U.S. President Donald Trump’s habitual dishonesty is a trait well understood by the entire mainstream news media, and even many members of the conservative media. But it is not fully understood. Trump manages to lie in ways that hardened cynics never anticipated. The last few hours alone have brought news of fresh new forms of Trumpian dishonesty that have managed to shock even the people who were looking for it.
When Trump produced an absurd letter in 2016 declaring he “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” everybody assumed it had been written by his absurd doctor, Harold Bornstein. That was the scandal: Trump was being “treated” by a hilarious quack. Last night, we learned we had been far too naïve. The truth was that Bornstein never even wrote the letter, whose actual author was Trump. The most skeptical assumptions about Trump somehow proved too credulous.
