Why Robert Reich Is Calling Trump out
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In a Facebook post published Friday, former Secretary of Labor and political commentator Robert Reich accused Donald Trump of botching three major arguments the president-elect has made recently.
Reich, who has criticized Trump's remarks and politics before, opened his post by saying Trump's Thursday statement about the murder rates in our country is inaccurate.
"Trump told a rally audience last night that 'The murder rate in the United States is the largest it’s been in 45 years,' when in fact it’s near a 50-year low, according to the FBI," Reich wrote, including a hyperlink to an FBI graph on murder rates in the country.
Reich then criticized Trump's claim that he won by a "landslide."
Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with a 2.8 million vote lead, which was significantly higher than former Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore's popular vote margin in the 2000 election. In response to Clinton's popular vote win, Trump famously tweeted in November that he would have won the popular vote had undocumented immigrants been unable to cast their votes for her. Snopes swiftly reported that it could not verify Trump's claim about undocumented voters.
Continuing his argument about 2016 election votes, Reich took Trump to task for saying that the election had massive voter fraud.
"[Trump] repeatedly says the election was marred by 'massive voting fraud' when in fact there’s no evidence of voting fraud at all – unless you consider Russia’s hacking," Reich wrote, acknowledging reports that Russia interfered with election results via hacking.
"A democracy can only function on the basis of truth. If the public is repeatedly told by its president that the murder rate is soaring, it may support policies such as harsher policing and sentencing – the opposite of what we need. If repeatedly told that Trump won by a landslide, the public may give him a mandate he doesn't deserve," Reich continued. "If told of 'massive voter fraud' the public may support further efforts to suppress votes through rigid ID and other requirements. A President-elect who repeats boldface lies poses a clear threat to American democracy. This is how tyranny begins."
