Trump’s countless lies 'normalized and cruel'

It’s not a lie if you believe it.

President Donald Trump must recite that mantra in the mirror daily. During the longest State of the Union address in history, he rambled a fusillade of falsehoods and superlatives. In the face of low approval ratings, he fell back on his media mastery — distractions, trumped-up narratives and delusions.

"Our country is winning again. In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore," Trump said. He sounded like a casino carny.

"We're not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we were just always losing, but now we're winning too much. And I say no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big; you're going to win bigger than ever."

The golden age of America is here, he said. Because of his leadership, what once was a dead country a year ago is now the hottest. Spirit is restored alongside a stacked military and police force. Unfortunately, Trump’s insolence toward immigrants, and Somalis in particular, was on brand, as was his trash-talking or scolding of detractors. After a year in office, Trump said he ended eight wars, virtually stopped drugs from entering the United States and prevented "illegal aliens" from voting. He continued the lie of voter fraud and election cheating. Trump’s lying is normalized and cruel. The speech is what I expected. This is the nation in his mind’s eye.

Politifact, an independent fact-checking newsroom, kept busy Tuesday night rating and debunking the president’s lies in real time. Politifact takes statements and provides clarity, context or call-outs. It’s an important piece of public service in our democracy, but in an oversaturated media landscape in which TikTok influencers are just as trusted as daily news reporters, facts get lost. If the president in all his authoritative hectoring describes low gas prices, that bluster can convince Americans that he must be right — despite what they see at the pump. Or at minimum, Trump sows confusion.

For years, the mainstream media hesitated to use the word "lie" to describe Trump’s actions. Politifact founder Bill Adair pulls the curtain back in his 2024 book "Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy." Early on, he recounts when he was asked by a caller on C-SPAN if he could say whether Democrats or Republicans lie more often. Adair knew the answer, but he lied because he wanted to show fairness.

"I, like most Washington journalists, was afraid Republicans would call me biased. My job was difficult enough because of the nature of fact-checking, a challenging job in which we declared what was true and what was false," he writes. To be fair, Democrats lie, too. Adair’s desire to appear fair did the opposite. While "Beyond the Big Lie" isn’t focused on Trump, Adair attempts to be a corrective to that C-SPAN caller.

Trump’s lies are exhausting. During his State of the Union speech, he also bragged about lifting 2.4 million people out of food assistance when he actually kicked them off. While the president didn’t name-check Chicago, he asked lawmakers to "end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens, in many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country" — a clear dig at cities that welcome migrants and clear misinformation about who they are.

Toward the end of the nearly two-hour speech, the U.S.A. chants and awarding of medals tamped down. Trump painted the country in hues reminiscent of "America the Beautiful" lyrics. The emperor wore a red tie in the House Chamber. No mention of the recent deaths of people at the hands of masked federal agents under the guise of immigration enforcement; he treated the horrors in Minnesota and Illinois as ephemeral as Snapchat, but the Trump lies are as lasting as forever plastics.

Because it’s still a lie even if you believe it.

Natalie Y. Moore is a senior lecturer at Northwestern University.