Saturday, November 24, 2018

More claims from Donald Trump that would sink normal politicians

In an extraordinary interview on CBC's 60 Minutes, Donald Trump has revealed that indeed his cynicism reaches no bounds. In a wide-ranging interview, he made the following claims and admissions, among others, any one of which would be the kiss of death for any other politician than Trump, but so inured are we to his lies, skewed perspectives and enormities that this just seems like business as usual in his case:
  • On North Korea, "the day before I came in, we were going to war with North Korea".
  • Vladimir Putin was "probably" involved in assassinations in Europe, but that doesn't really matter because "it's not in our country".
  • Yes, Russia meddled in the 2016 election, but, hey, "I think China meddled also".
  • He was unwilling to apologize for his child separation policy, stressing that "there have to be consequences" for illegal immigration to the USA.
  • He does not see his mocking of Christine Blasey Ford after her testimony as anything other than treating her with "respect", but anyway "had I not made that speech, we would not have won".
  • As for climate change, "I don't think it's a hoax. I think there's probably a difference", but "we're talking about over millions of years". But, more importantly, "I don't want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don't ant to lose millions and million of jobs", and anyway "scientists also have a political agenda".
This latter comes on the very same day that a US government report warns that unchecked climate change will cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars and damage human health and quality of life. The White House has retorted that the report, which was produced by several US government agencies and departments, is inaccurate and "largely based on the most extreme scenario". And, of course, it flies in the face of reports that the solar industry employs way more people than the coal industry and the nuclear industry in the USA, with wind very close behind.
God, what can you do in the face of such ignorance and cynicism? The worst of it is that enough people will agree with Trump's blinkered view and his speculative bluster that his support will probably not waver in the least.

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