‘Epidemic of dishonesty’:

Americans are facing an “epidemic of dishonesty” in Washington that’s more dangerous than terrorism or communism.

That’s according to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg , who warned in a commencement speech on Saturday at Texas’ Rice University that “an endless barrage of lies” and a trend toward “alternate realities” in national politics pose a dire threat to US democracy.

The 76-year-old billionaire, who flirted with an independent presidential run in 2016, did not call out any politicians by name.

Although he derided Donald Trump as “a con” and a “dangerous demagogue” before his election, in an interview before the speech Bloomberg refused to comment specifically on the Republican president’s troubled history with the truth. Fact checkers have determined that Trump has made hundreds of false and misleading statements since entering the Oval Office.

“This is bigger than any one person. It’s bigger than any one party,” he said in the interview.

In the speech, Bloomberg evoked the legend of the nation’s first president, George Washington, who as a boy said he could not tell a lie when asked if he cut down a cherry tree.

“How did we go from a president who could not tell a lie to politicians who cannot tell the truth?” Bloomberg asked Rice graduates and their families gathered in Houston. (AP)