A glut of gluteal assaults
During an interview, Trump told a British reporter that Londoners are being stabbed in the ass. It wasn't his only lie. But it was the most colorful — a high point in a sea of banal mendacity. Let me set the scene.
The interview
On Friday, Bev Turner of GB News interviewed Trump in the White House before he flew to Mar-a-Lago. He had time. There were no official events on his schedule. (And his weekend is free as well.)
GB News is the UK's version of Fox News. Turner is a clone of the softball question-asking sycophants of MAGA media — with an English accent. As a result, the interview went as all these hagiographic chats go. Bev caressed Trump's ego. No new ground was covered. The gripes were old. And Don droned his well-practiced lies with metronomic unoriginality.
Turner started with butter and fantasy. In her expedient framing, the US is a positive place bursting with possibility. She said:
"I've spent a little while in America now and I've been really struck by the sense of positivity here, that can-do attitude is really in contrast to the UK and more broadly Europe."
In case Trump had missed her flattery, she followed up with an attaboy.
"That's been a long-term project, I think, but you've proven that leaders don't just have to sit around writing strongly worded letters. You can actually get stuff done in a short space of time. How have you done it?
Trump replied with a verbal perambulation: Sleepy Joe sucks. No one wanted to join the military. The US was on the verge of "total collapse." Having established he had inherited a hellhole, Trump contrasted past calamity with his ad ovo achievements.
"We've turned it around, you know, it's my 10th month and, uh, I think nobody's done what I've done. It's, it's the hottest country in the world right now."
Then, cleaving to his philosophy that 'it is not enough to succeed; others must fail,' he enumerated Europe's failures. To wit, "the immigration," "the bad taxing policies," "the leaders that aren't liked by the other European leaders," and "fake news."
Election lies
Then, realizing he was falling behind on self-congratulation, he added his election lies.
"I said they [The Democrats] haven't learned 'cause we won in a landslide. We won everything. We won all seven swing states. We won by millions of votes, popular vote. We went in everywhere you could win in, in like record numbers."
Yes, he won. No, it wasn't by record numbers or a landslide. On the contrary, Trump's numbers are solidly middle-of-the-pack unexceptional. Most readers know this. But it can't hurt to remind ourselves that:
- Joe Biden holds the record for the most popular votes ever cast for a US presidential candidate: 81.2 million in 2020 (Trump 2024: 77.3 million).
- The largest popular vote margin by percentage was 22.6% by Lyndon B. Johnson vs Barry Goldwater in 1964 (Trump 2024: 1.6%)
- The most Electoral College votes were 525 for Reagan in 1984 (Trump 2024: 312)
Trump then revisited immigration — he's stopped it. And urban crime — which he says, "We've almost got it fixed."
London lies
This farcical boast led Turner to do some lying of her own.
" We've got such a crime problem in London, and I wonder whether Sadiq Khan should do something similar."
London is a big city. Big cities everywhere have more crime than the suburbs and the country. However, crime overall is declining in London.
Trump, of course, personalized Turner's question — ad nauseam.
"He's a terrible, terrible mayor. And as an example, you know, I was a high-ranking officer sort of always, or a president, uh, even as a civilian, you know, I was a respected person. He treated me very badly."
Adding: "Who is that guy? He's a terrible mayor. And look at the crime you have in London."
And: "Your mayor is a disaster. Okay. I can tell. I don't know him. I don't even know what he -- If you put him there, I wouldn't even know who he was. I can tell you he's a disaster.
And: "He's a nasty person. Uh, just and he's letting crime go."
He then reflected on the lessons taught by his dear mama:
My mother loved London. She loved that city. She'd always talk about -- That was a different London than you have today.
The reader is right to question Trump's hearsay testimony of his mother's opinion. Mary Anne MacLeod was born and raised on the Isle of Lewis off Scotland's Northwest coast. It is the definition of remote — and it is nowhere near London. In addition, MacLeod emigrated to the US in 1930, when she was 18. The smart money says Trump is making stuff up.
He continued by contrasting the historical London of his imagination to the current version.
"Today, you have people being stabbed in the ass or worse."
Knife crime exists in London. It is the price you pay in a country that makes it hard for criminals to get guns. Which, when you consider that London's murder rate would put it 177th on a list of US cities, is a cost worth paying
In addition, London's deputy mayor for policing and crime, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, pointed out that violent crime in London is declining (as it is in the US)
"Homicides, gun crime, lethal barrel discharges, and the number of young people being injured with knives have all fallen in London since 2016. Last year, there were fewer homicides of people under 25 in London than in any year since 2003."
Alternative energy lies
Trump said England was failing to exploit its offshore oil reserves.
"Your country has the North Sea. It's one of the greatest energy fields in the world. You've got a thousand years of life there."
Complete fantasy. The UK ranks 32nd in known oil reserves. Which, at current extraction rates, will last 10 more years.
Trump complained about bird-killing windmills — ignoring that in the US, cats kill 2.4 billion birds annually, while wind turbines kill 234,000.
He said China was "very smart, they sell, they sell the windmills." However, "if you go around China, you see almost no wind farms." More BS. Wind accounts for 13.6% of China's current energy production. And its share is increasing. Besides, if it's "very smart" to sell windmills, why isn't Trump encouraging windmill manufacture in the US? He says he wants to restore manufacturing jobs in the US. Yet his actions fall short of his rhetoric.
It ends not with a bang, but a whimper
The interview then wanders through Trump's several celebrations of his British and Irish golf courses. How the BBC has done him wrong — just like the rest of the fake news. How King Charles honored him. Sean Connery's friendship for him. Space Force. And borders.
The man then cycles back to previous topics in what threatens to be an endless loop. By now, only the most ardent MAGA is still paying attention.
Then it ends.
