Nation’s Credibility Imperiled by President

There it was: an apparent animating principle of Mr. Trump’s news media strategy since he first began campaigning. That strategy has consistently presumed that low public opinion of mainstream journalism creates an opening to sell the Trump version of reality.

Mr. Trump used his first official meeting with United States congressional leaders on January 23 to falsely claim that millions of unauthorized immigrants had robbed him of a popular vote majority. The White House repeated the claim the next day, but offered no evidence to support it.

The claim, which he has made before on Twitter, has been judged untrue by numerous fact- checkers.

As Mr. Trump and his supporters regularly note, whatever he did during the campaign, it was successful: He won. His most ardent supporters loved the news media bashing. But will tactics that worked in the campaign work in the White House? History is filled with examples of new administrations that quickly found that the techniques that served them well in campaigns did not work well in government.

And if they do work, what are the long-term costs to government credibility from tactical “wins” that are achieved through the aggressive use of falsehoods?

Whatever they are, Mr. Trump should realize that it could hurt his agenda more than anything else.

There’s a reason George W. Bush’s adviser Karen Hughes told the newly promoted Bush press secretary, Scott McClellan, in 2003, “Your most important job, in my view, will be to make sure the president maintains his credibility with the American people.”

“‘It’s one of his greatest strengths,”’ Mr. McClellan quoted Ms. Hughes as saying in his autobiography, “What Happened.’’

Mr. McClellan’s book chronicles how Mr. Bush staked that credibility on the false rationale for the Iraq invasion — that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — and ultimately lost the confidence of Americans, hobbling him for the rest of his presidency.

But the damage wasn’t isolated to Mr. Bush’s political standing. To this day, the American intelligence community must contend with lingering questions about its own credibility.

Mr. McClellan warned in an interview that Mr. Spicer might come to regret it if reporters started to doubt the veracity of whatever he tells them.

“There will be tough times ahead — there are for every White House — and that’s when that credibility and trust is most important,” Mr. McClellan said. But more important, he said, when you’re at the White House lectern, “you’re speaking for the free world to some extent, and what ideals are you holding up for that free world?”