March 5, Part II: Trump lies to Congress during joint session
March 5, 2025
As expected, Trump lied his way through his speech to the joint session of Congress. See NYTimes, Fact-Checking Trump’s Address to Congress, (“The president repeated familiar exaggerations and falsehoods about the economy, the Department of Government Efficiency and tariffs.”) (Accessible to all.)
If you can stomach reading Trump's lies, the NYTimes’ article is an accessible entry point. My only criticism is that the Times uses the euphemisms “falsehoods,” “exaggerations,” and “needs context” in place of “lies,” “more lies,” and “even more lies.”
If you did not watch the speech and do not want to read the Times’ catalog of Trump's lies, the attached two-minute video by Senator Adam Schiff is an effective, informative, and accessible summary. See YouTube, Schiff Demolishes Trump for Ridiculous Speech to Congress. I recommend Schiff’s summary for its content and as an example of counter-messaging Trump.
Two shocking facts about the speech:
First, Elon Musk had the gall to show up at the speech.
Second, in a bizarre exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts, Trump said the following to Roberts as the two men shook hands and Trump patted Roberts on the arm:
Thank you. Thank you again. I won’t forget.
See C-SPAN video clip put together by Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner@bsky.social). User Clip: Trump greets the justices after his March 4, 2025 address | C-SPAN.org.
In fairness and full disclosure, Trump did say “Thank you” to other justices, including Justices Kagan and Kavanaugh. Justice Kavanagh looks horrified as Trump shakes his hand and says, “Thank you.” However, the only Justice to whom Trump says, “I won’t forget” is Roberts.
Perhaps there is some explanation for an exchange between a president and chief justice that sounds like it came straight out of The Godfather, but I don't know what that explanation is at the moment.
There is undoubtedly more commentary, but that is the best I could find at 2 am Eastern. I will open the user comments today to allow others to post relevant links (with short summaries of the content in the link, please). I looked for, but could not find, the alternate programming by Senators Murphy and Schatz, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Stay strong, everyone!
I watch the entire address to Congress. The single loudest sound voiced was the grisly crackling of bone from sinew breaking under relentless pressure. The frightening contrast between one side standing, clapping, cheering, jeering repeatedly, and the other siting in motionless mad silence, small signs in hand like shields against the continual onslaught of lies, could not have been more stark or sickening to witness. It was a surreal tableau. The pretense of movement against the actuality of going nowhere producing a seasickness in the conscious of the listener.
The speaker, once he made it to the podium, grabbed onto it with both hands and leaned, bent at the elbow nearly the entire time as if unable to stand poised and balanced on his own two feet for even a moment. It was the perfect metaphoric image of a man without internal structure or strength. A soft wax figure, without inspiration, prerecorded sounds coming out of his mouth, unable to achieve uprightness without props. He himself being a mere prop, a talking figurehead saying nothing. The foul stench of old deep corruption fouled the air and sensibilities of those listening. The event was one long desecration.
The vacuum of leadership, the absence consciousness, the mockery of goodness and decency, the swirling gathering darkness, the blinding white hot flashing lies, the darting dark figures only partially visible in daytime gloom, all winding towards an impending storm.
You and I are the only calvary. The horn sounds, calling us to do the right thing, to do our duty, to do what must be done. We bring our light and dispel darkness or abandon hope, move to shelter, leaving our fate in the hands of others. The choice and outcome remains in our voice, in our hands. Each day, with each of us, democracy, goodness, truth, and justice stands or falls.
OMG the NYT challenges Trump himself for most misleading statements. Here's just a sampling of what I found and I'm just one guy in his kitchen at 3:30 am:
Re his comments on immigration the Times says Trump was misleading because he promised to get illegal immigrants out "fast" and fast is a relative term. But in the same paragraph he characterized "many" of those immigrants as "murderers, human traffickers and gang members" but apparently the Times doesn't think that "many" is a relative term.
According to the Times, Trump's statement on inflation "lacks context." Well, that may be true, but it also flat out lacks truth. He said that we suffered the worst inflation in 48 years but perhaps even in the history of our country. According to Investopedia, this is flat out wrong both as to the 48 years and the country's entire history. Additionally, the only year inflation under Biden was truly high was 2021, during which Trump was president for a month and the country was suffering the effects of Trump's disastrous handling of Covid. Talk about lacking context!
According to the Times, Trump's bragging about restoring free speech is misleading. They point out that Trump banned the AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One and say that this "arguably" curtails free speech. Arguably?! Really???
The Times says Trump "lacked evidence" for his statement that his tariffs will bring in "trillions and trillions of dollars" while their very own text points out that this is mathematically impossible. Mathematical impossibility would seem to qualify for "false."
The Times characterizes Trump's statement that is administration "inherited an economic catastrophe" as "misleading." The economy was incredibly strong by every measure except arguably inflation and even that was within historic norms by the end of Biden's term. This is flat out wrong and using a non-existent "economic catastrophe" to justify incredibly stupid changes to economic policies and regulations is a lie squared.
I could go on but feh. Embarrassing.