The president can't keep his lies straight

Mar 20, 2026

At 11:47 a.m. Eastern Time, the President of the United States joined the first female Prime Minister of Japan in the Oval Office. For the next 27 minutes and 7 seconds, he did what he usually does when the cameras are rolling for the world to see. He took credit for other people’s achievements. He rambled incoherently from topic to topic. He lied about the war. And on this occasion, he also decided to humiliate our country by trying to turn one of our greatest tragedies into a punchline.

When asked by a Japanese reporter why the United States didn’t warn allies, like Japan, before launching strikes on Iran, Trump suddenly became animated, raised his voice while grinning and said, “We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor? OK? Right?”

He then looked back at the reporter and added, “You know, he’s asking me, ‘Do you believe in surprise?’ I think much more so than us.” A few awkward loyalty laughs broke out from his side of the room. And then the room went quiet while he kept rambling on.

And aside from the obvious absurdity of asking why no one warned him about Pearl Harbor, an event that occurred nearly four and a half years before he was born, Pearl Harbor is not a joking matter. It never has been. We lost more than 2,400 Americans that day. Sailors were trapped inside the USS Arizona, where they banged on the hull before they drowned or met equally horrific fates. It is a memorial and a burial ground. And it is a wound this country and Japan spent decades healing together, carefully, deliberately, because both nations understood that the alliance built from that wreckage was worth more than anyone’s ego. Every president before Trump understood that and respected the delicate line that had to be walked. Every single one, until Donald Trump.

For her part, Prime Minister Takaichi looked equal parts shocked and unsurprised, her face telling the whole story. She pulled her shoulders back slightly, like she was creating distance without moving her chair. Her hands stayed clasped tight in her lap, fingers interlocked, but her eyes began scanning the room to see if others were equally horrified. As he kept speaking, she pursed her lips as if physically stopping herself from reacting. It was noticeable but not dramatic. But you could see the shift. A nervous half-smile flickered, then disappeared. And when it was clear the damage had been done, and the performance wasn’t going to end anytime soon, she glanced down at her watch, signaling she had had enough, and that she was ready to be done.

But the Pearl Harbor comment, as disgraceful as it was, wasn’t even the most dangerous thing Trump said in those 27 minutes. It was just the most offensive. The most dangerous part was when he exposed his own lie about the war.

Last night, on Truth Social, Trump posted that the United States “knew nothing” about Israel’s strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field, part of the largest natural gas field in the world. He said Israel “violently lashed out” on its own. He said Qatar had no idea it was coming. He framed the whole thing as if the United States had been blindsided, just innocent bystanders watching someone else’s war spiral out of control.

That was last night. Today, with Takaichi sitting beside him and the cameras rolling, a reporter asked Trump directly whether he had spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the Israeli strikes. Trump didn’t hesitate.

“Yeah, I did. I did. I told him, ‘Don’t do that.’ And he won’t do that. We didn’t discuss. You know, we do... We’re independent, but get along great. It’s coordinated. But on occasion, he’ll do something. And if I don’t like it and... so we’re not doing that anymore.”

He knew. He spoke to Netanyahu. He described a coordinated relationship. And then he tripped over his own words trying to hold together a story that had already collapsed, because he’d told us a completely different version twelve hours earlier. So either he lied last night to distance himself from the fallout after Iran retaliated by bombing Qatar’s largest gas facility. Or he lied today to look like he’s in control. Or both. Because what he said was incoherent, the kind of tangled, lurching half-sentences you get from someone who has no real strategy and is just improvising to cover the last lie with the next one.

And buried inside that same exchange was something just as revealing. When asked about the economic damage the war is causing, Trump said, “I thought it would be worse, much worse.” Someone warned him. Before he launched this war, someone sat him down and told him it would hurt the economy, that gas prices would spike, that families who are already stretched thin would feel it at the pump and the grocery store, and in their heating bills. He heard that, and he launched the war anyway. His response wasn’t to find a way to protect us from it. It wasn’t to plan for the impact or cushion the blow. It wasn’t to build in any safeguard for the people who would pay the price while he sat in the Oval Office watching it unfold on television. It was, essentially, “oh well.” He weighed the cost of this war against the lives of ordinary Americans, and he decided our pain was an acceptable price to pay.

And that brings us to what was really happening in that room, beneath the flattery and the photo ops. Because Takaichi didn’t fly halfway around the world just to wish Barron Trump a happy birthday or tell Donald he’s the only man who can bring peace. She said those things to butter him up because she needs help. Her country is in trouble. And the man sitting next to her is the reason why.

The United States has been quietly pulling troops stationed in Japan and redeploying them to the Middle East. More than 2,200 Marines based in Okinawa have been shipped to the region to support operations in Iran. Reports indicate that Patriot missile defense systems are being discussed for redeployment from South Korea to bases in the Middle East. And all of this is happening at the exact moment China is escalating military exercises around Taiwan, increasing flights near the island, and testing how far it can push while America is looking the other way.

The AP reported why deep in their coverage: the U.S. troop shifts have “removed a check against China’s power” at the same time China has launched large-scale exercises around Taiwan. A defense expert warned this “raises the prospect that the United States will be distracted and bogged down in the Middle East at a time when the deterrence problem in East Asia has never been greater.”

That is why she was there. She told him he was the only person who could achieve world peace. She praised his leadership. She promised 250 cherry blossom trees as a gift for the United States’ 250th anniversary. And she told him, through an interpreter, that the global economy was “about to experience a huge hit” because of his war, but framed it as a challenge only he could solve.

She did it masterfully because she is a protégé of the late Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022 and who had built one of the closest personal relationships any foreign leader ever had with Trump. She inherited that playbook, and she’s running it better than he ever did. The flattery. The personal touch. The strategic gift-giving. The ability to tell him exactly what he wants to hear while quietly advancing her own agenda. She knew what she was walking into today. Even before she left Tokyo, she told lawmakers this would be “a very difficult conversation.” She wasn’t wrong. But she executed her plan with precision, and left with her alliance intact and her dignity preserved. He sat there grinning, thinking he’d won something. She’s the real dealmaker in this story. And he has absolutely no idea.

And through it all, he kept finding ways to take credit for her success. Early in the meeting, Trump said, “We have a very special person, just won a tremendous election in a record-setting fashion. See, we have something in common. And I was very proud and honored to endorse the prime minister because of the fact that I thought she was really good.” He returned to it again and again throughout the 27 minutes, praising her “most successful election in the history of Japan” and calling her a “popular powerful woman,” always adding how he had endorsed her, as if he was the reason she won.

But we also saw that these performances are getting harder for him. Throughout the meeting, Trump was noticeably less animated than usual, hunched forward in his chair, still doing his trademark mouth-breathing between thoughts. He rambled. He stared at her with that flat, unsettling gaze he gets when he is having trouble concentrating. And the second the meeting ended, but the cameras were still rolling, we could see him completely checked out. Just like that, the show was over. Whatever is left of the man behind the act is fading fast.

But while Trump was putting on his spectacle in the Oval Office and cracking jokes about dead Americans, the machinery behind him was busy doing real damage. Because these performances aren’t just embarrassing. They’re distractions. He likes to look powerful. He likes the cameras, the flags, the foreign leaders seated beside him. But while Takaichi was in that room fighting to secure the safety of her country, his administration was systematically dismantling the foundations of ours.

Late today, the FCC approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, creating the largest local television operator in the United States. To make it happen, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr waived a rule that has been in place for more than two decades, one that prevents any single company from owning stations reaching more than 39% of American TV households. The combined company will now reach up to 80%.

“Waiving that rule here is consistent with longstanding FCC authorities and doing so promotes the underlying purpose of the FCC’s media regulations by promoting competition, localism, and diversity,” Carr said in a statement. His words directly manipulated the true meaning of what he did. And Nexstar’s CEO, Perry Sook, thanked President Trump and Chairman Carr by name.

This happened less than 24 hours after eight state attorneys general sued to block the deal, calling it illegal and a direct threat to the diversity of viewpoints Americans depend on. The lone Democratic FCC commissioner, Anna Gomez, called it a “closed-door” rubber stamp that was pushed through without a full commission vote. She said the consequences “will be felt in living rooms and newsrooms across the country, resulting in fewer voices, less competition, and higher costs for consumers.”

I’ve shared before how my biggest concerns for what is happening are the dismantling of the free press, the erosion of the First Amendment, and actual election interference by the Trump administration. And when I saw this headline, my stomach dropped. I’m never without hope, but this is a big blow for our country. This is what I’ve been warning about for months, and today it happened. This is not just a business deal. This is one more step closer to state-run media being our only media. When one company controls what more than 60% of American households see on their local news, we are in trouble.

Think about how most Americans still get their news. They turn on the TV in the morning. They turn it on again in the evening. Maybe they catch a late-night broadcast right before bed. They trust what they see because it’s their local station, their local anchors, their local weather, and sports. They’re going to see what one company, a company that just publicly thanked this president by name, decides to show them.

And this isn’t just about what’s on the screen. This is about what gets cut. When one company owns this many stations, consolidation follows. Newsrooms shrink. Reporters get laid off. Local stories stop getting covered. The investigations that hold local governments accountable, the ones that catch corruption at the city and county level, those disappear first. And when those stories stop being told, the rot spreads faster because nobody is watching.

Every authoritarian regime in modern history has consolidated media before consolidating power. Orbán in Hungary bought up outlets through allies until independent journalism was nearly extinct. Erdoğan seized control of Turkey’s major broadcasters. Putin nationalized Russian television and turned it into a propaganda arm of the state. The methods are different every time, but the goal is always the same: control the information, control the people. And now it’s happening here.

No president with good intentions would ever waive this rule. There was a reason it existed. There was a reason no administration before this one would touch it. Because the people who built these guardrails understood that a democratic republic cannot survive without a diversity of voices telling the truth. The minute you let one entity control the flow of information to the majority of the country, you’ve handed someone the keys to reality itself.

This is one of those moments when we must all take action. Please contact your governors’ offices and attorneys general and thank them if they are already part of the lawsuit to block this. And if they are not, ask them to join. This was expected. As we get closer to the midterms, we will see more blatant acts of political manipulation coming from this administration. That we know for sure.

And this is another reminder of why the independent media matters so much. Those of us not tied to corporate money, and who are only supported by individual readers, will continue to be able to bring you the stories that the Trump Regime is hoping these MAGA-aligned networks will block. This is the reality of what we are facing in the United States of America under Donald Trump as President. Please consider a paid membership to your favorite independent media. Not just mine. But all of the voices who are committed to doing all we can to make sure the truth is there, especially before our next elections. Because the pipeline they control just got a lot bigger. And ours has to grow to match it.

I keep coming back to Pearl Harbor tonight. Not because of what Trump said, but because of what happened that terrible day. I’ve stood on the memorial above the Arizona many times. I’ve looked down at the water where you can still see oil rising to the surface, more than 80 years later. They call them the black tears of the Arizona. And below the water lie the remains of more than a thousand sailors and Marines. Some of them were teenagers. That water is their grave.

But what I think about most when I stand there is what happened in the minutes after the attack. Men and women who had just watched their world explode didn’t run. They jumped into the water. They pulled strangers from burning wreckage. They rushed toward the fire, not away from it, and they didn’t hesitate. They helped each other because that’s who they were. That is what this country is capable of when the worst happens.

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