Don Lemon Fact Checks Trump’s Claim AOC Called America ‘Garbage’: It’s a ‘Flat Out Lie’
CNN’s Don Lemon started off his show Monday night by declaring President Donald Trump‘s repeated claim that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the country “garbage” is no more than a “flat-out lie.”
In an opening segment that suggested that the president is fueling his feud with the four Congresswomen in order to distract from Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony on Wednesday, Lemon played a clip of Trump referring to the so-called ‘Squad’, which includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
In the clip, Trump said this: “They can’t call our country and our people garbage.”
Lemon then proceeded to fact check Trump’s claim.
“So, let’s do fact-checking…because the president repeatedly and falsely accuses Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of calling our country and our people garbage,” Lemon said. “That is a flat out lie. And it’s false.”
He added that Trump’s people often say the same thing.
“They obviously had a phone call or meeting or something and did the talking points and all saying the same thing,” Lemon continued on. “It’s false.”
He then said this: “Here’s the truth. She didn’t call any person garbage. Much less Americans as a group. At the South by Southwest festival, the congresswoman expressed her opinion that our country has gone so far in the wrong direction that people shouldn’t be satisfied with moderate policies that she called ‘10% better from garbage.’ So she was talking about policy — NOT people. By the way, she was criticizing Democrats as well.”
Lemon then played an exchange with Stephen Miller on Fox News over the weekend.
In the clip, Fox News’ Chris Wallace noted that AOC “didn’t say the country was garbage, she said some of the policies she opposes are garbage.”
Miller then insisted that it is “impossible to read the quote that way.”
Then when Wallace pressed on, Miller said it was “literally impossible” to read the quote that way.
At the end of the clip, Lemon noted Miller was definitely wrong.
Then, he played a clip of Wallace citing this 2014 tweet Trump talked about garbage too.
The United States, under President Obama, has truly become the “gang that couldn’t shoot straight.” Everything he touches turns to garbage!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 21, 2014
“You heard that. Right there,” Lemon said after the clip ended. “It was Donald Trump who tweeted that the United States had turned to garbage under President Obama.”
Watch above, via CNN
