No Sir, It's Not the journalists lying; It's you.

Let's Talk About the Lies: Some of them, at least.

On Saturday, January 21st, Donald Trump traveled to Langley, Virginia to give a speech at the Central Intelligence Agency. What was supposed to be a speech reassuring the men and women of the Intelligence community that he trusts and respects them quickly dissolved into an extremely uncomfortable rant in which he discussed the size of the crowd at his inauguration, mentioned how smart he is, and bashed the media for being dishonest and fabricating a war between him and the intelligence community.

Trump: "I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I'm like, wait a minute. "Honestly, it looked like a million and a half people. Whatever it was, it was. It went all the way back to the Washington Monument. 250,000 people would be “not bad ... but it’s a lie..."I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth... They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community. And I just want to let you know the reason you’re number one... [that] is exactly the opposite and they understand that too."

Not long after, Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, spoke to the White House Press Corp in the West wing of the White House. He accused them of lying about the size of the crowd at his inauguration and of trying to delegitimize him.

Spicer: "Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall...This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period -- both in person and around the globe."

One of Trump's advisors later went on MSNBC's Meet the Press to try to defend Spicer. When asked by host Chuck Todd why Spicer used his first press conference to rail against such a minimal issue like the size of the inauguration crowd and why he stated several other falsehoods, Conway said the following:

Conway: "You're saying it's a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that."

Let's Make One Thing Very Clear: There is no such thing as 'Alternative facts.'

Both Trump and Spicer's statements are absolutely false. They both knowingly lied on national television. The fact is that the crowd at Trump's inauguration ceremony numbered somewhere around 250,000 to 600,000 people. It was nowhere near the 1.8 million that came out for Barack Obama in 2009, and it wasn't even close to the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration," as Spicer claimed. Trump lied when he said that the media made up his rift with the intelligence community too. He compared the intelligence community to Nazis, claimed they falsified intelligence (which they did not), and accused the former head of the CIA, John Brennan, of leaking "fake news."

Let's look at the broader context.

Never in modern history has a president had such a staggering track record of lying. Hundreds of experts and award-winning journalists have fact-checked many of Trump's statements over the course of his campaign and found that 70% of those statements they checked were either false or misleading. By contrast, 28% of Hilary Clinton's statements were found to be false or misleading.

Donald Trump bashing the media and attempting to discredit journalists who are doing their job isn't anything new by his standards, and neither is lying. He has been doing it since the beginning of his campaign and long before that. The only difference now is that he's the president, and that makes it worse. A president this concerned about his ego is troubling. As journalist Jim Sciutto said, "forget crowd estimates. What happens when the numbers actually matter? US troops killed, terror cells ID'd, North Korean missiles fired?"Just like candidate Trump, President Trump is still removed from reality. There are no facts, but the ones he creates, and any information that contradicts him is shouted down as an attempt to delegitimize his presidency. He is so far removed from reality that it may be impossible to bring him back, but that's not because he's immune to facts, rather, it is because he has come so far while lying that it is impossible for him to turn back now. If he acknowledges the facts now he would have betrayed his entire campaign and all of his supporters who followed him to the Oval Office. Lying, deceiving, and insulting is how he got elected.

After I finished writing this article, and just before it was about to be published, I had to update it to address another lie that the Trump administration came out with today, January 24th. Once again the Trump administration repeated the false claim that over 3 million people voted illegally in the election. With absolutely no evidence, White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, came out in front of the press and doubled down on the claim of mass voter fraud.

Spicer: "The president does believe that [millions voted illegally]. He has stated that before... and he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him."

During this press conference, Spicer referenced a study conducted by Pew Research back in 2012 on the 2008 election. This study, Spicer claims, shows there is a problem with widespread voter fraud during elections. The author of that study, David Becker, responded to Spicer's claim on Twitter today, saying the following:

To reiterate, there is absolutely no evidence for Trump's claim. It has been repeatedly debunked by experts and denounced by top government officials including Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham. President Trump has made it clear that he is not happy about losing the popular vote by over 3 million votes, but Spicer insisted that this is not why Trump keeps making the claim.

Right. of, course it's not.

Let's Talk About Journalism:

Democracy depends on journalists to be watchdogs on their government. It is the role of journalists to give the public the information they need to make informed decisions, and they are needed now more than ever under this new presidency. Contrary to what President Trump believes, you can and should trust the media. Journalists working everywhere from the Atlantic to CNN to Vice, and the New York Times work hard to bring you objective and informative journalism every day.

Throughout the next four year's you can expect the press to be a constant thorn in Trump's side. You can expect them to uncover more conflicts of interest, more lies, and more corruption. You can expect President Trump and Sean Spicer to walk up to a podium somewhere and call the press liars, and you can expect the thousands of journalists working tirelessly day and night to stand up and say "No Sir, It's Not the journalists lying; It's you, here is the truth..."