When Donald Trump tells a half-truth or an all-out lie, he does so with such assurance that it is often impossible to tell whether the president is deliberately dissembling, creating more comforting fictions for himself, or simply confused. Even the army of fact checkers tagging along in the wake of his every sentence cannot divine his state of mind. Last month, he falsely claimed that Senator Jeff Flake had written a book denouncing him long before he entered the presidential campaign. He has said so many times that he will not benefit from the G.O.P.’s budding tax cut—that he will, in fact, “get killed” by it—that he may have fooled himself. He has, for years, maintained that a fake Renoir painting in his possession is real, despite the fact that the original hangs prominently on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago. Even photographic or audiovisual proof is doubted by the president when it contradicts his alternative worldview. As a recent New York Times report revealed, Trump has begun changing his story about even the most incontrovertible evidence, suggesting to a senator earlier this year that the Access Hollywood tape on which he was recorded bragging about sexually assaulting women is “not authentic,” and more recently telling an adviser the same.
Apparently, that was not the only time Trump denied saying what millions of people have heard. On Monday night, Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN that a third person “close to Trump” had confirmed that the president expressed doubts about the tape’s veracity, saying, “he’s not certain it’s his voice.” (During a press briefing earlier that day, Sarah Huckabee Sanders had stated that Trump’s position on the tape had not changed, saying he “made his position clear at that time.”)
The reports have so unnerved the Access Hollywood team that their hosts responded during Monday’s broadcast. “Let us make this perfectly clear—the tape is very real,” said host Natalie Morales. “Remember, his excuse at the time was ‘locker-room talk.’ He said every one of those words.” Actress Arianne Zucker, who appeared on the Access Hollywood episode in which Trump made his comments, chimed in Monday night on CNN, telling Anderson Cooper, “I don’t know how else that could be fake unless someone’s planting words in your mouth.”
Trump, of course, has admitted to making the recorded remarks and publicly apologized for them in a video message released during his campaign. But the White House’s assertion earlier this year that all 16 women who have accused the president of sexual assault are “liars” gives some insight into Trump’s mindset: namely, that he would rather gaslight his accusers than admit to wrongdoing on any level. Or he may be gaslighting himself. “He believes his own lies in a way that lasts for decades,” former Trump biographer Tim O’Brien told my colleague Nick Bilton last month, while recounting the Renoir saga. “He’ll tell the same stories time and time again, regardless of whether or not facts are right in front of his face.”
It’s also possible that the president with “one of the greatest memories of all time” remembers the incident, which occurred more than a decade ago, about as well as he recalls his first meeting with Flake. Either way, his covert attempt to undermine the most concrete piece of evidence against him suggests a man with an innate disbelief of women, and a White House that is potentially hostile to the expected onslaught of claims against current and former lawmakers.
