[machomaster]

> We have to take the Presidents Statements are credible, firstly, because it's the closest thing to the truth anyone has.

You are welcome to believe everything that President Putin is saying about anything, including Ukraine.

That's a profoundly absurd statement. Appeal to authority is a fallacy, especially with a trackrecord of an "authority" lying.

If the President's words are the truth, what to do with the statements in which he contradicts himself? What about situations in which 2 presidents disagree?

>The presidents statements in an official context are official, that's it.

Official, perhaps most of the time. Truthful, definitely not.

What's up with the inability to separate "opinions/statements" vs. "facts/truth"?..

[bluegatty]

I don't believe anything he says.

But his statements are the position of the US government aka the most 'truthful' representation of US policy.

I'm responding to the notion that because he lies and misrepresents, his statements don't count as representative somehow, which is not true.

If he says 'military force is on the table' for acquiring Greenland, we should assume he means to invade if wants.

[machomaster]

1. "Truth"

2. "Truthful representation of US government policy"

They are 2 very different things. And even the second one can be easily debated against due to:

1. Discrepancy between what countries say vs. what they actually do. Threats, lies, dishonesty, hiding truth, creative paraphrasing, etc. are normal ways the politics operates.

2. Trump's twitter messaging. What he says does not necessarily represent even his own opinions and policy. Case in point, when he announced the no-fly-zone over Venezuela a few weeks ago. The problem? It was only a tweet. No actual commands/decisions were made/given to the diplomats, bureucracy, military. It was a fake news by the President himself.