CNN’s Brian Stelter Declares: ‘White House Credibility Crisis, Day 470’: ‘Enough is Enough!’

‘Yet there are people out there, a lot of them, who the press should not be covering the president this way who say we should not call lies lies’

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But first, back here in the U.S., enough is enough. The lies, the deceit, the fearmongering. Journalists increasingly are feeling empowered to call out the Trump White House's lies because the evidence is right on tape. It made me wonder at the end of a long week, was this a lie, too? 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will never lie to you. I will never tell you something I do not believe. I will never put anyone's interests ahead of yours. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: That was from the campaign. But this now, the Trump presidency, this is what a crisis of leadership looks and feels like. Every week, another scandal, every week, another cover-up. 

This week, it involved Rudy Giuliani. You see him there on "Hannity." He was talking about Stormy Daniels and the payoff and questions about when she was really paid off and how, when did Trump know. Were laws violated? And were there other Stormys, too? 

He was on ABC's "This Week" just a couple of hours ago, and he didn't rule it out. This week, I have to admit I chuckled at some of the banners on screen, some of the headlines calling this a White House credibility crisis. I mean, that is true. That's objectively true. It is a crisis, but it's been true since day one. 

Reporters are always trained to cover what's new, what's different, what do you got? What's happening? But the Trump's fibs and falsehoods are the opposite. They're not new. He's been behaving this way his whole life. Heck, Trump entered politics on a lie about President Obama. 

So what is new? I've been thinking about that, trying to figure out what is new. I think the answer is the reporting. Reporters are revealing Trump's lies one by one. 

You know, Stormy Daniels made a cameo on "SNL" last night, but she's only a household name thanks to reporting by "The Wall Street Journal" and other outlets. The same for Dr. Harold Bornstein, also a parody by "SNL", that's the president's former doctor. NBC got ahold of him recently and he revealed that his office was, his word, raided by Trump's bodyguard and lawyer. 

Bornstein told CNN that this hyperbolic letter attesting to Trump's health back in 2015 was not truthful. Quote, Trump dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter. I just made it up as I went along. 

Let's just sit with that for a minute. Trump attacked Hillary Clinton's health during the campaign, but he made up his own doctor's letter? 

Enough is enough. Yet there are people out there, a lot of them, who the press should not be covering the president this way who say we should not call lies lies. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The journalists shouldn't be the ones to say the president or his spokesperson is lying because what that does to 50 percent of the country is it makes them feel they're not credible to listen to. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: But this shouldn't be about feelings. This should be about facts. 

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