To the Editor:

This week President Trump claimed before an audience of 9/11 first responders: “I was down there [at Ground Zero] also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder, but I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.” There is no evidence of this, but Trump was recorded that day mentioning in passing, over the radio, that his was now the tallest building in Manhattan. Imagine saying this (falsely, it was 32nd), on the day of that tragedy.

The President waited a beat after making the claim of working among the first responders – a claim dismissed as untrue by the Chief of the New York City Fire Department – for applause that never came.

But this was not the only high untruth spoken by the President this week. Following month-long attacks on four black Congresswomen critical of his policies, who he said should return to their countries – all of them citizens and three U.S. born – he tweeted that black Congressman Elijah Cummings was a “racist” and a “brutal bully.”

What excruciating irony.

Rep. Cummings, who was nearly beaten to death on a march with Martin Luther King, and is a hero of the non-violent Civil Rights movement – a brutal bully and a racist?

These are slanders that match in depravity the President’s claim of having worked at Ground Zero.

For evangelical (especially) and other Trump supporters nearing exodus, on the cusp of leaving his camp, all I can think to say is follow your heart, it’s the revealer of Integrity.

Paul Baribault
Lewiston