Trump Lies to Troops’ Faces About Pay Raise He Gave Them

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You come to Mother Jones for unique journalism, and we love doing it for you. That's it. That's the upshot of our fall fundraising drive, and we're hoping to raise $250,000 in a shorter than normal three-week window so we can keep right on doing it.

We all know Donald Trump lies a lot. But this is pathological:

Speaking to members of the military during his surprise trip overseas this week, President Trump spoke about the raises they received. “You haven’t gotten one in more than 10 years — more than 10 years,” he said Wednesday. “And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one.”

He continued: “They said: ‘You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3 percent. We could make it 2 percent. We could make it 4 percent.’ I said: ‘No. Make it 10 percent. Make it more than 10 percent.’ ”

It’s one thing to say this at, say, a press conference or something. But Trump repeated this nonsense to the actual troops it applies to. If there’s anyone in the world who knows he’s lying, it’s these guys. They know they haven’t gotten a 10 percent raise, but they have to stand at attention anyway and listen to their commander-in-chief BS them about it.

For the record, the 2017 pay increase (for 2018) was 2.4 percent. The 2018 increase (for 2019) was 2.6 percent. Adjusted for inflation, they’re both pretty close to zero.