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We have been covering Donald Trump for a decade now, and there are some very distinct patterns in his speech and mannerisms that we have identified. For example, when he opens his mouth, you can assume that he is about to lie or exaggerate. Or, when he tells an anecdote involving unnamed individuals approaching him (often with tears in their eyes) and starting a sentence with “Sir…” before saying something flattering, then you can be virtually assured that this conversation only took place in the president’s imagination. 

And then there is the word “hoax.”

When Trump calls something a “hoax,” you can take it to the bank that the thing he is talking about is not a hoax at all.

For example, the president likes to rant about the “climate change hoax.” He did so last week when addressing the United Nations General Assembly during a speech in which he lambasted Europe for trying to fight global warming. 

Obviously, climate change is not a hoax but rather a real crisis that is currently causing severe (and expensive) natural disasters and that threatens to drastically degrade living conditions on Earth in the near future. 

However, in order to earn the Trumpian “hoax” label, it’s not enough for something to be true; it also has to pose a potential problem for the president. 

Take the “Epstein hoax.” 

It’s indecently insane to call the well-documented sex trafficking of countless underage girls a “hoax.” If anybody else did that, they would rightfully be skewered — especially if they used to be friends with the mastermind of the trafficking ring and, at a minimum, appeared to be aware of his proclivities.

Of course, anybody else would be put on the defensive in light of incriminating evidence. But Trump doesn’t do defense. He only knows how to attack, and does so unapologetically. 

And that’s what he did in this case, even though uncovering the full story behind Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and who else may have been involved in them is perhaps the most important issue to many of his supporters.

What, exactly, is the hoax behind the mass of evidence showing Epstein as a procurer of young girls for prominent men? It stands to reason that even Trump couldn’t come up with an answer to that question. 

Then there is the first of the Trumpian “hoaxes.” 

It is beyond dispute that Vladimir Putin tried to help Trump win the 2016 election. That is the conclusion not only of the intelligence community but also of a bipartisan report put together by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was also apparent to anybody paying attention at the time.

However, while Russia sought to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House, there is no definitive evidence that Moscow worked in tandem with Trump’s team. In other words, while there were charges of collusion, and the campaign certainly seemed willing to accept help from Putin’s regime, that part has not been proven. 

And that, according to the president and his allies, makes the entire thing a “hoax.”

This is something else Trump excels at: If something is almost entirely true, he will take the one small piece that is either in error or in dispute and make that the centerpiece of his argument – if he includes any other details at all. 

And that brings us to the latest addition to things that Trump claims to be a hoax.

“It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed, against all Rules, Regulations, Protocols, and Standards, 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax,” he wrote in a social media post on Saturday. 

It goes without saying that this is totally false. In fact, it is so wrong that FBI Director Kash Patel stepped in to correct the record by pointing out that the agents were sent to the Capitol on January 6 after the Trump-inspired insurrection had been declared a riot. 

As we previously reported, an investigation by the bureau’s inspector general found no evidence that the FBI placed undercover employees in the crowd that day. 

But that doesn’t matter to Trump, who is trying to wash his hands of responsibility for any violence that took place during the attack on the Capitol. 

“That’s right, as it now turns out, FBI Agents were at, and in, the January 6th Protest, probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as ‘Law Enforcement Officials,’” he said (just to reemphasize, this is all completely false). “I want to know who each and every one of these so-called ‘Agents’ are, and what they were up to on that now ‘Historic’ Day. Many Great American Patriots were made to pay a very big price only for the love of their Country. I owe this investigation of ‘Dirty Cops and Crooked Politicians’ to them!” 

Once again, this is as insane as it is bold. 

Americans were glued to their screens that day as Trump’s supporters overran the Capitol, disrupted the certification of the 2020 election, and called for then-Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged because he did not want to participate in a coup. 

However, now that enough time has passed and House Republicans are trying to rewrite the history of what happened that day, January 6 has been elevated to “hoax” status.

What, exactly, is the hoax here? Nobody knows. 

But it doesn’t matter. Just as in the other cases, soon everybody on Fox News and Trump’s GOP allies will be calling January 6 a hoax.

That’s because the reality of January 6 is extremely inconvenient for the administration and its allies. Republicans are trying to make crime and political violence an issue in next year’s midterms. Polling shows that this is one of the few areas in which they currently have an edge over Democrats. 

However, the 2021 attack on Congress and its aftermath contradict everything the GOP claims to be about. 

It was a massive act of right-wing political violence, including direct attacks on law enforcement officers. Trump later pardoned almost all of the people who were duly convicted, after public trial, for their roles in what clearly deserved the label of “insurrection.” 

You cannot explain away that fact — seen live on national television by untold millions of Americans — with ungrounded rhetoric. But, if it’s a hoax… well, that would be a different story. 

At least that’s what Trump is counting on. Because, ultimately, that’s what this is all about: creating an alternative reality in which he did nothing wrong.

And that’s the real hoax being perpetrated here.