Media keeps making the grave journalistic error of asserting what Trump "believes"—for instance taking Trump at his word that he "believes" Biden is stealing the election. Let's be clear—Trump doesn't believe that. He *says* he believes that in order to try to steal the election.

Just so, Trump does *not* believe that there has been fraud in this election. He has seen no evidence of it. But he will tell everyone around him that he "believes" there is fraud, because that is the narrative that he thinks will help him win. It's a key difference media misses.

Now that Trump has told 25,000 lies to US voters, there's absolutely no excuse for US media reporting Trump's statements as an earnest reflection of his beliefs. All of his statements should be reported as *claims*, up to and including using the phrase "Trump claims he thinks..."

Media can opt for "Trump falsely claims there's fraud" rather than "Trump claims he thinks there's fraud," but under no circumstances can it say "Trump believes there's fraud." And yet we get that journalistically fraudulent verb—"believes"—with respect to history's biggest liar.