Anne Applebaum

In other words, the language of rights, the language of rule of law, the language of separation of powers.

You know, all of these are states that are seeking to create a kind of

total environment where the regime or the leader or the ruling party controls all media, all conversation.

In Iran, almost every day something happens.

Trump makes a statement.

There's another use of weaponry.

There's another piece of information.

And yet nothing happens.

He keeps changing the narrative.

He keeps trying one version of events after the other.

He says we're going to invade one day.

We're not going to invade the next day.

Maybe at one point he'll be telling the truth or he'll be saying something that will actually happen.

But I'm not sure –

how we will know when that is.

In other words, you know, it's not just the boy cried wolf.

We're really beyond that now.

I mean, he's almost doing the Russian style fire hood of falsehoods.

You know, if you just keep saying lots of stuff all the time, people begin to eventually blank out.

It's very hard to know what's true and what's not true.