody’s ever been treated in the history of China. You know that. The presentations... One of the great two days of anybody’s life and memory having to do with China. He’s a friend of mine, he likes me, I like him, we have a great chemistry together. He’s [inaudible] of the United States. …[Inaudible.] China’s hurting us very badly on trade, but I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war. O.K.?SCHMIDT: Can you finish your thought on North Korea. What’s going on with China?TRUMP: I’m disappointed. You know that they found oil going into...SCHMIDT: But how recently?TRUMP: It was very recently. In fact, I hate to say, it was reported this morning, and it was reported on Fox. Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn’t my deal!SCHMIDT: What was the deal?TRUMP: My deal was that, we’ve got to treat them rough. They’re a nuclear menace so we have to be very tough.RUDDY: Mr. President, was that a picture from recent or was that months ago? I don’t know...TRUMP: Oil is going into North Korea, I know. Oil is going into North Korea. So I’m not happy about it.SCHMIDT: So what are you going to do?TRUMP: We’ll see. That I can’t tell you, Michael. But we’ll see. I can tell you one thing: This is a problem that should have been handled for the last 25 years. This is a problem, North Korea. That should have been handled for 25, 30 years, not by me. This should have been handled long before me. Long before this guy has whatever he has.SCHMIDT: Do you think we’ve been too soft on China on North Korea?TRUMP: No, look, I like China, and I like him a lot. But, as you know, when I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made-- last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn’t include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion. So, China-- and you know, somebody said, oh, currency manipulation. If they’re helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that’s what I’ve been doing. But when oil is going in, I’m not happy about that. I think I expressed that in probably [inaudible].TRUMP, as aides walk by: And, by the way, it’s not a tweet. It’s social media, and it gets out in the world, and the reason I do well is that I can be treated unfairly and very dishonestly by CNN, and, you know, I have-- what do have now, John, 158 million, including Facebook, including Twitter, including Instagram, including every form, I have a 158 million people. Reporting just this morning, they said 158 million. So if they a do a story that’s false, I can do something— otherwise, Andy, otherwise you just sort of walk around saying what can I do? What, am I going to have a press conference every time somebody, every time Michael writes something wrong?So, China on trade has ripped off this country more than any other element of the world in history has ripped off anything. But I can be different if they’re helping us with North Korea. If they don’t help us with North Korea, then I do what I’ve always said I want to do. China can help us much more, and they have to help us much more. And they have to help us much more. We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China, and it’s not good for Russia. It’s no good for anybody. Does that make sense?... The only thing that supersedes trade to me-- because I’m the big trade guy, I got elected to a certain extent on trade. You see, I’m renegotiating Nafta, or I’ll terminate it. If I don’t make the right deal, I’ll terminate Nafta in two seconds. But we’re doing pretty good. You know, it’s easier to renegotiate it if we make it a fair deal because Nafta was a terrible deal for us. We lost $71 billion a year with Mexico, can you believe it? $17 billion with Canada-- Canada says we broke even. But they don’t include lumber and they don’t include oil. Oh, that’s not... [Inaudible,]... My friend Justin he says, “No, no, we break even.” I said, ‘Yeah, but you’re not including oil, and you’re not including lumber.” When you do, you lose $17 billion, and with the other one, we’re losing $71 billion. So the only thing that supersedes trade to me is war. If we can solve the North Korea problem. China cannot… China has a tremendous power over North Korea. Far greater than anyone knows.
Charles Pierce said what much of the world was thinking: “I don’t care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough. We’ve got bigger problems.” He acknowledged post-publication “criticism of Schmidt for having not pushed back sufficiently against some of the more obvious barefaced non-facts presented by the ‘president’ in their chat. Some critics have been unkind enough to point out that Schmidt was the conveyor belt for some of the worst attacks on Hillary Rodham Clinton emanating from both the New York FBI office and the various congressional committees staffed by people in kangaroo suits.” But Pierce called the interview a portrait of a man in cognitive decline-- in other words, proof that Trump’s senility is getting worse. At this point few journalists are willing to go there, but by next year no one will be able to avoid the topic.
Over the past 30 years, I’ve seen my father and all of his siblings slide into the shadows and fog of Alzheimer’s Disease. (the president's father developed Alzheimer's in his 80s.) In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was. (Would that someone on the panel had asked him. He’d have been stumped.) Not long afterwards, I was interviewing a prominent Alzheimer’s researcher for a book I was doing, and he said, “I saw the look on his face that I see every day in my clinic.” In the transcript of this interview, I hear in the ‘president’s’ words my late aunt’s story about how we all walked home from church in the snow one Christmas morning, an event I don’t recall, but that she remembered so vividly that she told the story every time I saw her for the last three years of her life.In this interview, the ‘president’ is only intermittently coherent. He talks in semi-sentences and is always groping for something that sounds familiar, even if it makes no sense whatsoever and even if it blatantly contradicts something he said two minutes earlier. To my ears, anyway, this is more than the ‘president’s’ well-known allergy to the truth. This is a classic coping mechanism employed when language skills are coming apart. (My father used to give a thumbs up when someone asked him a question. That was one of the strategies he used to make sense of a world that was becoming quite foreign to him.) My guess? That’s part of the reason why it’s always “the failing New York Times,” and his 2016 opponent is “Crooked Hillary.”In addition, the ‘president’ exhibits the kind of stubbornness you see in patients when you try to relieve them of their car keys— or, as one social worker in rural North Carolina told me, their shotguns. For example, a discussion on health-care goes completely off the rails when the ‘president’ suddenly recalls that there is a widely held opinion that he knows very little about the issues confronting the nation. So we get this.But Michael, I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected.This is more than simple grandiosity. This is someone fighting something happening to him that he is losing the capacity to understand. So is this.
We’re going to win another four years for a lot of reasons, most importantly because our country is starting to do well again and we’re being respected again. But another reason that I’m going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes. Without me, the New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times. So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, “Please, please, don’t lose Donald Trump.” O.K.In Ronald Reagan’s second term, we ducked a bullet. I’ve always suspected he was propped up by a lot of people who a) didn’t trust vice-president George H.W. Bush, b) found it convenient to have a forgetful president when the subpoenas began to fly, and c) found it helpful to have a “detached” president when they started running their own agendas— like, say, selling missiles to mullahs. You’re seeing much the same thing with the congressional Republicans. They’re operating an ongoing smash-and-grab on all the policy wishes they’ve fondly cultivated since 1981. Having a ‘president’ who may not be all there and, as such, is susceptible to flattery because it reassures him that he actually is makes the heist that much easier.So, no, I don’t particularly care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough, or asked enough follow-up questions. I care about this.
I’m always moving. I’m moving in both directions. We have to get rid of chainlike immigration, we have to get rid of the chain. The chain is the last guy that killed... [Talking with guests.]... The last guy that killed the eight people... [Inaudible.]… So badly wounded people... Twenty-two people came in through chain migration. Chain migration and the lottery system. They have a lottery in these countries. They take the worst people in the country, they put ‘em into the lottery, then they have a handful of bad, worse ones, and they put them out. ‘Oh, these are the people the United States...” We’re gonna get rid of the lottery, and by the way, the Democrats agree with me on that. On chain migration, they pretty much agree with me.We’ve got bigger problems.
He appears encased in a Fox and Friends bubble that no one penetrates with the exception of shameless sycophants and hideous opportunists, while the ‘president’ of the United States is utterly-- and increasingly-- out of touch with reality. How far back in history do you have to look for a national leader as out of his mind and dangerous to his country as Trump? Ludwig II? George III? Ivan the Terrible? Nero? Caligula? Don't forget Charles Le Fou of France (who ruled from 1380 to 1422). Or maybe Señor Trumpanzee is just setting up a future insanity plea. We'll soon see.UPDATE: Nearly One Lie Per MinuteDaniel Dale, the Toronto Star DC bureau chief, counted 25 lies during the 30 minute interview. Michael Schmidt didn’t correct Trump once, just kissed his fat ass through the whole interview and agreed with every nonsensical thing he said. If it’s not getting too tedious for you, here are all 25 lies (although a couple might be more delusion that actual lies per se):1) “But I think it’s all worked out because frankly there is absolutely no collusion, that’s been proven by every Democrat is saying it... Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion.”Democratic members of Congress have not said en masse that they are convinced that there was no collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Some have acknowledged that they have not seen evidence of collusion, but they have pointed out that the investigation is ongoing.2) “And you’re talking about what Paul (Manafort) was many years ago before I ever heard of him. He worked for me for-- what was it, three and a half months? ... Three and a half months.”Manafort worked for the Trump campaign for just under five months, from March 28, 2016 to his resignation on August 19, 2016.3) “I saw (Democratic Sen.) Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion.”Trump appeared to be referring, as he has in the past, to a November CNN interview with Feinstein-- in which she did not declare that there is no collusion. Feinstein was specifically asked if she had seen evidence that the Trump campaign was given Democratic emails hacked by Russia. “Not so far,” she responded. She was not asked about collusion more broadly, and her specific answer made clear that she was referring only to evidence she has personally seen to date, not issuing a sweeping final judgment.4) “She’s (Feinstein) the head of the committee.”Feinstein, a Democrat, is not the head of any committee: Republicans control Congress and thus lead the committees. She is the ranking member-- the top Democrat-- on the Senate Judiciary Committee.5) “So, I actually think that it’s turning out-- I actually think it’s turning to the Democrats because there was collusion on behalf of the Democrats. There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats. A lot of collusion … starting with the dossier.”The word “collusion”-- in common language, a “secret agreement or co-operation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose”-- simply does not apply to the dossier produced by a former British spy about alleged ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Trump’s administration, seeking to turn the “collusion” allegation around on its opponents, has argued that the dossier, which was funded in part by the Clinton campaign, amounts to the “Clinton campaign colluding with Russian intelligence.” This is absurd on its face. Russian intelligence favoured Trump and tried to damage Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies say; the British ex-spy was simply using Russian sources-- who have not been identified-- to attempt to figure out how Trump’s campaign was linked to the Russian government. Such research is not illegal or deceitful, and it does not come close to qualifying as the type of possible “collusion” investigators are probing with regard to the Trump campaign: coordination with the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the election.6) “... it’s very hard for a Republican to win the Electoral College. O.K.? You start off with New York, California and Illinois against you. That means you have to run the East Coast, which I did, and everything else. Which I did and then won Wisconsin and Michigan. (Inaudible.) So the Democrats... (Inaudible.) … They thought there was no way for a Republican, not me, a Republican, to win the Electoral College... The Electoral College is so much better suited to the Democrats (inaudible).”This claim that the Electoral College is tilted in favour of Democrats-- and that “they” think it is impossible for a Republican to win the election in 2016-- is obvious nonsense. Six of the last nine presidents, all of whom except for Gerald Ford had to win an Electoral College election, have been Republicans.7) “They made the Russian story up as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election that in theory Democrats should always win with the Electoral College.”Democrats, of course, did not invent the “Russian story” for electoral purposes, nor is it a “hoax.” U.S. intelligence agencies say that the Russian government interfered in the election for the purpose of helping Trump win; that Russian interference was the original story, and Democrats were talking about it well before Election Day. Perhaps Trump is correct that there was no illegal collusion between his campaign and the Russians, but this matter is being investigated by a special prosecutor appointed by his own deputy attorney general, not “Democrats,” and many senior Republicans believe the investigation has merit.8) “They (Democrats) thought it would be a one-day story, an excuse, and it just kept going and going and going.”This is simple nonsense. Democrats did not think that the question of Russian interference in the election on behalf of Trump, or the question of the Trump campaign’s relationship with those efforts, would be a “one-day story.”9) “Just so you understand. When I endorsed him (Alabama Senate candidate Luther Strange), he was in fifth place. He went way up.”Strange was in second place in both polls taken in the week prior to Trump’s endorsement, according to RealClearPolitcs’s poll tracker. Strange was in first place in the poll prior to that.10) “I was for Strange, and I brought Strange up 20 points… almost 20 points.”Not even close. Here’s what happened. Strange was in the middle of the Republican primary’s five-candidate first round when Trump endorsed him. In the last poll taken before Trump’s endorsement, Strange was down by eight points to Roy Moore. In the first poll after the endorsement, Strange was up three. So, even though the polls were taken by different firms, Trump can arguably claim credit for a temporary 11-point bump. However, Strange immediately fell back down big, and he ended up losing the first round by six. So, at best, Trump brought Strange up two points, from down eight to down six. If you look solely at polls of the head-to-head Moore-Strange matchup, the story is even worse for Trump: Strange was down two points in the last preendorsement poll, then down 19 points in the first post-endorsement poll. He ended up losing by 9.11) “Luther Strange was brought way up after my endorsement and he almost won.”We’ve already addressed the falseness of Trump’s claim that Strange was “brought way up after my endorsement.” It’s also false that Strange “almost won.” Strange lost the runoff by 9.2 percentage points, 54.6 per cent to 45.4 per cent.12) “Almost won. … He (Alabama Senate candidate Luther Strange) lost by 7 points, 7 or 8 points.”Strange lost by 9.2 percentage points.13) “I feel that I have to endorse Republicans as the head of the party. So, I endorsed him (Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore). It became a much closer race because of my endorsement. People don’t say that. They say, ‘Oh, Donald Trump lost.’ I didn’t lose, I brought him up a lot.”There is no evidence at all that Trump brought Moore “up by a lot.” Moore led Democratic candidate Doug Jones in four of the six polls taken in the week before Trump’s endorsement. He ended up losing.14) “The problem with Roy Moore, and I said this, is that he’s going to lose the election... And I wish you would cover that, because frankly, I said, ‘If Luther doesn’t win, Roy is going to lose the election.’”Trump never declared that Moore was “going to lose the election.” His actual statement was not nearly so definitive: “Roy has a very good chance of not winning.”15) “Michael, we have spent, as of about a month ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East. And the Middle East is worse than it was 17 years ago... (Inaudible.) Seven trillion.”There is no basis for the “$7 trillion” figure. During the 2016, Trump cited a $6 trillion estimate that appeared to be taken from a 2013 report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project; that report estimated $2 trillion in costs up to that point but said the total could rise $4 trillion by 2053. Trump, however, used the $6 trillion as if it was a current 2016 figure. He later explained that since additional time has elapsed since the campaign, he believes the total is now $7 trillion. That is incorrect. The latest Brown report, issued a month before Trump made this remark, put the current total at $4.3 trillion, and the total including estimated future costs at $5.6 trillion.16) “I know more about the big bills... (Inaudible.)... Than any president that’s ever been in office. Whether it’s health care and taxes.”There is no way to conclusively demonstrate that this false, but it’s so ridiculous that we are going to take a rare liberty and declare it false anyway. Trump has consistently misstated the details of major bills, spoken only in generalities about the health bill (“fantastic health-care”), and brushed off almost all specific questions. Whatever one thinks of Obamacare, Barack Obama demonstrated a vastly greater understanding of the nuances of his bill than Trump did about any version of the Republicans’ proposed replacement bills.17) “I believe we can do health care in a bipartisan way, because now we’ve essentially gutted and ended Obamacare.”Gutted? Perhaps. Trump repealed a central pillar of Obamacare: the “individual mandate,” a requirement that Americans obtain health insurance or pay a financial penalty. The law might now experience new problems. But Trump is wrong, again, to claim that he has already “ended” Obamacare. The individual mandate is a key part of Obamacare, but it is far from the entire thing. Trump did not touch Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people, the federal and state Obamacare marketplaces that allow other uninsured people to buy insurance, and the subsidies that help many of them make the purchases. Nor did he touch various Obamacare rules for the insurance market, like its prohibition on insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. The very day after the tax law passed, the government announced that 8.8 million people had signed up for coverage through the federal marketplace, down by only 0.4 million from last year despite Trump’s efforts to dissuade people from signing up.18) “Now here’s the good news. We’ve created associations, millions of people are joining associations. Millions. That were formerly in Obamacare or didn’t have insurance. Or didn’t have health care. Millions of people.”This has not happened. Trump issued an executive order on Oct. 12 to ask his Secretary of Labor to propose regulations to allow more employers to make use of “association health plans.” But the actual change has not actually been made yet, noted Timothy Jost, an expert on health law as an emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University-- so even if millions of people will eventually use these plans, they have, obviously, not been able to do so yet.19) “We’ve created associations, millions of people are joining associations. Millions. That were formerly in Obamacare or didn’t have insurance. Or didn’t have health care. Millions of people. That’s gonna be a big bill, you watch.”The move toward association health plans is not going to be a bill at all, let alone a “big bill.” This “would be a change in regulation or guidance,” not legislation, Jost noted.20) “Chain migration and the lottery system. They have a lottery in these countries. They take the worst people in the country, they put ‘em into the lottery, then they have a handful of bad, worse ones, and they put them out. ‘Oh, these are the people the United States...’”This is, as always, an inaccurate description of Diversity Visa Lottery program. First, the lottery is run by the State Department, not conducted in foreign countries. Second, foreign governments do not toss their worst citizens into the lottery to try to dump them on the United States: would-be immigrants sign up on their own, as individuals, of their own free will.21) “Last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum.”Trump would have been correct if he had said “$350 billion, maximum,” and specified he was talking about trade in goods alone, but not when he simply says “$350 billion, minimum”: the actual U.S. deficit with China was $347 billion if you exclude trade in services, $310 billion all things considered, according to the U.S. government’s own Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.22) “...and, you know, I have-- what do have now, John, 158 million, including Facebook, including Twitter, including Instagram, including every form, I have a 158 million people.”Even if you’re counting generously, Trump does not have that many followers on social media. Adding up his Twitter account (45 million followers), his Facebook account (23 million followers), the White House Facebook account (8 million followers), his Instagram account (8 million followers), the White House Instagram account (4 million followers), the official “POTUS” Twitter account (22 million followers), and the official “POTUS” Facebook account (2 million followers), Trump is at 112 million followers. Since many of these people undoubtedly follow him on more than one platform, the total number of actual humans is even further below 158 million.23) “You know, it’s easier to renegotiate it if we make it a fair deal because NAFTA was a terrible deal for us. We lost $71 billion a year with Mexico, can you believe it?”Even if you only count trade in goods alone, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico is not that large: it was $64 billion in 2016, $60 billion in 2015, $55 billion in 2014 and $54 billion in 2013, according to the U.S. government’s own Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and it has not exceeded $67 billion since 2007. Further, when trade in services is included, the 2016 deficit was $56 billion.24) “Seventeen billion (trade deficit) with Canada-- Canada says we broke even. But they don’t include lumber and they don’t include oil. Oh, that’s not... (Inaudible) ...My friend Justin he says, “No, no, we break even.” I said, ‘Yeah, but you’re not including oil, and you’re not including lumber.” When you do, you lose $17 billion.”According to the U.S. government’s own Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. had a trade surplus of $12.5 billion with Canada last year when services trade was included. Even counting goods trade alone, the Trade Representative says the deficit was $12.1 billion, not $17 billion.25) “I’m the one that saved coal.”The coal industry has not been “saved,” and to the extent it rebounded modestly in 2017, market forces, not Trump, were the main reason. As Reuters explained in a comprehensive story in November, “U.S. utilities are shutting coal-fired power plants at a rapid pace and shifting to cheap natural gas, along with wind and solar power.” Reuters wrote: “A year after Donald Trump was elected president on a promise to revive the ailing U.S. coal industry, the sector’s long-term prospects for growth and hiring remain as bleak as ever. A Reuters review of mining data shows an industry that has seen only modest gains in jobs and production this year-- much of it from a temporary uptick in foreign demand for U.S. coal rather than presidential policy changes.” Trump can applaud a slight increase in the employment of people employed in coal mining: it stood at 51,200 in November, 1,500 higher than the number upon Trump’s election a year prior. But this was still down more than a third even from its levels in 2012, it can hardly be counted as “saving” the industry, and its connection to Trump is tenuous at best.There was an 8 per cent increase in U.S. coal production this year. Analysts said this increase had little or nothing to do with Trump; James Stevenson, a coal analyst at IHS Markit, told Reuters it was “largely attributable to demand for U.S. coal from Asian steel mills after temporary outages from their usual suppliers in Australia.”
