Bannon: I don’t believe that Trump says things that are not true

Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, said Sunday that he does not believe that Trump lies.

“[Trump] has not always told the truth,” host Jonathan Karl said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

“I don’t know that,” Bannon responded. “This is another thing to demonize him.”

“You think the president’s never lied?” Karl asked in a follow-up question.

“Not to my knowledge, no,” replied Bannon. “Except when he called me Sloppy Steve.”{mosads}

“He says things that are not true all the time,” the ABC host interjected.

“I don’t believe that,” Bannon said. “I think he speaks in a particular vernacular that connects the people in this country.”

Karl later noted that Trump acknowledged he lied to The New York Times about a Trump Tower meeting and asked Bannon if some lies are OK.

Bannon said that he did not know whether Trump’s comments qualified as a lie.

Trump had said that it didn’t matter that he lied to the news media about his son’s 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian nationals.

The president’s lawyers said that he had dictated a statement about the meeting that Donald Trump Jr. then went on to release.

“It’s irrelevant. It’s a statement to The New York Times. The phony, failing New York Times,” Trump said last week. “That is not a statement to a high tribunal of judges, that’s a statement to the phony New York Times.”