A Trump representative had claimed that before Obama took office there had not been “any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States.”
The claim was made by Rudy Guiliani whilst introducing Donald Trump in Indianna. Guiliani continued on to say that there had been no terror attacks under President George W Bush.
This claim is false and Rudy Guiliani is the last man who should be saying it. Guiliani was the mayor of New York City on 9/11, the single most deadly terror attack on US soil. This attack occured before Obama took office and under the presidency of George W Bush. Guiliani’s insinuation otherwise suggests that he has either forgotten it happened, unlikely given he mentioned it earlier in his speech, or is pretending that it didn’t.
Despite his blatant deception the mainstream media has still been unable to call him out themselves. CNN are instead relying on a combination of the passive voice and a 9/11 survivor to do it for them. Jason Miller, a Trump spokesperson, has since clarified that Guiliani meant the 8 years after 9/11. This is not an excuse or a logical statement. The Trump campaign cannot justifiably claim that 9/11 should not be considered a terror attack, nor that it happened under Obama.
Disregard for reality is fast becoming a hallmark of the Trump campaign. In the last week Trump has been forced to walk back from his call to assassinate Clinton after receiving considerable backlash. His campaign has insisted that the reference to “Second Amendment people” was a reference to their unity and campaign strength meaning Hillary won’t be elected. This claim is also false because Trump specified the second amendment solution would come after Hillary had been elected.
In between these two scandals there was also a period of several days where Trump insisted that “President Obama is the founder of ISIS.” After numerous speeches and interviews spent repeating this claim, adding on the additional lie that ISIS honour Obama, Trump admitted that this was a joke. Proceeding to chastise the media via twitter for not understanding his “sarcasm.” This is despite insisting in several interviews that “he was serious.” Trump has since blamed the “dangerous media” for his sudden and dramatic slide in the polls.
It is possible that this gaff might actually damage Trump’s support among the American far right. The Republicans have consistently postured around terrorism, using it as a tool to scare the American public but Guiliani’s comments reveal that they’ve never actually cared. If it comes to a choice between scaring voters and the facts, they will always choose to scare voters; even if it means ignoring the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians that they claim to care about.
