As Donald Trump’s first foreign trip of his second term got underway, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt turned to social media to highlight a week’s worth of “historic results.” Her list, however, was badly flawed.
For example, Leavitt claimed the president “reached a trade deal” with United Kingdom, which wasn’t entirely true. She said the president “negotiated a trade deal” with China, which also wasn’t true. She said the president signed a “historic” executive order “to slash drug prices,” which wasn’t even close to being true.
But Leavitt also credited Trump with “securing a ceasefire” between India and Pakistan, and this too warranted some fact-checking.
As recently as Thursday, JD Vance appeared on Fox News, and while he expressed concern about the intensifying conflict between India and Pakistan, the vice president added that the violent escalation between the two countries was “fundamentally none of our business.”
It was a difficult position to take seriously — when two nuclear-armed countries are launching attacks on one another, potentially destabilizing the region, the conflict is absolutely the business of global leaders — and Vance’s rhetoric soon looked even worse when Trump declared two days later that his administration had negotiated “a full and immediate ceasefire.”
But that proved problematic in part because, a day later, there was evidence the ceasefire was not holding, and also because India’s foreign minister downplayed the United States’ role in the negotiations.
Nevertheless, while in Saudi Arabia, Trump was eager to boast about how effective his strategy was with India and Pakistan. “I said, ‘Come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it. Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’ll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade,’” the Republican claimed. “And all of a sudden, they said, ‘I think we’re going to stop.’” According to India, Trump didn’t know what he was talking about. NBC News reported: The Indian government on Tuesday disputed President Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S.-mediated ceasefire between India and Pakistan came about in part because he had offered possible trade concessions. Addressing a weekly news conference, Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesman for India’s foreign ministry, said top leaders in New Delhi and Washington were in touch last week following the Indian military’s intense standoff with Pakistan, but that there was no conversation on trade.
“The issue of trade didn’t come up in any of these discussions,” Jaiswal said, referring to the conversations with Trump administration officials. It serves as a timely reminder: Trump sometimes takes credit for accomplishments that don’t exist, and he sometimes takes credit for accomplishments for which he’s not actually responsible.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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