True Lies

Created
Wed, 01/05/2024 - 23:00
Updated
Wed, 01/05/2024 - 23:00
Trump’s persona is not even “truthful hyperbole” Ahead of the 2016 election Donald Trump won, The New York Times cited a now-famous paragraph from Donald Trump’s ghost-written “The Art of the Deal.” David Barstow wrote: “I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion.” For example, in the now-infamous Trump University litigation, Mr. Trump was asked in a deposition about a script that had been prepared for Trump University instructors. According to the script, the instructors were supposed to tell their students the following: “I remember one time Mr. Trump said to us over dinner, he said, ‘Real estate is the only market that, when there’s a sale going on, people run from the store.’ You don’t want to run from the store.” No such dinners ever took place, Mr. Trump acknowledged. In fact, Mr. Trump struggled to identify a single one of the instructors he claimed to have handpicked, even after he was shown their photographs. Nonetheless, Mr. Trump was not bothered by the script’s false insinuation of real estate secrets shared over chummy dinners. Asked if this example constituted “innocent exaggeration,” Mr. Trump replied, “Yes, I’d say that’s an innocent exaggeration.” Trump’s entire life is hyperbole, like the book he did not write, the buildings he did not own, and the fortune he did not make. Theologians will tell you the Devil can tell the truth when it suits his purposes. It’s just not his preferred mode of communication. Nor…