There are swarms of Lefty Lies about Trump University, and most revolve around Trump’s saying that he would hand-pick professors for the university. Let’s undo the Lefty Lies concerning this, once and for all.

According to Factcheck.org, March 8, 2016:

Trump claimed that “many of” the university’s instructors were “handpicked” by him. That’s not true. In a 2012 deposition, a top executive for Trump University said that “none of our instructors” was picked by Trump himself.

It also quoted Trump as saying [red emphasis mine]:

“We’re going to have professors and adjunct professors that are absolutely terrific. Terrific people. Terrific brains. Successful. We’re going to have the best of the best. And, honestly, if you don’t learn from them, if you don’t learn from me, if you don’t learn from the people that we are going to be putting forward — and these are all people that are handpicked by me — then you’re just not going to make it in terms of the world of success.”

There are two points to make about this.

Point 1

When McDonald’s say, “We hand select our beef,” we do not assume the owners of McDonald’s go out and select the beef. We assume they send experts. Their “we” and Trump’s “me” are the same thing. The experts both use, are extensions of themselves. Similarly, Trump will say, “I built the Trump Tower,” which is technically untrue because he didn’t actually “build” it with his hands. By “built” he means he had it built by a number of experts. It is common talk in business, not a lie . It is also common talk in politics, which is why Obama might say, “I gave you Obamacare.” That is technically not true since it took tens of thousands of people to create Obamacare. Obama didn’t make even one page of their website, for instance. However, we accept his “I gave you Obamacare,” in the same way we accept McDonald’s, “We hand-select our beef,” because we understand that the experts who actually did the selecting or building were an extension of McDonald’s, Obamacare or Trump Tower, etc.

We don’t go screaming “LIAR! LIAR!” at Obama, McDonald’s or any other business when they speak like this – only Trump – because he is the victim of an unfair attack. So no, there is no lie here, unless all people are liars for doing exactly the same thing. For instance, you might tell your daughter, “I got you this car.”

Did you?

Or was it the Iron Mining Company, Steel Foundry, Plastics Manufacturers, Engine Makers, Gearbox Makers, Glass Manufacturers, Wheel Makers, Tire Makers, Car Company, Robots and Workers, Transport Company, Car Salespeople and Petroleum Companies that “got” her the car? Weren’t you really just the person who paid?

If we want to get technical about who “hand-picked” what, then we’re all liars, not just Trump.

Point 2