On Sunday's ABC's telecast of "This Week", covered by C&L yesterday, Donald Trump told host George Stephanopoulos that Russia,"[Putin]'s not going to go into Ukraine. Just so you understand, he's not going to go into Ukraine."
Facts are a pesky thing and they say otherwise and the ABC host quickly corrected Trump by saying, "Well, he's already there, isn't he?"
Trump revised his erroneous statement and said, "Okay-- well, he's there in a certain way."
Putin is either in Crimea or he's not and reality says he is.
However, that didn't stop an official Trump surrogate, Boris Epshteyn from repeating the same lie that Donald Trump uttered when he said this on CNN last night.
“Again, Russia did not seize Crimea. We could talk about the conflict that happened between the Ukraine and Crimea, it’s an ongoing conflict, but there's no seizure by Russia. That is an incorrect statement, characterization of what happened."
Ryan Lizza tried to push back on his bogus assertion, but because time was short, the host didn't give him the opportunity to respond.
The New Yorker's Lizza then took to twitter to correct the record.
Exact quote from Trump campaign surrogate on CNN a few minute ago: "Russia did not seize Crimea." Literally Putin's propaganda.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 31, 2016
It's not THAT complicated. You said, "Russia did not seize Crimea." Nobody but Putin believes that. https://t.co/FcYfN3VpaJ
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) August 1, 2016
It's always funny when a know-nothing is forcing his supposedly know-something people into becoming know-nothings, themselves.
But it's very said when it happens in a presidential election.
BBC's Kim Ghattas said Comrade Trump sounded an awful lot like President Putin when she went on MSNBC's Morning Joe today:
"But when it comes to Ukraine and what Mr. Trump said it is very troubling because as many people have remarked this is the kind of language that Mr. Putin himself has used to dismiss the idea that he annexed Crimea, right? He said that it was the Crimeans who decided for self-determination. That's not exactly what happened and it raises a lot of questions about what exactly is driving Mr. Trump, and I know we've all speculated about that. But there is this uncomfortable feeling that arises when a candidate seems to be more in tune with the foreign policy of another country and it raises a lot of questions about exactly what his foreign policy is going to be like."
