President Donald Trump keeps living in a fantasy bubble, even as the power of the United States remains in his control. This Tuesday in the United Kingdom, he completely dismissed protests at least thousands of people as “fake news,” suggesting that because he hadn’t seen the demonstrators personally, they weren’t really there. That’s the level that we’re at with this guy — having to issue reminders that just because you don’t see something, that doesn’t mean that something doesn’t exist.
Standing next to outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May at a press conference, Trump shared:
‘I heard that there were protests. I said where are the protests? I don’t see any protests. I did see one small protest when I came — very small. So a lot of it is fake news, I hate to say… It was tremendous spirit, and love. There was great love. It was an alliance. And I didn’t see the protesters until just a little while ago, and it was a very small group of people put in for political reasons. So it was fake news.’
Trump has, in fact, personally encountered protesters during his time overseas, although police have established a cordoned off area where he would be spending most of his time, meaning most of the demonstrators have been someplace else. Still, on Tuesday just hours before he declared reports of protests to be fake news, the president’s motorcade drove right past a large gathering of protesters including some who’d inflated a Trump baby blimp depicting the president as a crying baby, an image that first emerged in connection to protests against Trump during his more low-key visit to the United Kingdom last year.
Trump’s motorcade just drove past Parliament Square and baby Trump balloon, per @AlexJFMorales.
It’s his 1st exposure to today’s protests in central London after he tweeted yesterday: “haven’t seen any protests yet, but I’m sure the Fake News will be working hard to find them.” https://t.co/FQ0RGcXv6w
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) June 4, 2019
In addition to those protesters, there were some demonstrators at least close to right outside the building where Trump was speaking when he declared protest reports to be “fake news,” according to Maggie Haberman of The New York Times. In short — Trump is pulling demonstrable lies out of thin air with his assertion that there’s not really a protest presence against him rising up in the U.K. for what’s now the second time.
Perhaps that’s easier for him than accepting the reality that the majority of people in the close U.S. ally dislike him — his approval rating in the country sits at a measly 21 percent.
It’s not much better in the United States itself, where Trump has rarely even come close to cracking the mark of 50 percent support, only doing so in outlier polls, and most of the time can barely maintain the support of about 4 in 10 Americans — not exactly a winning coalition as he hurtles towards the 2020 presidential election.
Over in the U.K., Trump claimed that he declined a request for a meeting from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who spoke at a protest gathering on Tuesday. As the U.K. prepares for a new prime minister, Trump has again thrown precedent out the window and explicitly endorsed Corbyn’s opposition, conservative leader Boris Johnson. Trump has even added in recent days that he thinks the U.K. should put infamous right winger Nigel Farage in charge of negotiations surrounding the country’s planned exit from the European Union.
Featured Image via screenshot
