Bernstein: Trump’s ‘Criminality,’ ‘Lying’ Worse Than Nixon

Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” journalist and network contributor Carl Bernstein said President Donald Trump was engaging in criminality and lying that is worse than that of former President Richard Nixon.

Bernstein said, “We now live in a culture that is somewhat a fact-free environment. Social media has accelerated the cultural reality so it’s very hard to have a fact-based debate, but it’s up to us in the press particularly by doing our reporting, our deeper reporting, to make that fact-based debate possible in terms of presenting what the facts are in context and with that, yes, pointing out the president’s lies. One thing we might be doing, I think would be very helpful, maybe do a history on the air, an hour of it, of presidential truth telling and lying and show the progression, say, from FDR to Donald Trump, and then I think readers, viewers, would have an idea of how extraordinary this president’s lying is. How different it is from all other presidents.”

He added, “We need to start looking at some historical context that might reach more than those viewers who are already committed to one version of the truth in their own mind or another. Who are not necessarily looking for the best obtainable version of the truth, but come to Fox News, come to CNN, come to MSNBC based on where they think they’re going to get facts as they like them. We need to do something contrary and give them facts as they exist. I think a historical examination of presidential lying, truth telling, would be so revealing because then we would see how Donald Trump even up against the criminality of Richard Nixon and the lying of Richard Nixon is in a league totally by himself.”

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