Former President Donald Trump told an entirely fictional story on Saturday about how he had supposedly outwitted his Democratic opponents by releasing “the tape” of the 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that was a key factor in Trump’s first impeachment.
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Facts First: Trump’s story is a complete fabrication. No tape of his call with Zelensky was ever released; Pelosi could not possibly have been angry with her allies after hearing a tape of the call because she has never heard a tape of the call. In fact, as of nearly five years after the July 2019 call, there is no known US recording of the conversation. What Trump’s White House actually released in September 2019 was a rough written transcript of the call — which corroborated, rather than contradicted, a government whistleblower’s central allegations about what Trump had said. Pelosi spokesperson Aaron Bennett said Sunday that Trump’s story is “fact-free nonsense.”
I’m convinced Trump’s mind doesn’t work like that, and that his memories are heavily slanted by how he perceived his role in the event. Others’ roles or the factual details are arranged automatically by his brain to fill this role he sees himself playing.
No one surely ever challenged him on his constant nonsense, so he’s had a lifetime of reinforcement over this behaviour.
As he’s aging however the detachment between his perception and recollection of an event is growing much larger, and the result is these wild made-up tales…
Yes. He isn’t concerned with the concepts of lying or telling the truth or even being coherent and rational. He simply states whatever he needs to at a given moment to elevate himself or give himself an advantage. I don’t think he goes through the rational pause most people do before they lie. He doesn’t think about it at all.