ALI VELSHI (HOST): So here's the problem, Bruce. I have become a real-time fact-checker. That's my main job now. And you say something in your book, where you've written, “Political scientists have found that when people who have been exposed to lies are confronted with the truth, they often believe the lie even more strongly. One reason is that simple repetition of a lie, even in the course of refuting it, lends it credibility.”
BRUCE BARTLETT: Yeah, very, very -- One of the most frustrating things I've ever heard of, and unfortunately, we know this is true in real life. But I think that it's -- In this interview, Trump is basically saying he invented the term “fake news.” Anybody can go to Google, and look up, and find out it's a term that's been around for a long time. And we have to remember, some are old enough to remember Watergate, when Nixon and his cronies said the exact same thing.
VELSHI: They were talking about The Washington Post.
BARTLETT: Right.
VELSHI: It was an attack on them. It was invented. It was lies.
BARTLETT: And we learned that it was all true. Every word of it. And the same has been true for everything dealing with the Trump administration, yet he just keeps asserting that truth is a lie, because his followers will believe it. And as long as they keep believing it, he stays in power.
