Rejection of Observable Reality

DAVID A. GRAHAM
12:57 PM ET

... The White House’s stance is that all 16 women who have accused Trump of sexual improprieties, harassment, or assault are lying. Trump’s old position on the Access Hollywood tape was that he was lying. The view he now apparently holds privately is that the tape itself is lying.

But the tape is authentic. Trump acknowledged as much when it was revealed, and apologized for his words (though not to the women upon whom he boasted about preying) while claiming that he had not actually done the things he bragged about having done. Billy Bush, the television host with whom he was speaking on the tape (and who, unlike Trump, lost his job simply for not reacting with disgust to the comments) also acknowledged it was real ...

... there are .. signs that Trump is sometimes incapable of discerning real life from fiction. The fact that the president shared his doubts about the tape not via Twitter but in private conversations — including, amazingly, with a U.S. senator — might suggest that the problem is not that Trump is out to fool the public but that he himself has fallen into the trap of rewriting his memory. That the president could be so inconstant on a matter of provable fact is for obvious reasons worrisome in the policy sphere ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/trump-access-hollywood-sexual-assault-gaslighting/546770/