President Donald Trump was called out by The Washington Post on Friday for trying to steal credit from former President Barack Obama.
"Spin, hyperbole and deception: How Trump claimed credit for an Obama veterans achievement," was the headline the newspaper used for the story.
"The first time President Trump claimed false credit for the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act — which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2014 — was on June 6, 2018. That day, as Trump signed the Mission Act, a modest update to the bipartisan VA Choice legislation, he seemed to conflate the two," The Post reported. "In the coming weeks, Trump began systematically erasing from the legislation’s history not just Obama but also the late senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who not only co-sponsored the VA Choice Act but also was so instrumental in passing the Mission Act that he is one of three senators for whom the act is officially named."
"More than two years after signing the Mission Act, which made limited changes to the much broader Obama veterans law, Trump has repeated some version of his VA Choice Act mistruth more than 156 times, according to an analysis by The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, eventually claiming full credit for the bill codified by his predecessor," the newspaper explained.
Trump has made more than 22,000 false or misleading claims, the newspaper noted.
"The president’s handling of the VA Choice legislation offers a crystalline window into the anatomy of a Trump lie: the initial false claim, the subsequent embellishment and gilding, the incessant repetition and the clear evidence that he knows the truth but chooses to keep telling the falsehood — all enabled by aides either unwilling or unable to rein him in," The Post explained. "Research shows that Trump’s repetition of a false claim may help cement it as appearing to be true, at least to the casual observer, said Daniel A. Effron, a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School who studies the psychology of lies."