Trump's Deranged Lies About Border Patrol Assault Force His Own Government to Contradict Him

Under President Trump and Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the Department of Homeland Security rarely misses an opportunity to stoke fear of migrants coming to the United States, but after a violent Border Patrol attack following protests in Tijuana on Sunday, Customs and Border Patrol was forced to release a statement that uh, directly contradicted the president’s wild lying about what happened.

During remarks to the White House press pool on Monday night, Trump decided to just go off about migrants, specifically saying that several Border Patrol officers were “very badly hurt” during an incident with members of the migrant caravan who were pushing close to the border and throwing rocks during a protest.

Customs and Border Patrol said that, actually, no one was seriously hurt, and that the four agents who got hit with rocks “were wearing protective gear and did not suffer serious injuries.”

Bloomberg reporter Toluse Olorunnipa immediately pointed out this discrepancy.

It’s worth noting that the CBP statement is still full of all kinds of inflammatory rhetoric. During the incident on Sunday, agents fired tear gas at families with small children—something Trump was apparently completely fine with, since he gave a deranged series of quotes alleging that some of the adults shown in pictures fleeing tear gas were “grabbers” that were using children as props.

It shouldn’t be surprising that the president is exaggerating even his most aggressive agency’s rhetoric against immigrants, but here we are.