Donald Trump has demonstrated plenty of shortcomings as president, politically speaking. For example: he shut down the DACA program completely by himself, yet was unable to work with Congress, which is controlled by his party, to fulfill his own promise to protect the Dreamers. However, as we all know by now, Trump has also demonstrated some serious moral shortcomings, and these say a lot more about who he is than just how good he is at politics. Case in point: claiming he's never made fun of a disabled New York Times reporter when he clearly did.
Who better than to call Trump out on some basic lies than a guy who’s literally written a book about the guy? Michael D’Antonio, author of 2016’s The Truth About Trump, spoke to Anderson Cooper on CNN on Friday to reveal the sad reality: Trump has been lying about the most basic things since he was a child.
"People will present him with these audio recordings and he'll deny that it's him even after he's admitted to it. It's really impossible to follow." - Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio https://t.co/RUZWXswMb2 pic.twitter.com/0V6UpaWBYX
One of the pervading myths about Trump is that he’s knows his way with the ladies. He’s been married three times, cheated on his wives several times (reportedly, at least once with Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy Playmate,) but, you know, sure. During his interview, D’Antonio referred to pseudonyms (there is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to Trump’s alter egos) Trump has used in the past to speak positively about himself to the media.
As Cooper notes, so many of Trump’s lies are so blatantly false you’d have to be an idiot to believe them. D’Antonio agrees, and even provided a few shocking examples. Trump “left the New York Military Academy declaring himself the greatest baseball player in New York state,” D’Antonio said. “He was named the ladies man at a school that had no young women at it, so you tell me, he has been doing this forever.”
“This is Donald, really going back to his school days when he was a boy, he insisted to others that he had hit home runs he had never hit in ball games,” D’Antonio said.
On a similar note, he reportedly really placed the infamous 1990 New York Post headline “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had!” himself. In addition, Trump reportedly lied about the size of his wealth to a Forbes reporter in the 1980s in order to be placed on the magazine’s Forbes 400 list. According to the reporter, Trump made what was effectively a $5 million fortune look like $100 million. He then parlayed the fortune to get business deals and publicity.
That’s the “very stable genius” in charge of the country! Cool!
