It’s bad enough that Donald Trump used and lied to a grieving widow at his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. His claim that “valuable intelligence” was obtained in the raid that killed William “Ryan” Owens and 30 civilians including children is an outright fabrication. The father of the slain SEAL is calling for an investigation into the raid and refused a meeting with Trump.
So, rather than admonishing Trump for the bad call he made in approving the raid, or pointing out the exploitative nature of using Owen’s widow in his speech, what are right-wing GOP officials in Colorado doing?
They’re lying:
Got it? The vice chair of the Colorado GOP Derrick Wilburn and vice chair of the El Paso County GOP Joshua Hosler both claim that Democrats didn’t stand for the grieving widow during the SOTU speech. No doubt they got the idea from one of the many fake news posts going around that make the claim, but it is an absolute lie. Here is the video of the speech provided by the White House (go to the 49 minute mark to see relevant portion):
Interestingly, when someone provided Hosler with the above link disproving his claim, his response was to claim the fact-checking website SNOPES has been “outed as inaccurate”.
Then, even after he was given video proof from the White House website, Hosler posted the following on his timeline:
Got it? He posted a lie. He was given video evidence that it was a lie, and his response is to say that other people “don’t even believe video proof”.
I have no idea how someone can live with such intellectual dissonance. Joshua should just admit he is wrong and move on. What is there to gain from clinging to a lie except avoiding the examination of your own conscience for supporting a man as contemptible and dishonest as Donald Trump?
