Trump will lie to anybody, anywhere — even military spouses, during Military Spouse Appreciation Day, at the White House.
It takes a special kind of craven person to lie to the those married to U.S. military members about giving their spouses their first pay raise "in 10 years." But that's exactly what Trump did this week.
On Friday, MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle denounced Trump's pathological behavior.
"For those who say we don't call the White House out, this is 100 percent a lie told by our president," Ruhle announced.
The ugly incident unfolded inside the White House during a reception that featured a group of virtually all-white women, even though nearly half of today's U.S. military is made up of non-white members. There, Trump lied repeatedly about how he had single-handedly improved pay for service members.
Referencing his recent signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018, Trump bragged, "I know you don’t care about this, but that also includes raises for our military — first time in 10 years."
Moments later he insisted, "That is why, earlier this year, I was proud to sign that big pay raise that I’ve already spoken about. And I am proud of it. And I guess there will be others, too. Would you like one sooner, or do you want to wait another 10 years?"
The clear implication of the hideous lie was that during President Barack Obama's two terms in office, U.S. military members were ignored and had to suffer through a decade of static pay.
But that's not how any of this works.
By law, the military receives at least a 1 percent pay increase every year. And that has been true for the last three decades.
The most recent pay increase will be 2.4 percent. During 2009 and 2010, when Obama was president, military members received 3.9 and 3.4 percent raises, respectively.
Trump has already logged more than 3,000 lies since taking office, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker, and he clearly couldn't care less about adding to that tally. Even if that means manufacturing falsehoods to try to impress military spouses.
As Ruhle said, "No, thank you, Mr. President, for the lie."
