“…
Never mind that Fox retracted its false report within 90 minutes yesterday, stating that the rental truck crossed the border two months ago and was not driven by the suspect. Never mind that officials soon revealed that the driver who
killed 15 people and injured dozens more was a Texas-born U.S. citizen and an Army veteran.
Those facts were not useful to Trump or his sycophants. They didn’t wait for accurate, reliable information. They knew what narrative they wanted to spread. “Shut the border down!!!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene quickly posted after the initial Fox report.
After the truth was knowable, Trump was not about to walk back his comments. Unsurprisingly, he doubled down. “Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!” Trump spewed on his Truth Social platform. “This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership.”
What strikes me about this story is not just that Trump continued to spread lies after the facts came in. It’s that he was so quick to exploit the tragic attack, then aggressively asserted his original truthfulness. I can barely type the madness
he posted early Thursday morning: “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!” …”