Since the day he took office, Donald Trump has done his best to make a mockery of the American presidency with a near-countless number of lies since January 20. According to Politifact, 390, or 68 percent, of his statements, have been rated as "mostly false," "false," or "pants on fire."
His most egregious lie lately is that he can't do anything about the "zero tolerance" immigration policy his own administration created. Under this administration, immigrants who crossed the border illegally would be prosecuted. This sounds reasonable, right? However, many of the people being arrested have been trying to cross the border to get asylum, which is not illegal, to escape an extreme situation in their home country. This policy led to many pictures and videos surfacing of immigrant children crying and pleading for their parents after being separated.
Backlash from both Democrats and Republicans ensued, but the White House persisted. Its Twitter sent out this tweet: "ENOUGH of the misinformation. This Administration did not create a policy of separating families at the border. This is a flat-out lie put out by the media representing the most powerful office in the history of the United States."
Unsurprisingly, the Trump Administration went through a PR nightmare trying to fix their image on the crisis. The church of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the United Methodist Church, brought charges against him including child abuse. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted that the Department does not have a policy of separating families at the border. That was a lie. Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski went on Fox News to defend the policy and said "womp womp" when told a story about a 10-year-old girl with down syndrome was separated from her parents at the border.
Trump himself had a hard time getting his story straight on the policy. At first he said it was the Democrats' fault for the zero-tolerance policy being implemented in the first place. Then he said Congress must be the one to fix it because he can't do it by executive order. Then he signed an executive order ending the separation. Then he celebrated and was praised for ending the policy he created. His administration at any time could have stopped the separation policy, but it took a massive amount of backlash from media, fellow politicians, celebrities, and most importantly the American people to stop the madness.
Once it was finally acknowledged that these children are in cages in detention camps, the conservative media went all out to defend the camps themselves. Laura Ingraham of Fox News said these kids were basically at summer camp. Fringe-right conservative Ann Coulter said that the migrant children are child actors and Trump should not be fooled.
I wish they really were like summer camp, but it's far worse. Court filings show that migrant children are being forcibly injected with powerful, psychiatric drugs that rendered them unable to walk, afraid of people and constantly wanting to sleep.
The grotesqueness of the Trump Administration knows no bounds, and this could just be the beginning if Republicans in Congress don't hold them accountable.