There are two kinds of liars in the world. There’s Donald Trump — and then there’s everyone else.
Despite what Mr. Trump’s appointed sycophants at the White House say, we all know with existential certainty that the president of the United States rarely tells the truth. He’ll lie about issues of life and death as casually as he lies about his prowess on the golf course.
Because he lacks the empathy chip that makes even chronic liars embarrassed about constantly presenting a false face to the public, Mr. Trump has transformed himself into a flesh-and-blood thought experiment illustrating what happens when a human commits totally to usurping the devil’s prerogative to “lie without ceasing.”
We really didn’t need “Rage,” Bob Woodward’s latest book of revelations to know this inarguable fact about the president, but the recordings the veteran reporter provided to news outlets of Mr. Trump admitting to misleading the country about the nature of a pandemic that has claimed more than 190,000 American lives, cuts far deeper than any pen could’ve accomplished alone.
In the tapes, we hear Mr. Trump in his own words, admit to understanding the nature of the virus, yet downplaying its lethality and seriousness because he didn’t want to “panic” the American people.
Please let that sink in. At a time that required maximum presidential leadership and action to avert the deaths of tens of thousands, Mr. Trump decided that the best course of action was to tell the American people the opposite of what was true.
At a time when health professionals were sounding alarms about how contagious the coronavirus was and the necessity of taking extreme precautions like social distancing, PPE and a plethora of commonsense actions, Mr. Trump supported those who called it “a hoax” and staged armed demonstrations against masks on the steps of state capitols.
In other words, Mr. Trump willfully and consciously aligned himself with those whose paranoia and suspicions about the government put them in opposition to the best interests of the American people.
The recordings prove that Mr. Trump was aware of the true nature of the virus from the earliest days. It’s not that he didn’t take the virus seriously, as some have alleged.
The truth is that Mr. Trump subordinated the interests of the American people to his own narrow interest — avoiding at all costs a situation that would slow economic activity and diminish his re-election chances. The lives that would be lost by such a cold-blooded calculation meant nothing to him.
Even though only a few people believed his words given his track record as a brazen liar, Mr. Trump’s negative example of refusing to wear a mask in public when he knew better, modeled powerful justification to those inclined to be equally anti-social for their own arcane reasons.
Still, hearing Mr. Trump admit to a depraved indifference for truth at a time when telling the truth would have spared thousands of our fellow citizens sickness, misery and death is a singular moment in the history of this country.
Donald Trump truly considers lying a discrete part of his presidential arsenal, like the veto or his pardon powers, except there’s nothing discreet about it or the way he uses lies to advance his agenda on every front.
It is interesting that Bob Woodward, who along with his colleague Carl Bernstein at The Washington Post helped topple President Richard Nixon nearly half a century ago, has delivered the most consequential reporting of the past four years about Mr. Trump’s presidential malpractice and negligence.
Those of us of a certain age remember the 18-minute gap on a Watergate-era recording that arguably cost Nixon his presidency. Mr. Trump arrogantly provided 18 hours of recorded testimony to the same reporter who already had a presidential trophy head adorning the wall of his home office.
Who knows why Mr. Trump believed he could charm an experienced reporter who has caused every president who has ever sat down with him since Watergate to regret it.
The fact that Mr. Trump doesn’t read and knows Mr. Woodward only by reputation and, perhaps, an inattentive viewing of “All the President’s Men,” starring Robert Redford as Woodward, persuaded him all would be well when one “celebrity” spoke man-to-man with another.
Mr. Trump has yet to absorb the simple lesson that every time he sits down with a non-Fox News-affiliated reporter, it is a disaster. A real reporter’s inclination is to run toward the light with damning information — not cover it up like the commentators at Fox who have heard far worse in countless “private” conversations with this man.
Think about it. Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity alone could’ve brought down his presidency years ago if they had been so inclined. Imagine what he tells those two stooges during their late-night whining sessions about the “lame stream media.” No wonder they’re not impressed with Mr. Woodward’s revelations — they’ve heard much worse.
There’s so much in Mr. Woodward’s book that it is difficult to isolate any one thing. My mind is blown by the fact that Mr. Trump casually revealed to a reporter the existence of a secret weapons system the Russians and Chinese didn’t know existed.
Didn’t Julius and Ethel Rosenberg go to the electric chair in the 1950s on suspicion of slipping nuclear secrets to the Russians? Standards have obviously changed. The military probably declassified its UFO-watching program just to give Mr. Trump a shiny new object to get his mind off the new weapons system — “look, everybody, Aliens!”
Mr. Trump’s confabulations are obvious to everyone. Only his press secretary and vice president pretend he’s capable of even a moment of honesty.
All of his supporters are in the same position. It takes a lot of self-lobotomizing to face questions about their hero’s lying with the same robotic mantra every day: “Donald Trump doesn’t lie, obfuscate, dissemble, ‘play down’ or deviate one iota from the truth, ever!”
I’m reading Mr. Woodward’s book now. I will have a review in Tuesday’s column after taking sufficient amounts of anti-nausea medication.
Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631. Twitter @Tony_NormanPG.
First Published: September 11, 2020, 4:00 a.m.
