Old Man Trump Is So Desperate for a War, He’s Inventing Them Now
Donald Trump made up a fictional war with France Wednesday, and then claimed to have stopped it.
During a speech in Duluth, Georgia, Trump—who previously touted himself a “wartime president” but now lies about how peaceful and safe his time in office was—was bragging about his record when he falsely claimed he really had prevented an international conflict.
“You have no idea what I did in the White House. I stopped wars … with France!” Trump said.
“France, you know the France story? They were gonna charge us, think of this, 25 percent to all Ameri—I have to protect American companies, whether we like ‘em or not. Some of ‘em I didn’t even like. You know Google is treating us much better, did you notice that? What happened to Google? They’re treating us much better.”
“They say McDonald’s was one of the most viewed things that they’ve ever had,” Trump cheered.
Trump: "You have no idea what I did in the White House. I stopped wars with France."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 24, 2024
His brain then flits to Google and McDonald's. All of this in about 30 seconds. pic.twitter.com/yxgYlycUCM
While there was obviously no threat of war with France, it’s possible that Trump was referring to a trade skirmish with France from his time in office. Paris passed a digital services tax on large tech companies including Google, Facebook, and Amazon in 2019. In response, Trump threatened to place tariffs of up to 100 percent on French goods such as champagne and luxury bags.
Undeterred, France ordered the tech companies to pay up in 2020. After Joe Biden entered the White House in 2021, he suspended Trump’s plan for retaliatory tariffs against France.
So the “war” Trump stopped wasn’t a war, it was a trade fight. And he didn’t even stop it. If anything, he escalated it.
But this might explain his incoherent weave from France to Google and back to his favorite subject, himself.