Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, coined a new Trumpism Sunday morning when he told Meet The Press‘ Chuck Todd that “truth isn’t truth.”

His last-minute appearance followed a New York Times report that White House attorney Don McGahn has given some 30 hours of interviews in cooperation with Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

When Todd implied that it was Trump’s team that was delaying negotiations with the investigation, Giuliani replied that it’s “silly” to think Trump should feel confident about testifying because “it’s somebody’s version of the truth, not the truth.”

When Todd insisted that “truth is truth,” Giuliani replied, “No, it isn’t truth! Truth isn’t truth!”

That wasn’t even the only bombshell from the interview. Giuliani also admitted that the “original intention” of the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016 was to collect damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Though Trump himself recently admitted as much, this still directly contradicts what Trump originally said when he dictated a message on behalf of his son, claiming it was a meeting to discuss “the adoption of Russian children.”


Giuliani even tried to claim that Donald Trump, Jr. and the other campaign officials who took that meeting didn’t even know that the woman they were meeting with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was Russian. He also denied that she had any connections with the Russian government, even though she has represented the FSB, Russia’s spy agency, for nearly a decade and she even admitted this spring that she’s an informant.

ON #MTP: Rudy Giuliani says the "original intention" of the Trump Tower meeting was to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. pic.twitter.com/bGKCuUOEaC — Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 19, 2018

Still, it was “truth isn’t truth” that was the big takeaway from the interview. Even as Giuliani said it, Todd joked, “This is going to become a bad meme.”

During the panel discussion that followed, the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson called it the new “Alternative Facts,” referring to an infamous line presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway used just days into the Trump administration to defend Trump’s distorted claims about how many people attended his inauguration.


Moments after the interview aired in different markets across the country, Twitter was full of content mocking “Truth isn’t truth.”

“Truth isn’t truth”: the epitaph of the Trump era has now been written. https://t.co/f3xlsXTx5M — Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) August 19, 2018

Next time you have a review with your boss, or get a speeding ticket, "Truth isn't truth" is a perfectly fine position to take. Just ask the President's lawyer. — Andy Odom (@AndyOdom7) August 19, 2018

"Rudy, I love what you said on @MeetThePress. That 'truth isn't truth' bit was beautiful." "Thank you, Mr. President." "Guess what?" "What, Mr. President?" "I'm eating a Bic Mac in bed." "I just ate a lizard." "This has been a good talk." — Jarrett Bellini (@JarrettBellini) August 19, 2018

“Truth isn’t truth.” ~ Rudy Giuliani , this morning on #MTP “There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” ~ George Orwell in his 1949 book #1984 — Sheril Kirshenbaum (@Sheril_) August 19, 2018

Incidentally, in his tweets Sunday morning, Trump compared the Mueller investigation to McCarthyism, the 1950s campaign to blacklist people for their dubious ties to the Community Party. “Study the late Joseph McCarthy,” he wrote, “because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!”