Lies Within The Lie, Part Two
Unpacking the Lies Underpinning "Liberation Day" Tariffs
“you keep saying lies, but I don’t think you understand the definition of a lie. Just because your opinion is different doesn’t make it a lie.”
— Fort Worth MAGA Influencer response to me about “Liberation Day”, July 26, 2025
Next Thursday the full United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit hears oral arguments on the Government’s appeal of the unanimous ruling that the “Liberation Day” tariffs were illegal. Earlier today I made a comment on Facebook that about the lies of April 2nd and a prominent Fort Worth MAGA influencer replied that I didn’t understand the definition of a lie. Both definitions and timing are important, so let’s dive into what a lie is before the hearing on July 31st.
The Definition of “Lie”
The first definition of lie requires more than an untrue statement. It also requires the intent to deceive, which also requires knowledge of falsity. In Part One of “Lies Within The Lie” I included the lack of an economic emergency as a lie as well as the fact that the tariffs announced were taxation, not regulation. The lack of an emergency I would qualify as meeting the first definition because the referenced trade deficits had been continuous since 1977 — not an emergency in any rational world. However, on tariffs qualifying as regulations, it’s possible that the President believed a legal opinion that casting taxation as a regulation might pass muster with a court. Even though it didn’t work, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. However, in addition to the false “emergency,” there are additional “Liberation Day” untruths that do fit the strictest definition of a lie. Let’s start with something that the President knows the definition of very well.
The United States Is Not a Victim
The President began his introduction to the “reciprocal” tariff announcement by saying that “our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered" by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.” He then announced a flat ten-percent tax on Americans purchases of goods from every country who wasn’t listed in the annex of specific reciprocal tariffs. This statement was jarring to me then, and still is. It’s widely known that the United States has been the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world since at least World War II and that we haven’t been invaded since the War of 1812. The United States has quite an advantage in all trade negotiations thanks to the United States Dollar, the United States State Department negotiating team and intelligence service support, and having the largest consumer market by far in he world.
From the perspective of United States citizens, such a lie may have the effect of convincing them that any unfair trade relationships are the fault of other countries rather than inept leadership from both prior administrations and Congresses of both parties, including the first Trump administration. In addition, please take the time to consider the effect of 194 countries with substantially weaker negotiating power hearing that they had somehow been “raping” the United States in trade negotiations. From the weakest county to China, that has profound implications for differing reasons.
The President Knows It’s Not True — On “Rape” Especially
It’s important to fully prove up a lie when you’re saying the President of United States is lying in one of the most consequential press conference of our lifetimes. One may contest whether the President understood America’s advantages in trade negotiations, but it’s hard to contest he knew that the United States hadn’t been raped. The word “rape” is uncomfortable, dangerous even, to use in writing about what the President did to E. Jean Carroll. So saying that we have been “raped” in a White House lawn press conference is significant.
Besides not being able to prove his international trade and US history knowledge, the President has many instances demonstrating reading difficulties. For example, on “The Apprentice” he would come up with his own dialogue on the fly during the read through rather than even reading through the script once. Most recently, he attempted to prove Federal Reserve Chairman wrong on budget costs on live television by pulling out a document, but he had to hand it to the Chairman to read it for him.
However, the President almost definitely has an intimate understanding of the word “rape” due to length, media coverage, reputational and financial stakes of E. Jean Carrol’s suits against him for defamation and sexual battery. Judge Kaplan in Carroll II said the following:
So why does this matter? It matters because Mr. Trump now contends that the jury's $2 million compensatory damages award for Ms. Carroll’s sexual assault claim was excessive because the jury concluded that he had not “raped” Ms. Carroll. Its verdict, he says, could have been based upon no more than “groping of [Ms. Carroll's] breasts through clothing or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape.” And while Mr. Trump is right that a $2 million award for such groping alone could well be regarded as excessive, that undermines rather than supports his argument. His argument is entirely unpersuasive.
This jury did not award Ms. Carroll more than $2 million for groping her breasts through her clothing, wrongful as that might have been. There was no evidence at all of such behavior. Instead, the proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm. Mr. Trump’s argument therefore ignores the bulk of the evidence at trial, misinterprets the jury’s verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of “rape” to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump. — “Carroll II” page 5 (Carroll v. Trump, No. 20‑cv‑07311, S.D.N.Y.)
Having experienced it personally, when the Judge uses your own words against you in a decision affecting millions of dollars in an internationally reported case, you not only remember it, you feel it and internalize it. The President thoroughly understood the word “rape” and knew the United States had not been violated to that degree even metaphorically by friend and foe alike.
Most Tariff Rates Were Not Reciprocal
The April 2nd executive order followed “Regulating Imports” with the another definitional lie of the phrase “Reciprocal Tariffs.”The President himself defined “reciprocal” pretty well in his “Liberation Day” speech as “that means they do it to us, we do it to them, very simple, can’t get any simpler than that.” The Executive Order’s Annex of Reciprocal Tariffs only listed fifty-seven countries out of 194, however. The remaining countries were still tariffed 10%. One not need to inspect the tariff rates of the fifty-seven countries to see that “reciprocal” was a blatant lie in terms of the other 137 countries that the President was taxing Americans on goods imported from.
The accuracy of claiming the listed rates for the fifty-seven targeted were reciprocal tariffs can be analyzed and debated, but more importantly, consider the “reciprocal” lie and the basis of the “Liberation Day” speech through the lens of our allies and free trade partners who were hit ambushed with a flat ten-percent tariff rate and told that our friends had raped us. When one picks a fight with the whole world, being honest about the reason seems important.
Airing Out the Lies Publicly
The world will have a chance to hear government lawyers defend these lies and the legal basis for tariffs on Thursday, July 25th during the Federal Circuits en banc oral arguments. We will be posting information about how to listen in on those arguments on our social media as well as chiming in afterwards. If you haven’t yet, follow us on your preferred social media platforms using our Linktree. Also, the Linktree and every other subscription involved in this project cost money and Substack and donations are the exclusive ways to help us get to breakeven on those. Please consider subscribing below. If you choose a paid subscription, you will also received a free corresponding subscription to our reporting and editorial cartoon companion Resistance Rabbit.
Notes and Sources:
Thanks to a thoughtful review by Mark Maxwell of Fort Worth on my Facebook post of this article, I added the section on why the President has to know deep in his being the meaning of the word “rape.” If I can find the time, a think a separate article on the importance of saying the President is a rapist is important — once you’re comfortable that it’s not defamatory to say, we should say it to anyone who either doesn’t know or thinks E. Jean Carrol’s rape claims were a hoax thanks to the President’s claims or MAGA influencers like Chad Prather who still has a video up with false and unfair statements about her motives and claims up on their platforms.
“The Apprentice” Potential Dyslexia Reference — The Hole’s interview of staffer Noel Casler’s is worth watching in its entirety or reading this automated, unverified transcript, but this part about the President’s reading is worth including here:
Noel Casler: A PA came up once and said, here's your. Here's your I call her. You know, that was a nickname. But here's your side's Ivanka. And I've given them to your father, too. And she's like, oh, really? I'm sure he'll read them right away. And her and Jared are laughing because he's dyslexic. He can't read. So?
Rob Sprance: So he. So he's definitely dyslexic. He can't.
Noel Casler: Um, that's where the Adderall comes in.
Rob Sprance: Yeah. Okay, so let's dive into this part. So there's a couple of things, a couple of things that just absolutely blew my mind. The Adderall is one. And you know what? It does make sense retroactively because they're, you know, a lot of the sniffing and everything else. So, like, what is he doing? Like, he's he's just crushing up pills and snorting.
Noel Casler: Pills and snorting it. And he's a he's an old he's a, you know, he's a Coke head for 20, 30 years. If you ever look on the side of his nose, there's a big place for where he had a capacity. He blew out the, you know, the middle of his nose like Coke knows I'm doing too much blow. So cocaine is his party time drug, you know. But since the late 90s, or whenever Adderall came on the scene around them, Adderall is his maintenance. — Unverified Automated Transcript.