President Donald Trump’s Tuesday coronavirus briefing featured more Trump dishonesty about the pandemic, another repeated false claim about voter fraud and a sensational but uncorroborated claim about the deadly explosion in Beirut.
WashingtonPresident Donald Trump’s Tuesday coronavirus briefing featured more Trump dishonesty about the pandemic, another repeated false claim about voter fraud and a sensational but uncorroborated claim about the deadly explosion in Beirut. The explosion in Beirut Trump began the briefing by offering sympathies to Lebanon for the massive explosion in Beirut that has killed at least dozens of people and wounded thousands more. Then, appearing to depart from his prepared text, the President said, “It looks like a terrible attack.” When he was asked later in the briefing if he was confident the incident was an “attack,” he said, “Well it would seem like it based on the explosion. I met with some of our great generals and they just seemed to feel that it was. This was not, a — some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event. This was a — seems to be, according to them — they would know better than I would — but they seem to think it was an attack, it was a bomb of some kind.” Read More Facts First: While Trump has access to classified intelligence that we do not, there was no public evidence at the time he spoke that the explosion was an “attack” or a “bomb,” and the US military had not publicly said anything of the sort. At the time of the briefing, Lebanon’s government had also not alleged an attack or a bomb. In a statement that did not allege that the explosion was caused by an intentional act,Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that a massive quantity of ammonium nitrate had been left in a warehouse for years without adequate safety measures. An early report from a Lebanese state news agency raised the possibility of a major warehouse fire before the explosion. Initial conclusions on such incidents should be treated with caution, and we aren’t declaring Trump’s claim false; it’s possible he will be proven right. But given his history of fabricating and exaggerating supposed private conversations, it’s certainly worth waiting for corroborating evidence. On Tuesday evening, a Pentagon spokesman referred CNN to the White House on the matter. Three Defense Department officials, who requested anonymity so they could speak freely, told CNN that as of Tuesday night there was no indication that the incident was an “attack.
