Jeanine Pirro faced a choice that all President Donald Trump’s team members confront sooner or later: Do they live in his world, or the real one?
The DC US attorney earned a tongue-lashing from the president, an old friend, after reasoning that damage to the capital’s Reflecting Pool resulted from his flawed remodeling project rather than the vandalism he claimed.
By siding with evidence and leaving the looking-glass world that the president conjures around his White House, she infringed the personal bargain that is the price of entry to his inner power circle.
Pirro, as a law enforcement official, is in a dicier position than other officials who can indulge Trump’s unsupported claims without crossing him, since she must submit his accusations to the exacting standards of the courts.
But in most areas of his political life, Trump’s spinning of alternative realities is a powerful tool. It helped him build his political mystique and win two White House races, and it can act as a face-saving cover for his failures.
