The first Trump administration began with a lie.
On January 21, 2017, President Donald Trump’s then–press secretary, Sean Spicer, claimed that Trump had drawn the largest audience to ever witness a presidential inauguration. Photographs clearly showed that the assertion was false; Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had drawn a much larger crowd at his first inauguration. But it didn’t matter.
“These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong,” Spicer said.
In one sense, Spicer’s lie was trivial. But in another sense, it mattered quite a lot, because it was a lie about a demonstrable fact. Kellyanne Conway, then a counselor to Trump, memorably defended Spicer by claiming that he was offering “alternative facts,” treating observable reality like hot wax, to be molded at will.
Fast-forward eight years. Trump is once again president. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, was mistakenly included on a private group chat—via Signal, a nongovernmental messaging app—in which Trump-administration officials discussed a planned bombing campaign in Yemen. Goldberg reported on the reckless and devastating breach of national security. But rather than acknowledging the mistake and promising to address it, the Trump administration reflexively followed its standard approach: attack. Smear. Prevaricate.
“He is, as you know, is a sleazebag, but at the highest level,” Trump said of Goldberg. “His magazine is failing.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who shared the most sensitive information on the group chat, wrapped his attack on Goldberg in layers of lies: “You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” He added, “Nobody was...
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