Lawrence: When Donald Trump says ‘if you want to know the truth,” he lies

[0:00] Iran and the rest of the world have known for days that Donald Trump was scheduled to go to [0:05] last night's basketball game. And so, possibly as a way of highlighting to Americans just how [0:13] not on the job Donald Trump is during the war that Donald Trump started, Iran chose last night [0:18] to shoot down a U.S. Army Apache helicopter. The two crew members were quickly rescued in high-tech [0:24] fashion by an extraordinarily effective Navy seagoing drone, a 24-foot high-speed vessel [0:31] that rushed to that rescue. It was the first such rescue accomplished by this new Navy asset, [0:39] which allows such rescue missions now to be conducted without any risk to a crew of a rescue [0:46] vessel, which is very good news indeed to everyone in the Navy and families of everyone serving in the [0:52] United States Navy. The United States conducted retaliatory strikes today in response to the [0:59] attack on the Army helicopter last night. The New York Times reports, quote, two Iranian officials [1:05] said that the airstrikes had targeted military bases and other installations, including artillery [1:11] batteries. And the Trump administration issued a carefully phrased description of the retaliation, [1:17] calling it, quote, a proportional response. A proportional response is what every president prior to [1:26] Donald Trump used in such situations. Presidents were always very careful to avoid shooting wars [1:34] whenever possible by choosing what the American military and the White House and diplomats have [1:41] been calling, quote, a proportional response since the Vietnam War. It is a standard term of [1:49] diplomatic art. Exactly the kind of language you do not expect to hear from Donald Trump or anyone in [1:55] his Department of Defense, which Donald Trump illegally calls a Department of War. Donald Trump is also the [2:02] only president in history who has publicly threatened not only a disproportionate response, but actual war [2:09] crimes by saying he would completely wipe out Iran if Iran did not reach a peace agreement with him [2:16] within a couple of days. And those statements were, of course, several weeks ago. The couple of days never [2:23] happened. The fact that Donald Trump obviously did not mean a word when he said all those threats about his [2:33] self-imposed deadline for committing his threatened war crimes means that no one believes any of Donald Trump's [2:39] deadlines, including his new one, two or three days. That's his new one. And the reason not to believe [2:47] Donald Trump's new one is that Donald Trump himself retracted it right after he said it last night [2:54] after the next game before boarding Air Force One. In the final throws of what will be a very, very good [3:03] deal that will not allow in any way, shape, or form nuclear weapons, etc. And that it straight will open up [3:09] right away. It'll open up immediately upon signing, which could be in two or three days. No, no, we have [3:17] a good chance of doing it. We should be able to do it in one hour if you want to know the truth. [3:22] Here's a phrase I've never used. If you want to know the truth. I've also never said to tell you the [3:31] truth. To tell you the truth is a very common phrase. It's actually a reflex a lot of people use. [3:37] I just never have. If you want to know the truth is actually a stranger phrase because who wouldn't? [3:45] They are reflexive phrases for Donald Trump. He doesn't think about them. He doesn't think about [3:51] what they mean. And in my own experience, and this is only my own experience, this is not social [3:56] science. People who say to tell the truth or the weirder version, if you want to know the truth, [4:04] are frequently optional employers of the truth. You can search presidential press conferences and [4:13] never find the phrase, if you want to know the truth, because the implication is the person saying [4:18] that doesn't always tell the truth. It's one of Donald Trump's ticks, if you want to know the truth. [4:25] And every single time I have ever heard that man use that phrase, if you want to know the truth, [4:32] he said it after a lie. We should be able to do it in one hour if you want to know the truth. [4:41] We should be able to reach a complex peace agreement with Iran that would prevent Iran [4:47] from acquiring nuclear weapons in one hour. The same person, the same person said in his [4:56] interview last weekend with Meet the Press that this kind of negotiation takes years. [5:03] That was Donald Trump's defense on Meet the Press for not having already negotiated a peace [5:08] agreement. He said, quote, it takes years to do these things. And so, yes, we want to know the truth. [5:15] And we all know it's impossible to get that from Donald Trump about anything. And so Donald Trump [5:20] says that it could be in two or three days. Those are his exact words. It could be in two or three [5:26] days. A reporter simply repeats those words back to him. You'll be signing a peace agreement in two [5:32] or three days. And Donald Trump immediately says, no, no, that's what we're dealing with in the [5:40] presidency during wartime. That's what Iran is watching every day. That's the clown on the other side [5:49] of the negotiations that Iran might or might not be engaging in with the United States. [5:56] At 6.30 p.m. tonight, the Iranian dictatorship, which has never dealt with a more clownish person [6:02] anywhere in the world than Donald Trump, issued this statement. Quote, despite its defeats on the [6:09] battlefield, the U.S. opted to test our determination. Our powerful armed forces will leave [6:14] no attack or threat unanswered. Leave our region if you want to be safe. History of the Persian Gulf has [6:22] many chapters on dire fates of intruding outsiders. Nothing in the Iranian statement about two or three [6:31] days. And so we've reached this extraordinary point in history. In a war Donald Trump started [6:38] with Iran's dictatorship 102 days ago. Donald Trump has lied repeatedly every single time. He has been [6:49] asked when his war will end. And Iran has not lied once about when the war will end. And the Iranian [7:00] regime is a horrible, murderous dictatorship. But Donald Trump has publicly lied more about his war with [7:11] Iran than Iran than Iran has. The Democratic leader of the United States Senate, New York Senator Chuck [7:18] Schumer, a lifetime born in Brooklyn Knicks fan, who was not able to go to the game last night because he [7:29] has an important job in Washington, said, quote, American soldiers were shot down in Iran as Trump was [7:37] wasting taxpayer dollars to fall asleep while watching the Knicks. Each day, his illegal war drags [7:45] on further exposes this president's recklessness. And presidential candidate James David Vance has [7:54] decided that his presidential campaign will not be able to survive the same level of public lying [8:02] on the record, on video, that Donald Trump does every day. And so in an interview with CBS [8:08] today, J.D. Vance became the first vice president in history to publicly disagree with his president [8:16] about when a peace deal could be achieved in a war that they are fighting. [8:22] I think that the deal could happen in the next week, but the deal could also happen months from [8:30] now. So J.D. Vance heard Donald Trump say two or three days last night. He knows that. And J.D. [8:38] Vance refused to repeat Donald Trump's words today. And instead, Republican presidential [8:44] candidate J.D. Vance stretched Donald Trump's two or three days to could happen in the next week [8:51] and immediately added a completely indefinite open-ended timetable so that he can claim he never [9:01] said when it would happen. J.D. Vance knows that he is creating soundbites to be used against him in [9:08] his own presidential campaign. And that's why he said, quote, I think that the deal could happen [9:14] in the next week, but the deal could also happen months from now. J.D. Vance just covered himself [9:22] for any deal that happens or doesn't happen any time for the rest of this year. And while he was at [9:32] J.D. Vance avoided saying, if you want to know the truth.