A leftist comedian apologized for lying about comments Donald Trump made during the presidential debate.
Progressive comedian Michael Ian Black falsely accused Trump of inventing the name of a Taliban leader whom Trump referred to simply as "Abdul."
During the debut episode of CNN's new comedy show Have I Got News For You, Black accused Trump of coming up with a stereotypical Arab name.
"He's such a hack. Like, he picked the most obvious name to make up for the head of the Taliban,” Black said.
Trump has repeatedly told a story about threatening to blow up the house of a Taliban leader named "Abdul." President Trump told the story again during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris on September 10.
"I got involved. And Abdul is the head of the Taliban. He is still the head of the Taliban. And I told Abdul, 'Don’t do it anymore. You do it anymore, you’re going to have problems.' And he said, 'Why do you send me a picture of my house?' I said, 'You’re going to have to figure that out, Abdul.' And for 18 months we had nobody killed."
Trump's story became the target of "fact checks" and mockery from the left.
In fact, Trump negotiated a treaty to end the war in Afghanistan with Taliban founder Abdul Ghani Baradar. Currently, Baradar serves as the deputy prime minister of the Taliban regime that took over the country after the Biden administration's botched 2021 withdrawal.
CNN promoted Michael Ian Black's tedious and misleading "joke," but Black later apologized in a statement on X.
"On behalf of the entire Have I Got News for You team I offer my sincere apologies,” the comedian said, before deleting the apology.
.@MichaelIanBlack why did you delete your apology to the American people? pic.twitter.com/2pNlcpLwrX
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) September 17, 2024
Trump has often told the story about threatening "Abdul" to take credit for an 18-month period in which no U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.
That period came to an abrupt end with the Biden administration's deadly August 2021 evacuation, which cost 13 U.S. troops their lives.
Biden infamously ignored the 13 fallen troops when he falsely claimed that no soldiers have died on his watch during his June debate with Trump on CNN.
During this month's ABC debate, Kamala Harris told several whoppers that went unchallenged by the moderators, including the false claim that there are no U.S. soldiers in active combat zones.
