Rudy Giuliani clarifies his ‘truth isn’t truth’ puzzler
UPDATED: Mon., Aug. 20, 2018

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s personal attorney said he wasn’t trying to make an existential point about the meaning of veracity when he declared “truth isn’t truth.”
Rudy Giuliani’s puzzling statement on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, following one by another Trump aide last year about “alternative facts,” suggested that people in Trump’s orbit might be denying the existence of reality.
Giuliani said his intent was more mundane: to make the case that having Trump sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team wouldn’t accomplish much because of the conflicting nature of witnesses’ recollections.
“My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology,” he tweeted, “but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic ‘he said, she said’ puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth, other times it doesn’t.”
Giuliani had told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that Trump might “get trapped into perjury” if he were interviewed by the special counsel’s Russia investigation. “You tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well, that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth.”
When Todd replied: “Truth is truth,” Giuliani responded: “No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth.”
Local journalism is essential.
Give directly to The Spokesman-Review's Northwest Passages community forums series -- which helps to offset the costs of several reporter and editor positions at the newspaper -- by using the easy options below. Gifts processed in this system are not tax deductible, but are predominately used to help meet the local financial requirements needed to receive national matching-grant funds.
Subscribe to the Coronavirus newsletter
Get the day’s latest Coronavirus news delivered to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter.