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I don’t get a chance to cover all of the political stories that interest me, and I do tend to cover political stories which have more of a pop-culture angle. The Trump presidency – which I hope will be mercifully brief in the grand scheme of things – has been fascinating in that Donald Trump blurs all the lines. There are no longer any lines between pop culture and politics, relevant and irrelevant information, breezy, sycophantic entertainment journalism and “real,” authentic journalism. Even though Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury and indictments could be coming down in a few months, one of the bigger stories this week is that Donald Trump apparently referred to the White House as a “real dump.” I covered that earlier this week – apparently, when Trump spends his weekends at his golf clubs, he often chats with club members and he’s been saying that “real dump” line a few times.

What was interesting about this story is that Golf Magazine broke it. Not Politico. Not the Washington Post or New York Times. Golf Magazine! And not just that, Golf Magazine got pushback from the White House and they got a tweet-denial from Trump:

I love the White House, one of the most beautiful buildings (homes) I have ever seen. But Fake News said I called it a dump – TOTALLY UNTRUE

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2017

So what did Golf Magazine do? They stood by their story. Journalist Alan Shipnuck – who broke the story – sat down with his editor Michael Bamberger for the Golf Magazine’s podcast, and both of them doubled-down on the story and offered a glimpse into how the White House reacts when they get caught in a Bigly lie:

MICHAEL BAMBERGER: Alan, let me just ask you one question right off the top here because I’m being asked about it and whatever you say will be helpful to me as well. I got a call the other day…it was kind of a hectic day and I got an email on my phone that said, “‘Call me. It’s urgent.’ Blah, blah, blah.” I read it quickly and it said [from] Hicks.

Well, I figured it was [NBC broadcaster] Dan Hicks. I figured he must have been mentioned in the story. There must have been some sort of problem, so I called back and got a young woman’s voice. I said, “Oh, hi. It’s Michael Bamberger. Is your dad around?” I was confused, because I thought I was calling Dan Hicks. Ms. Hicks said, “No, you haven’t called Dan Hicks. You’ve called Hope Hicks,” who is one of President Trump’s longtime advisors and spokespeople. Anyway, she was calling to complain about two words in the story that are getting a lot of attention where Donald Trump is quoted as saying “The White House is a real dump.” Ms. Hicks told me that that was a “lie and that Sports Illustrated is not in the business of publishing lies.”

I know it’s not but maybe, Alan, you can fill in the listenership about how that quote got into the magazine and what it means.

ALAN SHIPNUCK: Yeah, I had a conversation with Ms. Hicks as well, which was quite enlightening — the confrontational and rude tone of the phone call. They definitely don’t waste any time trying to be charming or friendly, these people in the White House communications department. She tried the same line on me, “That’s a lie and needs to be retracted.” I explained to her: It’s not a lie. The president said this in front of eight or nine members and staffers at [Trump] Bedminster. It was his first visit to the club after he had been residing in the White House. It was a moment of candor. Someone who was a part of that conversation relayed it to me. I found this person to be an extremely credible source on any number of topics.

The week of the U.S. Women’s Open [in July], I heard the same story told by two or three different other sources. This is certainly a moment that has already passed into legend at Trump Bedminster. It might be inconvenient for her boss and she might wish he didn’t say it, but it’s not a lie. It was a little insight into how the Trump media operation works coming out of the White House. As a courtesy to the office of the president, we did put in the digital version a parenthetical statement that says, “a White House spokesperson denies this incident ever took place.” I forget the exact wording. Of course it did take place but we were just being nice by offering in their two cents. I got a similar nasty phone call. It’s a little insight into how the modern media works. This is a highly-nuanced, deeply reported, 7,000-word story and there’s been a lot of play about one sentence in it.

[From Golf Magazine]

While in the grand scheme of things, this is nowhere near as important as Mueller’s investigation, or Jeff Sessions’ efforts to institutionalize even more racism within the system, or, you know, all the treason. But this is the continuing narrative: Trump lies. His people lie. No one in that family has any credibility. No one at the White House has any credibility. They will lie about anything and everything. Trump lies about phone calls from the Boy Scouts. He lies about phone calls with our allies. He lies about what he says at his golf clubs. He lies. His lies flow like water.

Covers courtesy of The New Yorker, Newsweek, photo courtesy of Getty.