Pete Hoekstra during his time in Congress
Donald Trump is apparently assembling an entire government of pathological liars. Check out this clip of Pete Hoekstra, a former member of Congress and now ambassador to Netherlands, lying about something he said and then, when confronted with the truth, lying about how he denied it in the first place. It’s an ouroboros of lying.
“Speaking of threat, at one point you mentioned in a debate that there are no-go zones in the Netherlands and that cars and politicians are being set on fire,” a Dutch journalist said to Hoekstra.
”I didn’t say that. That is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news,” Hoekstra replied. “I never said that.” When the journalist objected that Hoekstra did really say that, Hoekstra again insisted “No, it’s not what I said.”
Too bad for Hoekstra, that journalist brought receipts: video of Hoekstra saying exactly that in 2015. “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burned, there are politicians being burned … and yes there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”
How did Hoekstra respond to this reality check? When the journalist confronted him with “you called it fake news,” Hoekstra said “I didn’t call that fake news. I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”
The Trump-Republican base in the U.S. may eat that kind of stuff up, but for Dutch viewers it probably contributed to the declining view of the U.S. role in the world. There is something deeply wrong with a person who thinks they can lie about something they said on television a couple years ago and then lie about having lied about it, also on television. But that’s not just one person. That’s how the Republican Party operates.
Comments are closed on this story.