Trump has been in an outrage ever since his favorite conservative newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, published emails showing that Trump’s administration requested that the USS John McCain be covered and the crew be given the day off during Trump’s visit to Japan. On Thursday night, he tweeted about the story once again, trying to put an end to it.
The Twitter account for the Navy Chief of Information has been dormant since 2014, but was reactivated on the day that Trump ranted and raged about the WSJ story. The Navy Chief did not dispute that the request to cover the name was made, but did dispute that the photo showing the tarp covering McCain’s name remained there while Trump visited.
Twitter was suspicious of this new claim, and for good reason. The information in the article by the WSJ wasn’t countered at all and for what reason would a five-year-long dormant Twitter account be reactivated in response to the story?
The follow-up article by The Washington Post says that the Navy didn’t honor the Trump administration’s request, not that the request wasn’t made. Further, the Navy Chief didn’t deny that a barge sat in front of McCain’s name once the tarp was removed, just that any barge that was there is one that is regularly parked in front of the ship.
There’s also the pesky matter of that email exchange. The proof of that exchange was published by the WSJ and, as yet, no one has denied that the email exchange occurred, not even Trump. This is why Trump’s endless lies are so problematic. It’s impossible to believe anything he says, but the emails show that this story was clearly not debunked.
Twitter certainly isn’t buying Trump’s story. Read some of their comments below:
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
