Seth Meyers takes a closer look at Trump’s latest ‘weird’ lie

Seth Meyers and the rest of Late Night used their segment A Closer Look to examine President Donald Trump’s lies about raking in Finland.

Politicians are known to stretch the truth or perhaps enhance some details to support particular claims. President Donald Trump has gone far past the point of truth stretching to outright lying about all sorts of topics. But nobody would have guessed that Finnish forest management practices would be one of those topics. Not even Seth Meyers.

Meyers, along with Stephen Colbert, typically leads the late night charge on calling out Trump’s lies. Meyers ripped Trump during the mail bomb scare and has also called out the president for repeatedly attacking, vilifying, and misrepresenting the media.

Going after the “mainstream” media and political opponents has been Trump’s style since day one. That he would target them and stray from the truth has become expected during his administration. As hard as it has become to be surprised over the past two years, a lot of people were caught off guard when Trump made claims about talks he had with Finnish president Sauli Niinistö.

In an effort to place the blame for the Camp Wildfire in California on anything other than climate change, Trump suggested it was poor forest management and a lack of “raking” that contributed to the devastating fires. He suggested the U.S. should look to Finland for an example of how to properly rake the forest floor, citing remarks Niinistö said to him. But Niinistö denied ever covering the topic with Trump. That’s where Seth Meyers began his closer look:

A better summation of Donald Trump probably hasn’t happened before Meyers called the president a “flag-hugging, umbrella-ditching, can’t do a normal handshake kind of weirdo.” Even if he was the perfect statesman and the ideal democratic leader, these examples do prove that Trump is weird.

Weird is all fine and good. But weird mixed with lying while being the most powerful man in the world? A bad and dangerous combination. Trump is making other countries double check what is going on in their own backyards because he has no problem making things up on the fly where he won’t be questioned. A weird move but a pretty good move to pull when you’re lying.

It’s puzzling that Trump chose to lie about raking forests. He didn’t have to say anything. He was in California to observe the damage and listen to what California needed for assistance. Why say something about another country that can be so easily fact-checked? It seems that he simply cannot help himself.

There must be some level of satisfaction for these other countries that get to prove Donald Trump wrong. The president has insulted or dismissed so many countries and world leaders over the past two years. Other countries must be eager for Trump to make something up about them so they can quickly come back with a statement proving the president lied once again. Seth Meyers may not be the only one taking a closer look at Trump’s words now.