Could Tuesday’s elections and Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on the legality of Donald Trump’s tariffs spell the beginning of the end for White House “truthiness”?
Late-night comic Stephen Colbert coined that term in 2005 to mean, in his words, “the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what’s supported by facts.” He was referring at the time to the Bush administration’s truthiness about the Iraq War, but Trump has given the word a whole new life.
Trump’s “alternative facts” — as one of his first-term aides labeled his falsehoods — have evolved into lies so blatant and constant that they have become almost normalized.
During Trump’s first term, when the Washington Post compiled a list of more than 30,000 presidential lies, many Americans were horrified. But a year into his second term, even those who dislike Trump have been worn down by his continued rants, including that he won the 2020 election and that the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters were heroes.
The shock value has worn off from repetition, and the public outrage such lies should still inflame has become muted.
Yet, unexpectedly, this widespread mood of resignation to Trump’s fakery may be lifting.
The most exciting aspect of this politically charged week was watching the revival of truth as a weapon against unrestricted White House power.
On Tuesday, we were reminded that Trump’s truthiness is a dangerous aberration. Maybe, just maybe, even a few GOP senators and representatives will recognize that much of the public (and even conservative Supreme Court justices) has grown tired of Trump’s denial of reality.
The “aha” moment for me came on Wednesday, when Justice Sonia Sotomayor told the lead administration lawyer, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer: “You want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that’s exactly what they are. They are generating money from U.S. citizens.”
Her words may seem obvious. But for months, Trump has insisted repeatedly that tariffs are not a tax.
Anyone with the most rudimentary economic knowledge knows that is false. When the U.S. puts tariffs on Chinese-manufactured goods, for example, American importers either absorb the cost of the levy or pass it on to consumers. Small businesses with narrow profit margins get whacked especially hard, which is why a group of small businesses brought the court challenge.
Yet, Trump had so far gotten away with his tariff deception until Sotomayor brought reality into the national conversation. Importantly, not one of the court’s conservative justices contradicted that truth, as they discussed whether the taxing power Trump has exercised with tariffs rightly belongs to Congress.
Not only did the Supreme Court call Trump out on truthiness, but so did the voters — including some of the same Latino and Black voters who had switched sides to the GOP in 2024. They returned massively to the Democratic column on election night. (Latino voters now know Trump lied when he said only criminal undocumented immigrants would be deported.)
Most voters, except the very rich, know that, contrary to Trump’s claims, costs are rising sharply due to tariffs. Trump kneecapped himself, in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes last Sunday, when he falsely claimed that grocery prices were “going down” and that “we don’t have inflation.”
You can’t sell that lie to a mother who may have been laid off from her government job, or faces losing family health insurance, and who knows, the price of eggs has not come down.
While the truth gaining a foothold at home is heartening, it remains to be seen whether voter ire can inspire GOP legislators to call the president out on his dangerous falsehoods on foreign policy.
Most disturbing the previous week was Trump’s call for the Pentagon “to start testing” U.S. nuclear weapons again because, he said, “other countries are testing.” This is untrue.
Yes, Russia did test two nuclear-capable weapons recently (in an obvious effort to scare Trump into refusing to send Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles). There is a difference, however, between testing systems and testing nuclear warheads.
North Korea is the only country to test a nuclear weapon in the 21st century. Moreover, testing nuclear warheads would likely ignite a new arms race that would help an ambitious China speed up its nuclear production.
The man with his hand on the nuclear button is either ignorant of these truths or lying through his teeth about testing. I’m not certain which is worse, but his untruths on nuclear testing are another terrifying reason for Republican legislators to start rejecting his lies.
And then there are Trump’s increasingly heated and false explanations for amassing a huge U.S. military presence off Venezuela. The president claims that every small boat American planes have blown up in the Caribbean and Pacific since September carried a drug cargo that “kills 25,000 Americans.”
False. False. False. The drug that kills thousands of Americans is fentanyl, mostly made in Mexico from Chinese chemical precursors, according to Trump’s own Drug Enforcement Administration. Small Venezuelan boats smuggle cocaine, a minor threat to Americans, to Caribbean or South American staging points, often en route to Europe.
Trump officials have indicated that the real reason for the Caribbean military standoff is the hope of achieving regime change in Venezuela by somehow eliminating President Nicolás Maduro. Do Trump’s America First supporters really want to see the U.S. enmeshed in another disastrous effort at regime change? Does Trump?
And why on earth is a major U.S. armada staged off Caracas when America’s focus should be on strengthening its position in the Indo-Pacific — and helping Ukraine push back Russia?
Whatever the real reasons for Trump’s Caribbean madness — whether to demonstrate U.S. military glitz on TV, or to satisfy some anti-Maduro activists who have his ear — he is lying to the public.
But last week’s events indicate that Trump’s constant falsehoods could finally become a GOP burden in 2026.
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