Donald Trump has been lying all his political life and much of his personal life. And he apparently doesn’t care what damage his lies do.
The latest manifestation occurred June 5 when the counting process in the California primary election showed Democrats leading in the open primaries for governor and Los Angeles mayor — which shouldn’t have been a surprise in a blue state surrounding deep blue LA.
Republicans hoped Democrats would split their votes for governor among 62 candidates in the all-comers “jungle primary,’ where the top two votegetters will meet in the runoff for the general election on Nov. 3. Team Red saw the chance to promote Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and political commentator Steve Hilton to the runoff, shutting out the Dems. But the top votegetter in the governor’s race appears to be Democrat Xavier Becerra, former state attorney general, with 27.7% of the vote on June 8, with 82.9% of the ballots counted. That left a race for second place between Hilton, with 25.1% and Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmental activist and founder of Farallon Capital, with 22.4%.
In the LA mayor’s race, with 80% of the votes counted, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass was leading with 34.3% and progressive Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, a Democrat with 28.5% of the vote, overtook former reality TV character Spencer Pratt, a Republican with 25.8%, for second place in the “jungle primary,” The open primary for mayor put 17 candidates of all parties and independents on the ballot, with the top two votegetters going into the Nov. 3 general election runoff. Voters had to mail in their ballot or turn them in at voting places by June 2, and a lengthy counting process was expected.
Trump sat for an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker in Chippeway Falls, Wis., June 5 for “Meet the Press,” but the discussion didn’t get far after Welker challenged Trump about his repeated lies that the 2020 election was rigged, the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol was staged by the FBI, and his new unfounded claims that new election rigging was happening in California.
Trump was agitated when Welker asked him about the $1.8 billion fund he sought to get the federal Treasury to pay people claiming they were victims of politicized prosecutions. His Justice Department agreed with Trump’s lawyers to set up the fund to settle the president’s lawsuit against the IRS, but acting Attorney Generasl Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, backed off amid court challenges and pushback from Republican senators.
Trump told Welker he still wants to establish the fund.
“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” he said. “People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it. People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them. … If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”
Trump said the 172 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers were victims of “dirty cops” in the FBI who ushered the protesters into the building (while Trump was president, by the way).
Asked if he was OK with the Jan. 6 protesters getting taxpayer dollars, Trump replied, “Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the weaponization fund. I love the idea, because people like you, the fake dirty press, the crooked press, people like stupid Biden, he’s not smart enough to know what’s going on, but people that surrounded him, surrounded his beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, what they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong.”
When told there was “no evidence of weaponization,” Trump replied, “There’s tremendous evidence. There’s nothing but evidence.”
Welker replied, “Well, it’s not been presented in a court of law.” Trump replied, “The election was rigged. It was a dirty election. … And it’s happening right now in California.”
Trump claimed that because the results had not been officially decided after three days of counting by election workers in California, the nation’s largest state, with millions who vote by mail, “They’re cheating on the election.”
“Do you have evidence to support that?” Welker asked.
“All I have to do is look … and I listen,” Trump replied.
“But that’s not evidence,” Welker countered.
After talking over Welker’s continuing questions, Trump concluded, “Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked. … And so is ABC and CBS and CNN. … You’re a one-sided crooked network. Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
When Welker pleaded that “I traveled all the way to Wisconsin” to meet him, he replied that he had given her enough time. “You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what? … A country can never be great with a dishonest press.”
And the country gets even less with a dishonest president.
When it comes to contempt for the truth, Trump is in a league of his own. Republican members of Congress must be held to account for allowing Trump’s disgraceful behavior.
The Washington Post’s fact-checking staff of four, led by Glenn Kessler, counted 30,753 false or misleading claims made by Trump in his first term.
Kessler noted in his Jan. 23, 2021, wrapup of Trump 1.0, Trump started his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2017 with 10 misrepresentations and five more on the second day.
“Over time, Trump unleashed his falsehoods with increasing frequency and ferocity, often by the scores in a single campaign speech or tweetstorm. What began as a relative trickle of misrepresentations … built into a torrent through Trump’s final days as he frenetically spread wild theories that the coronavirus pandemic would disappear “like a miracle” and that the presidential election had been stolen — the claim that inspired Trump supporters to attack Congress on Jan. 6 and prompted his second impeachment.”
After Trump lost the 2020 election — and yes, Joe Biden beat Trump fair and square, as judges, including those appointed by Trump and other Republicans found no widespread fraud in more than 60 cases brought by the Trump team — the Post scaled back its fact-checking department. Kessler continued through 2024, but when Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Post decreed that the opinion pages would be less confrontational, Kessler chose to accept a buyout in January 2025 as Trump was returning to the White House and the Post no longer has a regular fact-checking column.
No other news outlet has taken up the comprehensive fact-checking role the Post performed in Trump’s first term, but Linda Qiu noted in The New York Times Jan. 20, 2026, that in the first year of his second term Trump continued to rely on inaccurate superlatives and evidence-free assertions to justify his policies. The administration has dismissed media fact-checks as “hoaxes” or “fake news.”
The press can tell the truth, but only Republicans can stop Trump from lying., by calling him out on them. — JMC
From the July 2026 issue of The Progressive Populist
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