About that Trump interview with the NYT

It was rare for a reporter, like Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, to snag a 30 minute, sit-down interview with President Trump.   So it was certainly worth taking.

But here's the thing about any interview with our truth-challenged president.  You have to sort out what to believe and how to take the obvious falsehoods.   We know that a lot of Trump's lies simply stem from his narcissistic need to be seen as the best, to be most admired, to have the most accomplishments.

But Ezra Klein (Vox.com) suggests that at times its hard to tell whether Trump is lying or delusional.  Klein adds:   "The president of the United States is not well.   That is an uncomfortable thing to say, but it is an even worse thing to ignore."

For the moment, let's take the lying in the Times interview as just that:  lying.  Let's save for later the speculation about what it means:   political tactic?  not knowing fact from fiction?  breakdown in cognitive function?

Lying as a political tactic is getting a little old, isn't it?    The Washington Post has counted 24 false or misleading claims that Trump made in that 30 minute interview.   They range from Trump's claim that "It's been proven that there is no collusion," misquoting Sen. Diane Feinstein as having said "there is no collusion" with Russia.   In fact, Feinstein was responding to Jake Tapper's question on CNN as to whether she had "seen any evidence that this dirt [on Clinton] were ever given to the Trump campaign."    Her answer:  "Not yet."

Trump transforms "not yet" into:   'It's been proven that there is no collusion.'

Another false claim:  "I'm the one that saved coal.  I'm the one that created jobs.  You know West Virginia is doing fantastically now."   But, as the Post correctly states:  WV's increased domestic product is due to increased prices of both coal and natural gas, which fluctuate with the global markets -- and over which the president has virtually no control.   Fact checkers had previously given this lie a "Four Pinocchios" rating, but he keeps on saying it.

He also claims that, in the Alabama Republican primary, his endorsement brought Luther Strange's support "up 20 points."  Not true;   in fact, it made little difference.  Strange lost to Roy Moore by a margin  that was greater than the polls had suggested at the time of Trump's endorsement.

Another lie in the interview is Trump's claim that the "witch hunt" for collusion with Russia has strengthened his base.   That is factually untrue.   He has lost support -- and the decline is the steepest in the states that voted most strongly to elect him.  If that's not his base, what is?

A basic question is:   Does Trump know that he is lying?   Or does he actually believe what he is saying?    He has the capacity to select and distort a sentence to change the whole meaning of a paragraph.   But does he then believe that distortion?   Maybe.   Or maybe even he doesn't know. 

Ezra Klein, however, is raising a more serious question.  Is this a character flaw?   Or cognitive dysfunction?   Or . . ?  One of my colleagues, famous for his pithy explanations of complex mental functions, used to say that a hallmark of psychosis is the unshakable belief that your own thoughts are true.   [Note:  this was years ago, the colleague is no longer living, and this was not said in reference to Donald Trump.]

Trump may not dwell full time in that swamp, but he has a tendency to create his own reality -- and then to cling tenaciously to easily disproved facts.   The list grows longer with each new day.

My point, for now, is that Donald J. Trump is not fit to serve as president, regardless of what word we use to describe the status of his mental functioning. 

Ralph