On Tuesday, various media outlets accused Donald Trump of making a “false” claim about the Boy Scouts’ reaction to his raucous appearance at the Jamboree last week.
In a “secret” interview with the Wall Street Journal that originally went unpublished until Politico leaked it Tuesday, Trump pushed back against a reporter’s comment that there were “mixed” reviews of his Boy Scouts speech.
“There was no mix there. That was a standing ovation from the time I walked out to the time I left, and for five minutes after I had already gone. There was no mix,” said Trump. “And I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. So there was — there was no mix.”
However, on Tuesday, BuzzFeed posted a series of tweets reporting that a Boy Scouts official told reporter Nidhi Prakash that they’re “unaware” of any call from their leadership to the White House and that Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh’s statement (below) speaks for itself about how the Scouts felt about Trump’s performance. CNN and the other MSM outlets also made sure to cover the new scandal.
Namako followed up his post with another tweet reminding everyone of the first “false claim” made by Trump about the event: Trump called the crowd “record-breaking.” BuzzFeed did some digging to try to prove Trump was somehow lying and came up with one time — way back in 1960 — when the crowd was likely bigger.
As The Daily Wire reported last week, Trump’s wild and wildly entertaining speech — which sounded a lot like a campaign rally — was predictably met with outrage from liberals, who were “horrified” and “appalled” that he took several political shots, including jabs at Barack Obama and Obamcare. The pushback was strong enough that Surbaugh issued an official apology to those offended by the political nature of some of the president’s comments.
“I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree. That was never our intent,” wrote Surbough. “It is in no way an endorsement of any person, party or policies,” he explained. “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.”
So who’s lying — praise-loving Trump or damage control-minded Surbough? And does anybody care?