Former mayor of Philadelphia Michael Nutter on Wednesday smacked down Paris Dennard’s defense of Donald Trump’s lying, noting the problem is less of the president’s actual activity and more that Trump is “a habitual, sociopathic liar.”
Dennard was defending Trump’s latest false claim that he broke Harry Truman’s record for signing the most legislation at this point in his presidency.
“I think if the president is saying this, it's because he's probably been told this,” Dennard said. “I think that if White House staff has told the president that this is the case, then they should be able to back it up with the evidence supporting the claim.”
Nutter argued Trump’s latest claim “just shows [Trump's] continued incompetence and general default to lying."
“He clearly doesn't know the difference as any executive in public office should know between the piece of legislation, executive order, regulation, appointing someone or nominating someone then they get confirmed by the Senate to some post,” Nutter said. “So Donald Trump … He’ll lie about lying. He just lies. That's his thing.”
“I think it's disingenuous to just blame it on the staff or what people told him or you know, maybe some kid running around Mar-a-Lago told him,” Nutter later said. “He should know it. He's the President of the United States of America, he’s the chief executive. These are knowable things, it’s not a mystery. He should stop saying things that are not true. But that has been his history, and whether it's been sued for racial discrimination, whether it’s the four, six—whatever the number is—bankruptcies, whether it's the Central Park Five, Donald Trump is a habitual, sociopathic liar, and all of this is about his own ego.”
“It's holiday time,” Nutter explained. “You're off. It’s okay to do these things. What's not okay is to lie about them.”
Dennard replied that there at 24 hours in a day and “the president doesn’t golf for 24 hours,” before arguing “he can multitask.”
“Wherever the president goes, the White House goes with him,” Dennard said. “But to say that just because he might be golfing for a period of time does not mean that he is not doing other things in that time there.”
After being shown a supercut of Trump promising not to golf as president, Dennard tried to explain away the president’s perceived hypocrisy.
“Look, President Obama said you could keep your doctor and that wasn't the case,” Dennard offered. “The things you say on the campaign trail, during on the run-up to something then it actually comes law or actually becomes reality for you as being president. I don't think the president fully understood all of the trappings that went into being the president in the sense that you can golf for a period of time and that the White House, the entire staff goes with you. They take the entire team. So anything happens, it's as if the president is literally sitting in the Oval Office and I don't think he realized it then. He does now.”
“It's not that he's doing these things,” Nutter explained. “There's nothing wrong with golfing or playing skydiving. Do whatever you want to do, just don't lie about it or try to deceive the American people as to what's going on.”
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