Trump 2.0: Even more off the chain?
Why does President Donald Trump lie so much? Because people believe him.
So says Billy Bush on his own rehabilitation mission after losing his sweet NBC Today show co-host job in the Access Hollywood tape fiasco with Trump in late 2016.
Appearing on HBO's "Real Time" on Friday, Bush recalled how Trump would exaggerate ratings of his "Celebrity Apprentice" shows when they faltered later in the show's run.
"He'd been saying it's No. 1 forever, and finally I'd had enough," Bush recalled to "Real Time" host Bill Maher last Friday. "I told him, 'Wait a minute, you haven't been No. 1 for like five years -- not in any category, not in any demo.' He goes, 'Did you see last Thursday? Last Thursday, 18-49, the last five minutes.' "
But later, when the cameras were turned off, Bush said, Trump was more candid. "Billy, look," Trump said, "you just tell them and they believe it. That's it: You just tell them and they believe. They just do."
Right. They just do.
Or as P. T. Barnum is said to have said, despite a lack of evidence, "There's a sucker born every minute."
This is the sort of cynical attitude that is seldom expressed openly by politicians.
Bush's story sounds not only credible but highly likely, if you've been following our president's breathtakingly cavalier attitude toward inconvenient facts. Among other tallies that have kept fact-checkers busy, the Washington Post reports that his average of 4.9 false or misleading statements per day has soared up to an average of six a day.
Yet, just two nights before Bush's interview, the president achieved a new level of arrogance about the topic. He boasted in a private fundraising speech that he made up information in a meeting with the leader of our nation's closest ally, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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