As president of the United States.
Maybe people are more used to hearing or seeing people lying because we have the example over
the Atlantic of President Trump.
But I'm not even sure whether he knows that he's lying or not.
I mean I've always taken the view that it is deliberate but I'm not too sure whether
with Trump whether he realizes what he's saying is the truth or not.
I think he's almost gone past it.
I'm not a psychologist but I think it will be interesting to have somebody look at the
state of mind which produces the effects that President Trump does.
And there is just so much information around and you could see this with the sort of confidence
of say in the way Donald Trump uses his lies to say well this this truth is as good as
any other truth.
This is my truth.
This could be fake news.
You sort it out.
This is fake news put out by the media.
But when you take the row over Trump's inauguration that very much was an early preview of what
we're about to see with the presidency itself a constant rolling battle with the media in
which those media rows would distract from the substance of what was happening.
Trump's associates actually doctored the photos cropped them so that they only showed the
thick crowds at one end of the square whereas Obama had filled the square so that you know
there's there's incontrovertible documentary evidence and still Donald Trump continue to
insist that he'd drawn a bigger crowd.
And so he was able to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to assert that actually
as his press secretary ended up telling reporters they've been the largest audience ever period.
He knows that his hard core his core supporters are not going to worry really whether it's
true or not and that they will accept at face value anything he says specifically this.
I suppose one of the later ones was on the state visit when he claimed that if we had
a trade deal with America, with the United States then the National Health Service would
be included.
The very next day he said oh no it wouldn't be.
Now is that a lie or what what is it.
I mean it get it almost beyond belief.
In fact and I can't judge the truth of this of course.
But the Washington Post and other US journalists have tried to count the number of lies that
they claim that Donald Trump has told since he took office and the figure in April this
year 2019 was 10000.
I know some people will compare President Trump with Boris Johnson in as much as they
appear to say some contradictory things.
I think there is a very vast difference between them even though they appear to be friends.
I think the trouble with Boris is that he gets carried away in a fit of exuberance and
says something which perhaps he doesn't really mean and will retract or amend at a later
stage.
Now whether that is lying I think it's a gray area.
Like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self-doubt.
And this goes right back and perhaps is to some extent provable to his record when he
was the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Brussels and he he made up stories he made up ludicrous
stories about the bureaucracy of the European Union and their crazy pronouncements.
Some of these stories they weren't all attributed to Johnson but were later repeated particularly
in the Daily Mail about the idea that bananas would have to be straightened.
That cows would have to wear Pampers and Bombay mix would no longer be allowed to be called
Bombay mix because it was a British imperial name would have to be renamed.
This was all nonsense.
Well certainly cynicism is very deeply embedded in the national psyche and voters elsewhere
around the world feel this like in the US.
When it's a distrust not just of the political class but also of establishment figures officials.
And so this is why you see the BBC has been widely distrusted by some you know even I
as part of Telegraph will be distrusted by some people on Twitter and social media.
This is why you have people going to alternative media outlets, they describe and decry the
MSM the mainstream media for peddling what they say is fake news establishment narratives.
The question is that the amendment we agreed to as many as that opinion will say Content
contrary not content.
Lying is stigmatized I think rightly because it shows distrust.
How can you rely on somebody if they're not telling you the truth.
And so I think consistent lying.
As I say it It unsettles people.
It destroys integrity and trustworthiness in the system.
So I think if it went on for too much you could start to degrade the entire system.
And I think that is why it's so important.