In a press conference that seemed like it was scripted by a cartoonist, Donald Trump decided to take a stroll down Memory Lane—except he got lost somewhere in the Land of Fiction. On August 8th, at a Mar-a-Lago press fest, Trump unleashed a series of whoppers that could give Pinocchio a run for his money.
First up on the Trump Truth-o-Meter was his assertion about January 6, 2021, which he claimed was the world’s most harmless riot. “Nobody was killed on January 6,” Trump declared with the conviction of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. He added, “Those people were treated very harshly, unlike other incidents where, you know, a lot of people were killed.” Perhaps Trump was talking about a very exclusive party where everyone forgot to bring their reality-checks.
The New York Times, however, had the audacity to spoil the fun with a sobering fact check: At least seven people met grim fates during the Capitol mayhem, including Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who had an unfortunate run-in with a Capitol Police officer.
But wait, there’s more! Trump then took us on a detour to the Land of Imaginary Crowds. He claimed his crowd on January 6 was so colossal, it might have triggered a crowd-counting crisis. “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken before was that day,” he said, as if he was unveiling a secret UFO landing site. He compared it to Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech crowd, suggesting that their real estate was the same, but his crowd was allegedly more numerous. “They said I had 25,000 people, and he had 1 million,” Trump noted. “I’m OK with it because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King.”
Trump’s latest press conference was a surreal blend of fantasy and selective memory, proving once again that reality is just a suggestion in his world.
Trump says he had a bigger crowd on Jan. 6 than Dr. Martin Luther King did for his famous "I Have a Dream” speech:
“Nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me” pic.twitter.com/DVowRgYatL
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) August 8, 2024
