Trump’s lie to the leader of a key ally shows how low he’ll stoop

I would say that now we’ve seen it all. But I am confident that Donald Trump will soon do something even more outrageous than lying to the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and then boasting about it to his donors and supporters, which is what he did on Wednesday at a fundraiser in Missouri.

My last column was about how chaos reigns supreme at the White House. After the extent of total discombobulation we saw last week, it is hard to imagine what could come next. Now we know.

{mosads}President Trump is not only a habitual liar (probably pathological at this point), but he is now bragging about how he bald-face lies to our allies — in this case Justin Trudeau.

While at a fundraiser Wednesday in Missouri, Trump recounted his conversation with PM Trudeau in which he he told the prime minister that the U.S. had a trade deficit with Canada, without knowing whether that was true.

According to the Washington Post, Trump role-played the conversation he had with Trudeau when he came to see Trump, even mimicking him at times. The conversation was caught on audio and obtained by the Washington Post.

According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the United States has a trade surplus, not a deficit with Canada. The report says that in 2016, the United States reported a trade surplus of $12.5 billion, which means it exported more in goods and services than it imported from Canada. It is not a deficit, it is a surplus. 

This embarrassing episode is getting a lot of attention, as it should, because it shows just how detrimental our commander in chief’s rampant penchant for lying really is. This was not a simple exaggeration or a “fake fact” he made up on the fly to feed his massive ego, such as the one he made up about the size of his inaugural crowd.

This lie was about a made-up trade deficit with one of our closest allies that Trump tried to use to further his obsessive (and in this case inaccurate) narrative about trade deficits and what they mean to a country’s economy.

We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive). P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the U.S.(negotiating), but they do…they almost all do…and that’s how I know!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2018

This lie represents the complete deficit of credibility and morality from which this president and his administration suffers.

Successful international relations and diplomacy among allies have to be based on a basic level of trust. Trump has proven that there can be no trust in what he says to either his supporters at a campaign rally or to another head of state. This is a sad and scary state of affairs that this president has put the United States in.

Simple mischaracterizations and unintended misunderstandings can and have led to international incidences and even war. Imagine where a malicious intentional lie can lead us?

There are personal repercussions as well for Trump as he continues his habitual lying. In the midst of the investigation into collusion and obstruction of justice by special counsel Robert Mueller, we know that at some point President Trump will be compelled to testify.

He has already lied during many past depositions of the many lawsuits in which he has been involved. If he lies under oath to the special counsel, Trump could be impeached.

Donald Trump still has clearly not understood the seriousness of the office he holds. He does not understand (or maybe doesn’t care) that the weight of history is on his shoulders. He has not realized that the office of the presidency is bigger and more important than Donald Trump.

So while Trump could very easily lie under oath to the special counsel and put himself on the path to impeachment, it would amount to a national embarrassment and dire domestic political fallout for Trump and Republicans.

Trump would certainly be burned. But if he continues to carelessly and deliberately lie on the global stage, it is more than his pants that will be on fire. It could be the country or the world.

Maria Cardona is a principal at the Dewey Square Group, a Democratic strategist and a CNN/CNN Español political commentator. Follow her on Twitter @MariaTCardona.