Trump has the best words. Like a magician.

As a magician, I am used to fabricating lies. Mine are of course intended to entertain, not to harm. The methods I use are similar in that their underlying principles are the same as those used by con artists and other professional criminals who rely on deception. All lies rely on the same premises to be effective, so as a magician I am uniquely qualified to speak on the subject of lies, in this case ones told by the Trump administration. They have methods, and they have purposes.

Methods

The best methods involve starting from a premise the audience believes and linking it to the lie: if this, then that. This is the method most often used in politics because if the lie is confronted, the liar can use the fact as a straw man (“You’re saying the sky isn’t blue?”)

Another commonly used method is covering one lie with another one. Specifically, one says something that isn’t true and wants the audience to believe, then a second, much bigger lie no one will believe, so that it gets torn down and the lie that matters stands. This is a misdirecting lie, and Trump favors these.

Repetition is a method used to make a lie plausible. In advertising, often the goal is not to demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of a product, but rather its brand alone. Familiarity makes people likely to buy. By repeating a statement, even a false one, it seems truer. Trump used to be a name associated with low income housing, but by Donald branding every luxury product he could put his name on, now the Trump brand stands for vulgar luxury. Another related technique is saying that the statement itself can be attributed to another author, an appeal to authority, in which the liar’s credibility such as it is is multiplied by the perception that the other source is credible, and if the source turns out not to be credible, the liar can say they were just trusting what they heard, “on the internet” for example.

A third method of lying is what the Nazis called “The Big Lie”. The Big Lie is a lie you tell so often, so colorfully, and in such a variety of media, that its prevalence suggests its veracity. It is a type of repetition so egregious it deserves its own category. This can be as innocuous as “Don’t drink coffee, it’ll stunt your growth” (not true, by the way) or as insidious as “Obama was born in Kenya.”

Gaslighting is another tactic often used by liars, which involves making the listener believe they are an unreliable witness, and doubt the evidence contradicting the lie. This is often used by domestic abusers, and Kellyanne “Alternative Facts” Conway. A recent example is Trump’s new assessment of NATO. Having previously said it was obsolete, he now says it has changed and is no longer obsolete. For the record, NATO has not changed.

Smokescreen is when you throw so much information at someone, they cannot absorb it all, and therefore cannot verify everything. This means some things will go unchallenged, and can then be held up as statements that went unchallenged, lending to the perception of their veracity. This is a bit like how Fox set up a hotline for reporting sexual harassment, and then held up its inactivity as evidence that no one had been harassed.

Finally, the method that Trump often uses to tie the others together:

Leaving blanks is when you tell a story that sort of makes sense, but is missing some key details that would tell the complete story. People are wired to fill in the blanks whether they were left intentionally or we simply forgot some information, so if the listener doesn’t expect a lie, or doesn’t expect this type of lie, the listener will fill in the blanks with the necessary “facts” that explain why the lie is true.

This lie does something very interesting: it leaves the construction of the lie up to the listener. If I were to say a bunch of facts, and then an opinion, the facts may not necessarily support the pattern: A, B, D, E, and F are the first letters of the alphabet. The listener, when asked later, may fill in the letter C because it makes sense, but it’s not what I said, so if I am pressed on the story I can honestly say I didn’t say the letter C. If I were President and I had just invaded a country, and landed a jet fighter on an aircraft carrier in front of a banner reading “mission accomplished” written in the same font as all official White House materials at the time, I wouldn’t have to say that we won the war; it would be strongly implied. Good thing that never happened…

A good liar will pepper blanks into their lies, which, like a cold read, will leave the protection of the lie up to the person being lied to. This is the most insidious kind of lie.

Human beings are wired to recognize patterns, which is why we can, as a species, read between the lines. Try reading between these lines:

“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot. … I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?”

That’s Trump implying that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK assassination. He never says it, but his words suggest it. The only bad thing we can completely prove Rafael Cruz was involved in was producing Ted Cruz.

Sounds believable? That was a lie. Rafael did plenty of bad things besides making baby Ted. See? Lying is easy.

Do these sorts of lies sound like Trump? They should.