Thread: Fact check: Trump brags to troops about 10 percent pay raise he didn't actually give

Just more Rude, Nasty, False and Petty DemoQuack Propaganda.

By the way, it all ..... fizzled.

Originally Posted by Judy

Just more Rude, Nasty, False and Petty DemoQuack Propaganda.

By the way, it all ..... fizzled.

All news is eventually replaced but this hasn't been completely knocked off the table yet because it's still being talked about and you're the first person to call it false. It was discussed on Fox just today and all three of the pundits were disappointed to hear Trump make such inaccurate comments. Even though each of them were Trump supporters, they didn't even bother trying to defend it.

Seems Trump also lied to military spouses back in May:

MSNBC

Stephanie Ruhle rips Trump for his ‘100 percent lie’ to military spouses

By
Eric Boehlert -

May 11, 20180 Comments
9019


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.”

https://shareblue.com/stephanie-ruhle-trump-lie-100-percent-military-spouses/

Well, the whole story about the military pay raises still isn't out there. As I understand it, DOD (Mattis) didn't propose these pay raise increases, and thus they weren't in the Trump Budget proposals to Congress. It was Republicans in Congress who wanted to increase the pay of our military, they went to Trump and asked him what he would agree to and he basically said whatever you can do, I will sign, 2%, 4%, 6%, 10%, whatever, I'll sign it. The question on the table was how much to raise the rate.

The total rate increase in 2018 was 2.4% and 2.6% for 2019.

What Obamaites and DemoQuacks don't understand about their "Truth Lies" Propaganda strategy against Trump is every time they print or broadcast the story about Trump Lies, they print or broadcast the story of what he's accomplished. These two raises with hopefully more to come next year, and the year after that, are important to our military, just as any additional income and pay raise is important to anyone. American taxpayers work very hard to earn the income to pay the taxes to pay for higher pay and more benefits which were also included in this package but of course they couldn't find a "Trump Lie" about it so they haven't reported on it, so this is all good stuff that the public should know about and be proud of.

If calling 9 years 10 years gets the story out, so be it. Did Trump do it intentionally? Who knows, did they tell him "it's been almost 10 years" and he drops the "almost", or in his mind is 8 and 9 years close enough to a decade to call it 10 and go with it? Who knows, all I know is everyone is going to remember that Donald Trump raised military pay and benefits 2 years in a row in the first 2 years of his Presidency and they were biggest increases in many years.

And that's a win for our military. Republicans in Congress are actually the ones responsible. They are the "they" who came to Trump and asked to do the increases. And even though Trump gave them the "they" credit, the MSM didn't cover it. This Republican Congress has been one of the best Republican Congresses of my lifetime. I think what made that possible was Donald Trump being the best Republican President we've had in my lifetime. It's a tragedy for our country and citizens that Republicans lost the US House of Representatives and to end this Congress with both a loss of the US House of Representatives and a government shutdown is like pouring car grease all over your Christmas Dinner and then wailing "where's my dinner?"

Trump’s Christmas visit to the troops was not the coup he was hoping for

The president finally made it out to a war zone, only to prove that he didn't know much about it.


D. PARVAZDEC 27, 2018, 11:12 AM


In the shadow of the government shutdown and news that yet another migrant child had died in U.S. custody, President Donald Trump made his first visit to a war zone on Wednesday.

Along with First Lady Melania Trump, the president, who has been in office for nearly two years now, spent over three hours Iraq, visiting at the al-Asad air base just outside the capital of Baghdad.
View image on Twitter

U.S. Dept of Defense
✔@DeptofDefense


. @POTUS Donald J. Trump and @FLOTUS Melania Trump made a surprise visit to U.S. #ServiceMembers at Al Asad Air Base outside #Baghdad, #Iraq. See more: https://go.usa.gov/xErUy


5,463
6:59 PM - Dec 26, 2018

1,878 people are talking about this

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This could have been a smart <acronym title="Google Page Ranking"><acronym title="Google Page Ranking">PR</acronym></acronym> move, were it not for the fact that the president seems to have miscalculated a few significant factors.

To start with, he failed to coordinate and meet with any Iraqi leaders. Instead, he had a brief phone call with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who has been invited to visit the White House next month.
Indeed, the president’s “surprise” visit was seen as an insult by Iraqi lawmakers, who saw it as a threat to their sovereignty. Following the president’s visit, a bipartisan statement came out of Iraq’s parliament calling for a vote to kick out U.S. troops.

“Parliament must clearly and urgently express its view about the ongoing American violations of Iraqi sovereignty,” said one lawmaker, Salam al-Shimiri.

President Trump told troops that the United States would keep them in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran (which has very close ties with Iraq) and to possibly use Iraq “as a base if we wanted to do something in Syria.”
What that “something” might be is remains a mystery, given that the president last week went against the advice of his (now departing) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and announced that the United States would be pulling out of Syria.

President Trump also revealed the location of a Navy Seal team when he posted a tweet that revealed the location of the team (so much for op-sec!):

Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

.@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!

218K
3:35 PM - Dec 26, 2018

93.3K people are talking about this


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The president, who himself never served in the military (he got out of serving in Vietnam over having bone spurs in his feet, reportedly after his father got a podiatrist to fake that diagnosis), had avoided visiting a war zone up until now.

A White House official told The Washington Post in November that the president has “never been interested in going.”

“He’s afraid of those situations. He’s afraid people want to kill him,” said the source. So one can imagine how bad things must have been for the president to reconsider.

While on the one hand thrilling the troops by finally recognizing their work, he also implied that Americans had been “suckers” up until now (but no longer under his presidency!) and boasted that he’d gotten them a “big pay raise,” claiming that it was their first in a decade.

Trump claimed he didn’t know the country’s top anti-ISIS official — who just quit

This of course, was not true. The military gets a pay raise every year, somewhere between 1 and 2.9 percent. Under President Trump, the troops got a 2.4 percent raise in 2018 and will get a 2.6 percent bump in 2019 — both solid numbers. And yet, he felt compelled to exaggerate this for some reason.

“They said, ‘You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3 percent. We could make it 2 percent. We could make it 4 percent,’ I said, ‘No. Make it 10 percent. Make it more than 10 percent,'” said the president, noting that it’s been over a decade (well, nearly 16 years, actually, but who’s counting) since the United States started fighting in Iraq.

“It’s been more than 10 years. That’s a long time. And, you know, you really put yourselves out there, and you put your lives out there. So congratulations,” he told troops who probably knew they weren’t going to get a 10 percent raise.

https://thinkprogress.org/trumps-christmas-visit-to-the-troops-was-not-the-<acronym title="Google Page Ranking"><acronym title="Google Page Ranking">pr</acronym></acronym>-coup-he-was-hoping-for-a733edce156e/

Even in Iraq, Trump can’t bring himself to tell the troops the truth

12/27/18 08:00 AM

By Steve Benen

But as part of his pitch, Trump repeated a claim he must know isn’t true.

“You just saw that because you just got one of the biggest pay raises you’ve ever received…. It’s great. You know what? Nobody deserves it more. You haven’t gotten one in more than 10 years – more than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one.


“They had plenty of people that came up. They said, ‘You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3 percent. We could make it 2 percent. We could make it 4 percent.’ I said, ‘No. Make it 10 percent. Make it more than 10 percent.’ Because it’s been a long time. It’s been more than 10 years. It’s been more than 10 years. That’s a long time. And, you know, you really put yourselves out there, and you put your lives out there. So congratulations.”

It’s one thing for the president to peddle this lie at pre-election campaign rallies, but it’s worse when he travels halfway around the world to lie to the troops’ faces.

First, as regular readers know, it’s absurd to think U.S. troops haven’t received pay raises in “more than 10 years.” In reality, there were raises for our military in 2017. And 2016. And 2015 and 2014. And every other year of the Obama era. And every year of the Bush era. And every year of the Clinton era.

In fact, the military has gotten a raise practically every year since the end of World War II. It’s the sort of detail a Commander in Chief must be aware of.

Second, the latest pay increase for servicemen and women is 2.6%. Trump, in his boasts, nearly quadrupled that number, apparently hoping the troops wouldn’t notice the difference.

And third, he described a debate with policymakers who wanted smaller raises, but that conversation did not occur in reality.

The president has been called out for lying about this before, but Trump doesn’t seem to care.

E.J. Dionne noted on the show last night that there’s supposed to be “something sacred about the obligation of a commander in chief to our troops,” and part of that obligation is honesty.

It’s a responsibility to which Donald Trump too often appears indifferent.


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/even-iraq-trump-cant-bring-himself-tell-the-troops-the-truth

Hey, with Republicans posting DemoQuack Propaganda and arguing for the opposition the way MW does, I sure hope Republicans don't wonder why Republicans lost the mid-term elections in the US House of Representatives.

Why would a Republican do this? It's so weird.

Trump lied to troops during Iraq visit: Darcy cartoon

Updated 7:01 AM; Posted 7:00 AM

During a surprise visit to Iraq, President Trump falsely bragged to troops that he had gotten them a 10% pay increase, over objections, and that it was their first increase it ten years.

By Jeff Darcy, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- President Trump decided to end the year by shutting down the government and lying to troops during his first visit to a combat zone.

During a surprise visit to Iraq, 'Deferment Donald' falsely bragged to troops that he had gotten them a 10 percent pay raise, and that it was their first increase in ten years.

"You protect us. We are always going to protect you. And you just saw that, 'cause you just got one of the biggest pay raises you ever received...You haven't gotten one in more than 10 years. More than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one."

"They had plenty of people that came up, they said, 'You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3%, we could make it 2%, we could make it 4%. I said 'No. Make it 10%. Make it more than 10%. 'Cause it's been a long time, it's been more than 10 years. Been more than 10 years, that's a long time."

It's been a really long time since Trump told the truth. The truth is the military has gotten a yearly pay increase for more than three decades. They received 2.4% increase in 2018. Under the National Defense Authorization Act, troops will receive a 2.6% increase in 2019.

On the heels of Trump's visit to Iraq, came news casting more doubt on Trump's claim of having bone spurs in his feet, which was the basis of the multiple deferments he received from serving in the Vietnam war.

The daughters of the podiatrist who diagnosed Trump with bone spurs, told The New York Times their father only made the diagnoses as a favor to Fred Trump, Donald's dad.

Dr. Larry Braunstein's medical office was in a Queens building owned by Fred Trump. "If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and (Fred) Trump would take care of it immediately," Elysa Braunstein told the NYT.

U.S. troops do deserve a 10% pay increase. Government workers also deserve not to miss a paycheck because of the Trump-Limbaugh-Coulter government shutdown. All government workers, military and civilian, also deserve a Commander-in-Chief who doesn't constantly lie.

https://www.cleveland.com/darcy/inde...in_iraq_d.html

Oh, who cares? No one cared that Bush and the CIA lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, why do you care about whether a raise was 10% or something else when it was the biggest raise in 9 years?

Normal people just go, he got 'em the biggest raise in 9 years, so what's the problem?

Originally Posted by Judy

Oh, who cares? No one cared that Bush and the CIA lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, why do you care about whether a raise was 10% or something else when it was the biggest raise in 9 years?

Normal people just go, he got 'em the biggest raise in 9 years, so what's the problem?

The issue isn't the raise, it's the lies he told to our troops in Iraq. Unfortunately Trump went so in-depth in his lies that he made it impossible to later simply say he misspoke. When Trump is weak, uninformed, or misinformed on a specific subject, it's best he just keep his mouth shut. If this was a rare thing, it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. However, Trump regularly lies, obfuscates, and misdirects. That's just not the kind of behavior that is expected from the President of the United States.

Oh, and yes there were WMDs (chemical weapons) in Iraq. Thousands of such weapons of various types were found during Operation Iraqi Freedom. We actually had bomb disposal experts injured by them. Honestly, I find it hard to believe there are still folks like you that believe they never existed. Iraq produced a large amount of chemical weapons during their eight year war with Iran.

Besides all that, it's silly to say Bush lied because that was totally different than the lie Trump told our troops. Actually, numerous foreign intelligence agencies also believed Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program. The intelligence agencies of Germany, Israel, Russia, Britain, China and France all believe Saddam had WMDs. The WMDs were there (old chemical munitions), however, there wasn't an active WMD program at the time.