Tony Schwartz, co-author of The Art of the Deal, recommended that, to save time, news organizations stop documenting President Donald Trump lies and instead start counting the times he tells the truth: “You could do it on one or two hands…and it would be accidental.”

Trump’s former collaborator, whose unique background offers rare insight into how the president’s mind works, made his comments to Ari Melber after the MSBNC host played a clip of Trump’s transparent attempt on Friday to distance himself from US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland. In a blockbuster move, Trump mega-donor Sondland reversed course earlier this week and amended his impeachment testimony to confirm that the White House did try to extort Ukraine for political purposes to help Trump’s 2020 re-election.

“I hardly know the gentleman,” Trump told the press in the video, referencing Sondland. But exactly one month earlier, when Sondland’s initial testimony denied a quid pro quo, Trump had publicly praised him as “a good man and a great American” on Twitter.

“I lie for a living,” Schwartz said, describing Trump. “He can’t tell the truth. He’s almost literally, at this point, incapable of telling the truth. What happens with Trump is that anything that arises that, in any way, alters his self-image, he will reactively come up with something from thin air. And now we have — we have 13,000 lies, but I’d like to know how many truths we have? How many times have he hold the truth during the last three years.”

“You think we should start counting that?” Melber said of the press.

“I do because it’s an easier count,” Schwartz replied. “You could do it on one hand or two hands! And they’re accidental.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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