‘Truth isn’t truth’
‘Truth isn’t truth,’ he bizarrely says
Rudy Giuliani declared Sunday that “truth isn’t truth” while expressing his concerns over the risk of having President Trump sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia probe.
Giuliani, who is representing Trump in the investigation, said the president’s legal team has been negotiating with Mueller’s investigators for months about the ground rules.
“I’m not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury,” Giuliani said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“And when you tell me he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth — that he shouldn’t worry — that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth, not the truth,” Giuliani said.
“Truth is truth,” anchor Chuck Todd shot back.
“No, no, it isn’t truth,” Giuliani said. “Truth isn’t truth.”
“Mr. Mayor, the truth is the truth,” Todd repeated. “This is going to be a bad meme.”
“Don’t do this to me,” Giuliani responded as Todd gestured in frustration. “Donald Trump says, ‘I didn’t talk about Flynn with Comey.’ Comey says, ‘You did talk about it.’ So tell me what the truth is.
“They have two pieces of evidence,” Giuliani said of Mueller’s team. “Trump says, ‘I didn’t tell them,’ and the other guy says that he did say it. Which is the truth? Maybe you know because you’re a genius.”
Former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired in May 2017, said om Twitter Sunday, “Truth matters.”
“Truth has always been the touchstone of our country’s justice system and political life,” he posted. “People who lie are held accountable.”
Comey has said that, during a White House meeting in February 2017, Trump told him, “I hope you can let this go,” referring to the investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Giuliani’s comments were quickly ridiculed on Twitter, with many suggesting he took a page out of George Orwell’s science-fiction novel “1984.”
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss highlighted Giuliani’s comment with party slogans in the 1949 novel that depicted life under the cult of Big Brother.
“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH,” Beschloss wrote.
Larry Sabato, the oft-quoted director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote that the Trump administration is keeping “1984” relevant.
“‘ Truth isn’t truth.”--@RudyGiuliani to @chucktodd. It’s why, since 2016, the book of the year, every year, has been and will be George Orwell’s “1984,” Sabato said.
Other tweeters listed similar head-scratchers, such as Trump saying at a rally last month, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening” and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s reference to “alternative facts.”
Author Anand Giridharadas tried to sum up the thoughts of many Trump critics.
“‘ Truth isn’t truth’: the epitaph of the Trump era has now been written,” he posted.