Trump Had a Surprisingly Honest Answer When Reporters Asked Him Why He Keeps Lying to the American People

I Alone Can Fix It is a new book from Washington Post reporters Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig detailing the final year of former President Donald Trump's administration, culminating in the attack on the United States Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump extremists motivated by his lies about the 2020 election.

While Trump continues to release deranged statements doubling down on the lie that victory in the election was "stolen" from him by Democrats engaging in widespread election fraud, it's far from the only lie he's told the American people. In fact, over the course of his time in the White House, Trump made over 30 thousand "false or misleading" statements.

For I Alone Can Fix It, Rucker and Leonnig sat down with Trump for an hours-long interview, where he claimed he would likely defeat former Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in an election if they were alive today and where he called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—the top elected official in his own party—"a stupid person."

While the exaggerated hypotheticals and petty insults were characteristic of Trump, his answer for why he lies to the American people was surprisingly upfront.

According to Rucker, Trump responded:

"Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation."

Trump spewed a years-long onslaught of disinformation throughout his time in office, though it was often debated whether he was deliberately lying or if he was so unhinged that he actually believed his own lies.

His answer seemed to settle that.

Though Trump is out of the White House (for now), his continued disinformation—and the GOP's embrace of it—are widely considered a threat.

Trump is the favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.