So Monday night I debated former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on President Trump’s latest actions on NAFTA. In the course of the debate I mentioned that my local dry cleaner opposed NAFTA because women’s garments coming in to the country had a tendency to bleed when cleaned, obviously because of the poor quality of dyes used. The problem had cost him money over the years — and thus his explanation of why he opposed NAFTA and supported Trump for president.

Imagine my surprise later in the evening when I got an e-mail from Jamie Weinstein of the Daily Caller that alerted me to a startling story. It seems that Yashar Ali, a contributor (not, for the record, a staffer) to the Daily Beast, had tweeted out the following:

CNN’s Jeffrey Lord is saying NAFTA has caused women to come into this country who don’t use tampons + that’s hurting the dry cleaning biz.

Say what?????!!!!!!!

Twitter being Twitter, this utterly false and bizarre interpretation of what I said quickly went everywhere. As seen in this version from Mediate, no less than NRO’s estimable Jonah Goldberg appeared to swallow the bait — hook, line, and sinker. So too did Robert George of the New York Daily News. So did a Hillary supporter named Tammy Dean, the latter having — pricelessly — this quote from Alexander Hamilton on her page: “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” Alas for Ms. Dean, she fell — hard and quite publicly — for one of the stupidest, not to mention bizarrely untrue tweets of the still early new year. Sadly, a site claiming to be the “Conservative Angle” also bit.

Now, the for-the-record truth.

My comments, abbreviated for TV time constraints, came about from a long conversation with my dry cleaner during the fall campaign. And I have an excellent witness: reporter Tina Nguyen of Vanity Fair. Tina was writing a profile of me for VF’s Hive on its online version, the story appearing here. In the course of her reporting Tina came to Harrisburg to check out my local stomping grounds and try to understand why I not only supported Donald Trump but why what I was hearing at the grass roots level led me to believe early on that he was not merely a serious candidate but had the potential of winning the presidency. In the course of her visit I took her to my local dry cleaner. Ace reporter that she is Tina pulled out her recorder and had a chat with the dry cleaner. Tina has been kind enough to post the following series of tweets:

.@yashar @AndrewKirell Can confirm. When I did a piece on Lord for @VFHIVE, we visited his dry cleaner in PA who made this very point (1/2) https://t.co/CgnDoxGz3U — Tina Nguyen (@tina_nguyen) January 24, 2017

Here’s video thanks to @AndrewKirell – is he talking about women’s menstruation/fabric? If it was fabric why did he say “women’s garments” pic.twitter.com/kQPvh9HIqr — Yashar (@yashar) January 24, 2017

.@yashar @AndrewKirell Going through the audio, the tailor specifically said that women’s dresses, made with 2 different fabrics and dyes… — Tina Nguyen (@tina_nguyen) January 24, 2017

.@yashar @AndrewKirell …could not be dry-cleaned w/o dye from one colored fabric bleeding into the other. He’s lost $$$ because of it… — Tina Nguyen (@tina_nguyen) January 24, 2017

.@yashar @AndrewKirell … hilariously, he said the retailer White House/Black Market (clothes are all black&white) was the worst offender. — Tina Nguyen (@tina_nguyen) January 24, 2017

So. Thank you Tina for helping me set the record straight.

Bad enough that serious people like Jonah, Monsieur George of the NY Daily News — not to mention the Conservative Angle — and all the rest fell for this bizarro interpretation. But Yashar? I know you are a Democratic Party activist. I understand you are disappointed with the results. I understand you hate the new President. Still… Gee. My man? What were you thinking about?!!!!!!

Actually, I guess we all know.