Welp! Trump is lying again, and this time, one of his closest accomplices cannot even save his face
Those who have been following Donald Trump’s career closely would know that he likes to lie occasionally (well, most of the time). He is not necessarily good at it, but he hasn’t figured that out yet. As a result, every now and then, his lies completely blow up in his face, and that is exactly what is happening once again.
On January 3, 2026, after capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump held a press briefing to update the nation on the developments. While he made numerous statements regarding the incident, mostly filled with self-praising comments about himself and his administration, he also took some time to answer questions from the press who were gathered there to discuss the event. During one of these questions, Trump was asked to comment on his decision to grant a full pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year sentence in a U.S. federal prison for drug trafficking and weapons offences for which he was convicted in 2024. Discussing these circumstances, Trump indicated that the people standing behind him (gesturing to United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio), who believed that Hernández was “persecuted” and treated “very badly”, had a significant role in his pardon.
Initially, everyone took Trump’s words at face value, but later, Marco Rubio appeared on ABC and seemingly confirmed that Trump was not being honest when he said that his decision to pardon Hernández was based on advice he received from people like Rubio and others. When asked to comment on Hernández’s situation, especially since he was convicted by a jury, Rubio attempted to deflect accountability by using the oldest trick in the Republican playbook: pretending not to know anything. Marco Rubio said he was not “involved” in the pardon authority that was responsible for overseeing Juan Orlando Hernández’s case. When asked if he supports Trump’s decision to grant a pardon to Hernández, Rubio again took the usual route of lying and deflection, refused to utter a single bad word from his mouth about Trump and said:
“I wasn’t involved in those deliberations. I haven’t looked at the case files. I haven’t looked at the arguments made… I can’t comment on a case that, frankly, I’m aware of, but not deeply familiar with. I don’t want to comment on something that I haven’t had a chance to be involved in reviewing the file and the rationale behind it.”
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