The sample has repeated itself for years.
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Step 1: President Donald Trump makes a false or inflammatory declare.
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Step 2: Trump’s officers strive to walk back the declare. They’ll say Trump meant one thing else or supply an announcement extra factual than Trump’s personal.
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Step 3: Trump ignores them and repeats the unique declare.
It occurred twice within the final 24 hours, as soon as on grocery costs and as soon as on the deployment of FBI brokers throughout the riot on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Step 1: Trump makes a false declare: Trump has repeatedly claimed this fall that grocery costs are “down” or “way down” throughout his second presidency.
NCS and others have pointed out that this is not true. As of September, grocery costs have been up about 1.4% since January, the month Trump returned to workplace, and up about 2.7% since September 2024.
Step 2: Trump’s team tries a walk-back: Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, initially echoed Trump’s false assertion, declaring on CBS on November 9 that “grocery prices are actually down significantly under Trump.” But Hassett pivoted to extra factual spin the subsequent day – accurately telling NCS’s Kaitlan Collins that “not everything” is up in grocery shops, that “egg prices are down,” and that the typical general month-to-month inflation fee below Trump has been decrease than it was below President Joe Biden.
When Collins emphasised that Trump’s declare was about grocery costs reasonably than general inflation, Hassett claimed: “Inflation is down, is what he means.”
The broader White House tried one thing comparable in a press release on Friday. It repeated Hassett’s level a couple of decline in common month-to-month inflation. And as an alternative of utilizing Trump’s categorical declare that grocery costs are down for the reason that finish of the Biden administration, the press launch stated the costs of grocery staples “are starting to see declines” – then listed the smattering of specific merchandise whose costs have fallen throughout this Trump presidency, together with eggs, ham, butter and ice cream.
The press launch didn’t acknowledge that far more products have gotten more expensive, however this was not less than fact-based political spin reasonably than outright dishonesty.
Step 3: Trump repeats the unique false declare: Trump spoke to reporters on Sunday. He reprised his outright dishonesty.
“From an economic standpoint, our prices are coming down very substantially on groceries and things. They’re already at a much lower level than they were with the last administration,” he stated.
Again, that isn’t true. And opposite to what Hassett claimed about what Trump supposedly “means,” Trump made clear that he means what he says – that general grocery costs are decrease now than they have been below Biden – though that isn’t correct.
The FBI and January 6
Step 1: Trump makes a false declare: Trump falsely claimed on social media in late September that former FBI director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee the president later turned towards, had been caught mendacity concerning the actions of FBI brokers on January 6, 2021.
Trump wrote: “It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed, against all Rules, Regulations, Protocols, and Standards, 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax. This is different from what Director Christopher Wray stated, over and over again! That’s right, as it now turns out, FBI Agents were at, and in, the January 6th Protest, probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as ‘Law Enforcement Officials.’”
That isn’t true.
Two days prior to Trump’s social media publish, a right-wing web site had published a doc that stated 274 FBI brokers had been deployed on January 6. But the doc, whose authenticity NCS hasn’t verified, made clear that these brokers have been responding to the riot and different incidents that day (just like the pipe bombs discovered close to Republican and Democratic places of work), not instigating or perpetrating the riot. And the inspector common for the Justice Department found last year that the FBI had no undercover brokers in any respect on the Capitol on January 6, although 26 of its paid informants have been in Washington that day.
Step 2: Trump’s team tries a walk-back: Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed director of the FBI, tried to right the document concerning the actions of the 274 brokers on January 6. He told Fox News on the day of Trump’s publish: “Agents were sent into a crowd control mission after the riot was declared by Metro Police – something that goes against FBI standards.” Patel reiterated on the social media platform X, “274 FBI agents were thrown into crowd control on Jan 6 against FBI standards.”
Even with the “against FBI standards” declare, Patel’s statements represented a clear repudiation of the president’s conspiracy idea.
Step 3: Trump repeats the unique false declare: Nearly two months later, Trump revived the conspiracy idea concerning the 274 brokers on Monday morning.
The president re-posted the September publish by which he wrongly described the actions of the brokers. And in a second Monday publish, Trump promoted another person’s name for Wray to be indicted and imprisoned – and he wrote, baselessly, “Wray lied!!!”