Trump just penned the first Op-Ed of his presidency and fact-checkers say every word is a lie

If Op-Ed articles were rated according to the sheer volume and intensity of the lies that they contain, then President Donald Trump’s essay this morning for USA Today would have to be awarded a Category 5 designation.

Trump’s article, titled “Democrats ‘Medicare for All’ plan will demolish promises to seniors,” starts its falsehoods directly in its title, according to a detailed fact check by The Washington Post, and continues to include misleading statements or outright lies in nearly every single sentence.

Is anyone surprised?

The fact check goes through Trump’s Op-Ed line by line and calmly rebuts each purposeful lie with actual facts, apparently a concept that the president is unfamiliar with. For example, The Post explains exactly what is wrong with the overall central premise of the essay as expressed in its title and opening sentence:

“Throughout the year, we have seen Democrats across the country uniting around a new legislative proposal that would end Medicare as we know it and take away benefits that seniors have paid for their entire lives,” Trump’s article begins.

Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker for The Washington Post offers this analysis of the presidential verbal excrement:

“Sanders has unveiled a plan he calls “Medicare-for-all.” Essentially, it is a single-payer plan. That means all of the bills would be paid by one entity — the federal government — in contrast to the hodgepodge health-care system now in place. Medicare, the health care system for the elderly and disabled, is a federal single-payer plan, but people under 65 get insurance from employers, through the individual market (Obamacare) or through Medicaid, the federal-state health system for the poor. Private health insurance plans would be banned, according to the Congressional Research Service.”

“Sanders says he would first improve Medicare for seniors and the disabled by eliminating deductibles and covering dental, vision and hearing aids, which are not covered under current law. Then, over the course of four years, the eligibility age would be lowered in stages until every American was covered.”

“On paper at least, the Sanders plan would improve benefits for seniors, not take them away.”

After Trump’s initial sack of bull turd, he goes on to shovel an increasingly larger pile of drivel, lies, and misstatements into the article. Suffice it to say his arguments are proven completely invalid by The Post‘s meticulous fact-checking. The newspaper reveals not only the complete absence of any truth in his words but the partisan political motivation behind the lies.

Trump ran a campaign promising to protect Medicare for seniors and protect coverage for preexisting conditions and then promptly joined the rest of the Republican party in attempting to repeal Obamacare and return to the failed system that preceded it, a system that left millions of Americans uninsured. Luckily they failed at that attempt, but have done everything else they could to undermine Obama’s signature healthcare reform.

Trump and his cronies have yet to destroy Medicare, but they did set in motion the excuse they will use to reduce Medicare benefits and transform it to a program of subsidies for privately run insurance as soon as they can if they aren’t stopped.

Last year, they passed an enormous tax cut that primarily benefited billionaires and reduced the federal income that pays for social services as well as everything else that the government does. The huge deficits that inevitably resulted are now being used as the excuse for cutting social services, including Medicare, for the people who need it the most, the non-billionaires amongst us.

It is Trump’s final sentence in his Op-Ed that perhaps demonstrates most clearly how faulty and misguided his thinking really is.

“I am committed to resolutely defending Medicare and Social Security from the radical socialist plans of the Democrats. For the sake of our country, our prosperity, our seniors and all Americans — this is a fight we must win.”

Trump must believe that the American people are too stupid to understand that Medicare and Social Security are socialist plans by definition. When Trump says he wants to defend them from radical socialist plans, he’s basically admitting that he wants to end the very basis of their existence.

Trump’s attempt to flood the media with his storm of self-interested lies about the American health care system and the Democratic proposals to bring it up to the standards that the rest of the civilized world enjoys is his latest attempt to gaslight America.

Instead of reading his misbegotten propaganda, read Glenn Kessler’s fact check in The Washington Post to learn the actual truth about the subject and vote the people who are trying to destroy America’s social safety net out of office. Now that is a fight that we must win, no matter how strong the hurricane of lies and deception blows.

Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.

Original reporting by Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post.

Vinnie Longobardo

is the Managing Editor of Washington Press and a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile, & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.