NYT accuses Trump of 'hiding the truth'

The New York Times rarely resorts to the word “lie” when it comes to U.S. president, but the editorial board did not mince words on Saturday when it accused President Donald Trump of nonstop lying about his war with Iran on Saturday.

“From his first announcement of the attack on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump has issued a stream of falsehoods about the war,” said the Times. “He has said Iran wants to engage in negotiations, though its government shows no sign of it. He has claimed that the United States ‘destroyed 100 percent of Iran’s Military capability’ when Tehran continues to inflict damage throughout the region. He has said the war is almost complete even as he calls in reinforcements from around the globe.”

“Lying is standard behavior for Mr. Trump, of course,” continued the editorial board. “His political career began with a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, and he has lied about his business, his wealth, his inauguration crowd size, his defeat in the 2020 election and so much more. A CNN tally of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods during one part of his first term found that he averaged eight false claims per day. Many people are so accustomed to his lies that they hardly notice them anymore.”

But lying about war is “uniquely corrosive,” said the Times, arguing that when a president “signals that the truth does not matter in wartime,” he encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country about how the war is going.

“He creates a culture in which deadly mistakes and even war crimes can become more common. He makes it harder to win by hiding the realities of conflict and by making allies wary of joining the fight. Ultimately, he undermines American values and interests.”

Trump could have made a fact-based argument for confronting the regime, particularly regarding the threat it posed to its neighbors and its potential for nuclear weapon development, but Trump took the falsehood route.

“The president was only a few minutes into his Feb. 28 announcement of the start of the conflict when he offered an obviously contradictory rationale for it. He repeated his claim that American attacks last June ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear program while also citing that program as a reason to go to war,” said the Times. “The claim of obliteration is false: Iran retains about 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium, potentially enough for 10 warheads.”

And the lies have only continued with Trump claiming the U.S. military had a “virtually unlimited supply” of high-end munitions even as the Pentagon had to withdraw weapons from South Korea to sustain its Iranian effort, said the Times. He also claimed “nobody” believed Iran would retaliate by attacking Arab countries, even though some experts “had warned of precisely this scenario.”

“Starting a war is the most serious action that a political leader can take,” argued the Times. “It ends lives and can change history. … Whatever short-term gain Mr. Trump thinks he is getting by lying about the war in Iran is far exceeded by the cost, for him, the country and the world.”