Trump's Reuters Interview Is a Pile of (Telling) Lies

Virtually everything Donald Trump says is a lie. More specifically, it is dishonest in a way that reveals the truth. Often it is the lie of projection — in which he attributes a characteristic to someone else that is actually his own quality. Other times, it is the lie of opposites — the transparent attempt of an insecure man to convey that something is great (when it's grim) or dire (when it's fine).

In that context, the excerpts from Trump's interview with Reuters are extremely telling.

Let's start with an easy one — the mood in the White House. Says Trump: "The mood in the White House is fantastic. ...The White House is functioning beautifully. ...Energy is doing levels that we've never done before. ...There's not a thing that we're not doing well in. The White House is functioning beautifully, despite the hoax made up by the Democrats."

"The Democrats" haven't said bupkis about the mood in the White House. That would be anonymous sources in the White House, disclosing to the press on almost continual basis that the mood in the White House is terrible, that the dynamic is deeply dysfunctional, that Trump has no stamina, and that staff morale is in the shitter.

And because virtually everything Trump says is a lie, by insisting that the mood around the White House is "fantastic," he's confirming reports that his White House is a nightmare shitshow.

So now let's look at what else Trump had to say.

He didn't know Don Jr. was taking that meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya: "No. That I didn't know. Until a couple of days ago, when I heard about this. No I didn't know about that." Trump knew.

This is his answer to a question about whether his attorneys are defending him effectively: "The problem is, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. This isn't a question of defense. I didn't do anything. I had no relationship to Russia. So I said, what can the legal team do?" He did something.

He definitely thought he would win and totally wants to be president: "I actually always thought I'd win, to be honest with you, because I've been winning my whole life, to be honest with you, but we started a campaign as a non-politician, and many people were skeptical. Some weren't, some people who know me weren't...but many were skeptical." He can't believe he's president and hates every minute of it.

This is his answer to a question about whether he trusts Vladimir Putin: "Do I feel I can trust anybody, okay? I'm a very suspicious person. I am not a person that goes around trusting lots of people. But he's the leader of Russia. It is the second most powerful nuclear power on earth. I am the leader of the United States. I love my country. He loves his country. He's for Russia." Trump is disloyal as fuck and is Putin's puppet.

More on Putin: "I was very tough with President Putin." He wasn't.

And yet more, this time on election meddling: "First question — first 20, 25 minutes — I said, 'Did you do it?' He said, 'No, I did not, absolutely not.' I then asked him a second time, in a totally different way. He said, 'Absolutely not.' Somebody did say if he did do it, you wouldn't have found out about it. Which is a very interesting point." Trump thinks he's more clever than Putin, and can catch him out by detective work he learned watching Law & Order re-runs. (You're no Lennie Briscoe, Trump.) He also finds useful a rationale that suggests his own willful ignorance, stupidity, and/or dishonesty are proof that Putin doesn't fully own him.

And finally, on whether he colluded with Russia: "There was zero coordination. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. There's no coordination, this was a hoax, this was made up by the Democrats." It's true. He colluded. "This is the greatest con job in history, where a party sits down the day after they got their ass kicked, and they say, 'Huh, what's our excuse?'" He is running the greatest con job in history. "It just continues and continues, and honestly it's a disgrace, and it's very bad for our country. And the Russians must be laughing, because this narrative is so bad for us as a country." He is a disgrace and is very bad for our country. The Russians are laughing at him, and he knows it.

There's more where that came from. It's quite a scary interview, put through the Trump translator. The overall feeling is that this is a profoundly corrupt man, in deep over his head. He's scared, he's desperate, and he's stuck in a place of fearful misery with no idea how to escape or change his circumstances.

Which would frankly be a suitable fate for the braggadocious and reckless Trump, were it not for the fact that the fate of the entire nation is now inextricably tied to his.