Who needs facts when you’re Donald Trump?
Trump is firing statistics chiefs, rewriting museum displays and forcing Harvard to pay up – and that’s just this week. He's building his own version of reality - one where inconvenient truths simply get erased.
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In brief:
- Trump is creating his own version of reality where facts are whatever he says they are - sending troops to fight "rampant crime" in DC when crime is actually at a 30-year low, and shutting down economic data that doesn't fit his story.
- The administration is attempting to reshape both current narratives and historical records, including plans to review Smithsonian museum exhibits to remove what they consider "divisive or partisan narratives."
- The News Agents ask; is Trump dismantling the truth to make himself the only trustworthy narrator of America’s history?
What’s the story?
The sky is still blue and the sun still rises every day, but these constants increasingly feel like the only commonalities between Donald Trump’s America and everyone else’s.
Headlines from Donald Trump’s agenda this week reveal something suspicious happening: the construction of an alternate reality where truth is whatever the president says it is.
“You can have truth, but it's got to be Donald Trump's version of the truth, and no other is allowed,” Jon Sopel says on The News Agents USA.
One such example from this week is the President deploying National Guard troops to Washington DC to tackle “rampant crime” in the nation's capitol… although, official statistics show that violent crime in the city is at a 30 year low.
“Trump is once again, ignoring all those facts, ignoring the stats, and pursuing his own line of nuclear button outrage,” Emily says.
As well as deploying the National Guard in Washington, Trump has been intervening in; the country’s data - firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), cultural institutions - ordering an inventory of Smithsonian museum exhibits, and educational institutions - taking funding away from Harvard.
“I don't want to exaggerate it, but it feels like there is a war on truth going on in America right now, led by Donald Trump, where you have to say what he thinks,” Jon Sopel says.
“That is not a country of free speech and free expression. That is a country that is under the thumb of an authoritarian ruler who just will not accept any dissent whatsoever.”
What’s happening at the Bureau of Labor Statistics?
Donald Trump has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after the release of one negative jobs report, which showed that the demand for new employees was weaker than previously thought.
The president accused McEntarfer of having "rigged" the statistics to make him look bad - something widely rejected by economists.
Jon says her firing shows “remarkably thin skin” from the President, that one report he doesn’t like means she was shown the door and for all he knew, the figures could have bounced back next month.
His pick to take over the position, conservative think-tank economist EJ Antoni, has sparked concerns after suggesting the possibility of suspending the bureau's flagship monthly jobs report altogether - having previously criticised the BLS statistics as being "phoney baloney".
"Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE," Trump posted on Truth Social.
Trump has chosen Antoni for the role because he wants to “massage the truth about the state of the US economy,” Jon says, adding that he is going to “presumably deliver the statistics that Donald Trump wants”.
“The statistics are the statistics!”
What’s happening at the Smithsonian museum?
Trump isn't just reshaping how we understand current events - he's also seeking to revise historical narrative, with the White House announcing plans to review Smithsonian museum exhibits and strip out anything they deem "divisive or partisan."
One display at the museum explaining what happened on January 6 2021, noted how Trump gave a speech that “encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — imminent lawless action at the Capitol.” That display has now been rephrased.
“So that stand had to go from the Smithsonian Museum,” Jon says.
“And you think: ‘Hang on, you are literally rewriting history’.
“Donald Trump is rewriting what happened in the past to make it fit his narrative. It’s an intolerance of anything that contradicts him,” he adds.
But Trump’s intervention in the museum goes beyond displays mentioning his own past, it is also “an erasing of many parts of America's African American history, black history, brown history, the cultural part of American history that made it so rich,” Emily explains.
What’s happening at Harvard?
Harvard is reportedly set to agree to pay $500 million (£369 mn) to various schemes after pressure from Trump to reach a settlement with the White House to restore federal funding.
The White House froze more than $2 billion (£1.47 bn) in federal funds after a fallout with the Ivy League university after Trump accused it of failing to confront antisemitism on campus and staff having political bias, amongst other things.
“Essentially, they are bending to the will of the Trump administration,” Emily says.
She adds that Harvard is most probably one of the institutions in America she’d have thought would be “robust” “rich” and “intellectual” enough to put up a fight.
“If Harvard cannot stand up to Trump, then you kind of look around and you think, who's left?
“Where is the backbone now in America?”
What’s The News Agents’ take?
These events happen as the US State Department has released a report criticising the UK for what it sees as limiting freedom of expression, human rights abuses and censorship.
“Meanwhile, if you cast your eye over the pond, what do you see?” Emily asks.
“Overreach on the streets of Washington. Overreach in terms of the Bureau of Labour Statistics, Overreach in some of the highest educational institutions, like Harvard, overreach into cultural institutions which should well be left alone.
“And this is from a man who is trying to convince us that he values freedom of speech?
“He doesn't.”
While Trump’s truth and the objective truth are two different things, Emily warns that what’s scary is that all he has to do is create a perception of something, and that becomes the reality that people believe.
“The actions Trump has taken this week begs one big question: Is he dismantling truth to make himself the only trustworthy narrator of America’s history?”