Donald Trump’s White House spokespeople have a favourite two-step reply when reporters ask them to touch upon one of many president’s false claims.
First: They say, “President Trump is right.”
Second: They defend some associated level that isn’t the one Trump truly made.
Trump’s communications crew has returned to this “President Trump is right” template repeatedly throughout his second presidency. Even in response to his most clearly inaccurate statements.
In September, for instance, PolitiFact asked the White House about Trump’s incorrect declaration that the US had “no inflation.” Spokesperson Kush Desai replied, “President Trump is right: The days of (former President) Joe Biden’s debilitating inflation crisis are over. Since President Trump took office, inflation has been tracking at a low and stable 2.3 percent annualized rate and real wages for American workers are up.”
Notably lacking from Desai’s “President Trump is right” reply was any try and reveal that Trump’s “no inflation” declare was certainly proper. In truth, Desai’s assertion that inflation was “a low and stable 2.3 percent annualized rate” contradicted Trump’s assertion that inflation now not existed.
Since Trump’s second inauguration, the White House has despatched reporters equally unconvincing Trump-is-right replies to questions on topics as different as his false claims about what number of wars he has settled, his false claims that every US army assault on an alleged drug-trafficking boat saves 25,000 American lives, his false claims that Democrats had been final fall attempting to safe $1.5 trillion in well being care funding for undocumented immigrants, his false claims that Biden allowed South Korea to cease paying among the value of the US army presence there, and his false claims that he is lowering prescription drug costs by a mathematically not possible 1,000% or extra.
The White House did it again final week about the struggle with Iran.
NCS inquired about Trump’s claim on social media that media retailers labored “in close coordination” with Iran to unfold faux movies exhibiting a US plane provider on fireplace and ought to be charged with “TREASON.” Asked which retailers disseminated these movies, spokesperson Anna Kelly’s reply started, “President Trump is right – global news outlets quickly amplified the Iranian regime’s false claims about the USS Lincoln.” The three examples Kelly supplied as supposed proof, although, had been all to international information retailers – one Israeli, one Saudi and one Turkish – that quoted Iran’s baseless claims to have struck the Lincoln; these retailers couldn’t presumably have dedicated “TREASON” in opposition to the US, since they don’t owe allegiance to the US, and not one of the examples included faux movies.
Declaring that the president is proper about issues he is very clearly not proper about could be a extremely uncommon communications tactic from another White House, together with Trump’s personal first administration.
Each White House communications crew tries to place the absolute best spin on the falsehoods of the president it is serving. Under Biden, although, aides tended to demand anonymity to handle the falsehoods, then declare Biden had merely misspoken, that the inaccuracy in query was unimportant, or that there was broader context value contemplating. They wouldn’t make an on-the-record declaration that Biden was appropriate when he was transparently incorrect.
Trump’s communications aides throughout his first presidency, in the meantime, tended to easily ignore media inquiries about Trump lies they knew they couldn’t convincingly defend.
So why do his second-term aides habitually put their names on “President Trump is right” quotes when he plainly isn’t proper? When we requested the White House for a proof in early March, Desai replied, “President Trump has been right about everything, and NCS struggles to accept this. Sad!”
Funny. But we’ve got extra believable theories.
Trump’s second-term administration is staffed with loyalists who’re keen to danger their reputations with the mainstream media to exit on shaky limbs for him. Trump calls for public reward and devotion. The president’s never-back-down, never-admit-error ethos permeates this White House. And for the reason that president has himself publicly declared as recently as January that “Trump is right about everything,” the individuals round him don’t precisely be happy to concede he was fallacious about even probably the most obscure of topics.
“They know he expects a robust PR team that does nothing but praise him,” stated Stephanie Grisham, who served as Trump’s White House communications director and press secretary in 2019 and 2020 earlier than changing into a pointy critic of him.
During Trump’s first time period, Grisham stated, most communications aides “were terrified to reply” to a request for remark “unless they knew for certain he would be OK with it,” figuring out “there was hell to pay” if he got here throughout a quote that didn’t land the way in which he needed. The second-term crew, she stated, appears to have realized the lesson “that if you’re going to reply, it better be a full-throated defense of him that always says he was right.”
“Much easier to go in the Oval Office and defend that and blame the media for twisting it,” she stated.
So “President Trump is right” it is. The White House has despatched out a number of such feedback within the first three months of 2026 alone.
In January, Trump twice promoted a social media video that made a bogus claim that Walmart was closing 250-plus shops in California (it wasn’t) as a result of the Democratic-run state adopted a minimal wage of $22 per hour (it’s $16.90 per hour). When the Agence France-Presse information company asked the White House for comment, Desai started his reply, “President Trump is right.” Then, as a substitute of offering even a shred of proof that the Trump-promoted declare about Walmart was certainly proper, Desai pivoted to a broader declare that California Democrats had pushed many residents and companies out of the state.
In early February, NCS requested the White House for any corroboration for Trump’s claims that Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell had declared that his police pressure would have misplaced management of the town, and the town wouldn’t have been in a position to maintain the 2028 Summer Olympics, if Trump had not mobilized the National Guard and Marines amid immigration protests in 2025.
Spokesperson Abigail Jackson’s reply started: “President Trump is right: without the Trump Administration’s efforts in Los Angeles, the city would’ve been overtaken by violent rioters who would’ve continued to wreak havoc.”
Predictably, she included no proof that Trump was proper to say that McDonnell had ever stated these issues.