President Trump made an amazing claim during an otherwise routine signing of a trade agreements with Japan:
You can’t impeach a President for doing a great job. You can’t impeach a President for having the lowest and best unemployment numbers that we’ve had in 51 years. You can’t impeach a President for tax cuts and regulation cuts and creating — and even the Ambassador would say — the strongest economy in the world. We have the strongest economy in the world.
This is a scam. And the people are wise to it. And that’s why my polls went up, I think they said, 17 points in the last two or three days. I’ve never had that one. I’ve never had that one.
We’ll skip who did what, the caveats, and how much a President is responsible for an economy in any case.
From FiveThirtyEight’s dynamic aggregate of polls.
But his (approval) polls are up 17 points? No. No jump at FiveThirtyEight.
So why does he say that? Why the big lie?
Maybe he’s trying to reassure himself.
More likely, he’s trying to keep his base together by lying about how many people disapprove of the Impeachment Inquiry. Fox News will pick this right up and broadcast it, although as Fox News seems to be somewhat disaffected with the President, this may be a bit of a risk.
And, least likely, but worth thinking about, this and the panoply of lies, exaggerations, and hyperbole President Trump has been employing may be a deliberate foundation for an insanity defense in the future. He is, after all, under investigation for many incidents, and perhaps he’s crazy like a fox, willing to put the nation’s security at risk just so he can avoid prison.
The sordid soap opera continues.
