IN FAIRNESS....:

He accepts less-than-credible denials from autocratic heads of state about nefarious acts. He disputes the existence of man-made climate change and insists that photographic evidence of the crowd at his inauguration is fake, part of a media plot to harm him.

Over the course of 21 months, President Trump has loudly and repeatedly refused to accept a number of seemingly agreed-upon facts, while insisting on the veracity of a variety of demonstrably false claims that happen to suit his political needs. In the process, he has untethered the White House from the burden of objective proof, creating a rich trove for professional fact-checkers, and raising questions about the basis for many of his decisions.

"If there's no truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?" said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative based in California. "It's been abandoned. And it's something that the Republican base certainly isn't going to revolt on him on. But it is a huge fundamental problem of how to govern when there are no facts." [...]

Mr. Trump's approach has profound consequences for the credibility of the presidency and the boundaries of acceptable political discourse. It also has serious ramifications for his advisers, as well as people who hear the president's words outside the United States. And, according to Mr. Hayden, it particularly affects the intelligence officials whose job it is to present Mr. Trump with the information he needs to make critical national security decisions.

"Intelligence is all about context, which is history and consequence," said Mr. Hayden, and intelligence officials are "trying to pull him into an agreed view of objective reality."

But in briefings and meetings, Mr. Trump has frequently chosen to adhere to his own beliefs on issues such as the Iran nuclear deal. He has declared that pact to be "a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made," based on his belief that Iran was not in compliance with it, despite evidence to the contrary.

For Mr. Trump, personal relationships are more important than institutional ones. That means he "gives weight to data based on who told him, not the evidentiary stack underneath it," Mr. Hayden said.

The result is that the Russian president or the North Korean leader can seem to have a greater impact with Mr. Trump than his own State Department or C.I.A. His willingness to repeat claims like the notion that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of "rogue killers" is a function of that, Mr. Stutzman said.

"This rhetoric really matters," he said, "in that it belies how little he fundamentally understands the institutions of American democracy."

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