Quotes From President Trump's Press Conference

The Washington Post has complied some quotes from President Trump's February 16th press conference. The Post has been monitoring the many promises that Trump made in the campaign.

1. "ISIS has spread like a cancer -- another mess I inherited." Comment: ISIS has been considerably diminished both in land area controlled and the number of fighters it has.

2. "I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan." Comment: There have been several bigger wins since Reagan. When a reporter challenged his lies, Trump had to stammer that he was given that information. Trump lost the popular vote by a HUGE!!! margin.

3. His administration is "running like a fine-tuned machine." Comment: It is an administration in considerable disarray.

4. "Drugs are coming cheaper than candy bars." Comment: There doesn't seem to be any information about a big hike in [illicit] drug prices.

5. "What Flynn did wasn't wrong." Comment: Then why was he fired or voluntarily retired?

6. "I must say I never get phone calls from the media." Comment: One reason is that the White House comment line has been shut down.

7. "The leaks are real, but the news is fake." Comment: The leaks are damaging to Trump and the problem for him is that they are usually reported straight up.

8. "When WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give [news], they are not giving classified information." Comment: a. Hillary Clinton was not found to have given out classified information; b. Trump was eager to promote any WikiLeaks posts that were negative toward Hillary; and c. Trump encouraged Russia to find and publish the alleged 30,000 missing emails sent by Hillary.

9. " 'Fox and Friends' is the most honest morning show." Comment: Fox is widely regarded as a Republican media outlet.

10. "I'm not ranting and raving. I'm just telling you, you'e dishonest people." Comment: Whatever flaws the media has, it is far from being collectively composed of dishonest people.

11. "Nuclear holocaust would be like no other. [Russia's] a very powerful nuclear country and so are we." Comment: The  two sentences are obvious statements of fact and add nothing to the public discourse.

12. "Does anybody really think Hillary Clinton would be tougher on Russia than Donald Trump?" Comment: Thus far, Trump has been pretty much of a bootlick for Putin; however, the operative word might be "wiser" rather than"tougher."

13. "Lots of things are done with uranium, including some bad things." Comment: This is another statement of the obvious.

14. "I am the least anti-Semitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person." Comment: Given the denigration of groups of people by Trump and his descriptions of how awful conditions are in minority communities, it is hard to believe the word "least" fits him in any way.

15. "The things they say are so unfair." [about his wife, Melania] Comment: I don't approve of unfair things being said; however, President Trump is one of the last ones to complain about unfair treatment of others, given how routinely he insults others.

ADDENDUMS:
*Reports are that Trump is considering shuttering the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance -- essentially leaving polluters to police themselves.

*The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is reportedly ready to move forward to neuter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and reduce its power to crack down on predatory business practices. Th president could replace the bureaus's director at any time and reduce the bureau's enforcement authority.