Trump can’t stop lying about people calling to praise him

Donald Trump

The sitting US president is an insecure child who craves approval so badly he’s willing to make it up. Why else would Trump keep bragging about fictitious laudatory phone calls?

President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal that after his controversial speech at the Boy Scouts National Jamboree in West Virginia, the head of the Boy Scouts called him and told him it was "the greatest speech that was ever made to them." But the organization told TIME they are unaware of any call from national leadership placed to the White House.

“The Chief Scout Executive’s message to the Scouting community speaks for itself,” the organization said, referring to a July 27 statement from Michael Surbaugh, the Chief Scout Executive for the Boy Scouts of America, who apologized to anyone in the scouting community who could have been offended or alarmed by the political rhetoric in the speech.

"For years, people have called upon us to take a position on political issues, and we have steadfastly remained non-partisan and refused to comment on political matters. We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the Scouting program," Surbaugh wrote.

As an aside, if they didn’t want politics in their jamboree, maybe they shouldn’t have invited a flaming demagogue who can’t help but mouth off about his nonexistent political accomplishments.

Beyond that, it’s hard to determine which is more unsettling: that the President would try to bolster his ego by lying about something as trivial as a speech to the Boy Scouts, or that he’s so pathetically insecure that he’d feel the need to do so in the first place.

Better yet, he then went and lied about another phone call that never happened, this one from the Mexican president supposedly calling to praise his border policies. Y’know, if Trump keeps putting words in President Nieto’s mouth, he’s gonna have a hard time convincing Mexico to pay for his wall.^*

And just as I’m finishing up this post, the White House now confirms (in their typically disingenuous way) that neither call took place as Trump claimed.

(via Joe.My.God.)

* I wonder if he really believes it’ll ever happen.