Is it an exaggeration or is it an outright lie?

Donald John Trump has declared, apparently without any proof, that his State of the Union speech was watched by the largest TV audience in the history of the broadcast medium.

The president’s declaration has been challenged, of course, by those who reminded him that other recent presidents spoke to larger audiences than he did. Some have reminded the president than an earlier speech he delivered, in 2017, to a joint congressional sessions was larger than the audience he drew for this week’s State of the Union.

It’s shades of the argument over the size of the Trump inaugural crowd all over again.

I guess we can expect this kind of foolishness from the president. The issue boils down to whether we believe it is (a) a mere exaggeration, (b) a misspoken statement or (c) an outright lie.

I am inclined to believe the third option. Why? Because the president knows — or he should know — the truth, but refuses deliberately to speak it.