President Donald Trump has made over 18 thousand "false or misleading claims" since his inauguration in 2017. That's an average of nearly 15 lies per day, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that taking the President's word at something often requires the rejection of all readily available evidence.
Such was the case when Fox News's Ed Henry spoke with White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley on the network on Thursday.
Gidley was attempting to defend the President from a statement issued by Trump's former Secretary of Defense, James Mattis.
In the piece, Mattis said of his former boss:
"Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership."
Trump responded predictably with a day-long string of angry tweets in which he called Mattis "the world's most overrated general."
Gidley assured that Trump was, in fact, trying to unite the country, but Henry appeared skeptical of these claims.
Watch below.
11AM | America's Newsroom 6/4/20 | Fox News Today June 4, 2020youtu.be
Henry said:
"When General Mattis says that the President is not even pretending to try to unite people, aren't you making his point? When he says that and rather than inviting him in and saying, 'What do you mean? Let's bring people together,' you're attacking this retired general. Isn't that making the point that you're not uniting people?"
The first sentence out of Gidley's rebuttal an inherently divisive statement:
"No, the division is on the other side. The President has talked many times about healing, not hatred. Justice, not chaos."
Gidley went on to quote lines from a recent speech by the President calling for peace and civility and "building up, not tearing down."
The irony of Trump calling for civility wasn't lost on Henry, who said:
"But calling him the most overrated general when he's the former Defense Secretary of this President? That's uniting people? Calling him the most overrated?"
Gidley responded that General Mattis didn't know what was going on in American cities.
People tended to side with Henry.
The statement from the General has added even more scrutiny to the shortcomings of Trump's leadership.
Trump continues to rage on Twitter.
