Donald Trump caught releasing fake readout of his phone call with leader of Turkey

| 8:09 pm EST January 24, 2018
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Donald Trump finally got tough with a corrupt foreign leader when he called up President Erdogan of Turkey today and told him to knock off the state-sponsored violence that’s led to so many civilian casualties. Trump also warned Erdogan to put a stop to the “destructive and false rhetoric coming from Turkey.” If you’re thinking that this doesn’t sound like Trump, you’re right, because it turns out he didn’t actually say any of it.

Trump’s White House released a readout today of the phone call between Trump and Erdogan (link). The trouble: none of it actually happened. A Turkish official just told the Washington Post that “The readout issued by the White House does not accurately reflect the content of President Erdogan’s call with President Trump.” (link). Turkey says that “President Trump did not use the phrase ‘destructive and false rhetoric coming from Turkey'” among other things.

Erdogan has little credibility here, because he’s as routinely dishonest as Donald Trump. But in this instance we all know Trump didn’t issue any of the above tough talk in Erdogan’s direction, because he’s compromised with regard to Turkey. Sure, he’ll angrily tell off the Prime Minister of Australia, a close ally of the United States. And he’ll tweet deranged threats toward North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. But he’s politically and financially indebted to Turkey, just as he is to Russia, meaning that he can’t mouth off to Erdogan.

So in this instance it’s rather obvious that Donald Trump and his White House released a fake readout of his phone call with the leader of Turkey. We knew as much as soon as we read it. In fact Trump’s supposed statements here are so unrealistic that even the government of Turkey, despite knowing it has a credibility problem of its own, felt comfortable immediately calling out Trump on his lies.