2016 ELECTION/CAMPAIGN/FBI/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: ” ‘Believe Me.’ Donald Trump wore those words out as a candidate as he beseeched voters to buy into his grand plans and promises on everything from crushing ISIS to building a great border wall.
Now, the question of whether Americans can trust Trump is again a dominant political theme after he was caught in a lie over claims that he was wiretapped by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Trump’s repudiation by FBI Director James Comey in a sensational hearing Monday came exactly two months into an administration unusually prone to obfuscation, blurring facts and peddling falsehoods.
From false assessments of the size of his inaugural crowd and claims that millions of illegal voters dealt him defeat in the popular vote in November, the President has often seemed happy to propagate conspiracy theories.
While such tactics helped Trump in the circus of a presidential campaign unfolding in a new era of post-truth politics, it’s less clear that trading in untruths — by setting up the press and the intelligence agencies as a foil for his confrontation brand of politics — is a recipe for a successful presidency.
If upcoming opinion surveys emulate a Gallup tracking poll in showing Trump’s approval rating slipping below 40%, it could indicate that the President’s recent trials are having a tangible political impact.”
-Stephen Collinson, “Trump’s problem with truth,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, March 22, 2017