Sources close to the White House revealed to Politico that President Donald Trump's aides have been competing to see who can tell the biggest lies to the media.
In a report for Politico Magazine, Ben Schreckinger and Hadas Gold explain that Trump is waging a "fake war on fake news."
"Rather than a historically toxic relationship, [members of the White House press corps] described a historic gap between the public perception and the private reality," the report noted.
According to Politico, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer have both been privately cultivating relationships with the media while attacking the same outlets in public.
But the White House's habit of constantly lying about inconsequential details like the size of Trump's inauguration crowd continues to perplex reporters.
White House staffers do much of the lying for amusement, Politico explained.
Bannon, it is worth noting, is a devoted reader of the “neoreactionary” internet philosopher Curtis Yarvin, an advocate of the strategic benefits of spreading misinformation. But two people close to the administration say that White House staffers do much of their lying for sport, rather than to further any larger agenda.
“They all lie,” said a conservative journalist with close ties to the West Wing, who described an informal contest to smuggle the biggest whoppers into print. “It’s a game to them.”
A member of the White House communications team confirmed the situation to one conservative activist who spoke to Politico.
"They’ll print what they want anyways, so we may as well have fun," the activist said.
