In her first briefing as White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt said she was “committed to telling the truth from this podium every single day.” Moments later she announced that the new administration had blocked a $50 million contract for condoms in Gaza.

在作为白宫新闻秘书的首次简报中，卡罗琳·莱维特表示，她“承诺每天都在这个讲台上说真话。”随即，她宣布新政府已阻止了一项价值5000万美元的为加沙提供避孕套的合同。

“That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money,” she said.

她说：“这是对纳税人的钱的荒谬浪费。”

It was also a preposterous claim, improbable on its face and quickly debunked. There were millions in federal grants awarded to prevent sexually transmitted diseases in Gaza, but in the province in Mozambique, not the Palestinian territory.

这本身就是个荒谬的说法，看上去就不太可能，也很快就被揭穿了。的确有数千万美元的联邦拨款用于预防加沙的性传播疾病，但这里的加沙是莫桑比克的一个省（通译“加扎”，两者英文皆为Gaza。——译注），并非巴勒斯坦的加沙。

The condoms claim went viral anyway, seeping into the political discourse that President Trump has used to justify his sweeping push to slash the federal government.

尽管如此，关于避孕套的说法还是被疯传，成为特朗普总统的政治话语的一部分，用于解释他大肆裁撤联邦政府机构的合理性。

Mr. Trump’s first four years in the White House were filled with false or misleading statements — 30,573 of them, or 21 a day on average, according to one tally. Back then, though, aides often tried to play down or contain the damage of egregious falsehoods.

特朗普上一次入主白宫的四年中，虚假或误导性言论层出不穷——有一项统计称多达30573条，平均每天21次。不过，在那时，助手们经常试图淡化或遏制严重虚假言论造成的损害。

This time, Mr. Trump is joined by a coterie of cabinet officials and advisers who have amplified them and even spread their own. Together, they are effectively institutionalizing disinformation.

这一次，特朗普的小圈子内阁官员和顾问也加入进来，他们放大了这些信息，甚至散布自己的信息。他们共同将虚假信息制度化。

While it is still early in his term, and many of his executive orders face legal challenges that could blunt the impact of any falsehoods driving them, Mr. Trump and his advisers have ushered the country into a new era of post-truth politics, where facts are contested and fictions used to pursue policy goals.

特朗普尚在任职之初，他的许多行政命令还面临法律挑战，可能会削弱任何虚假信息的影响力，但他和他的顾问们已经将美国带入了一个后真相政治的新时代，在这个时代，事实受到质疑，虚假信息被用来追求政策目标。

Mr. Trump justified the pardons of hundreds of rioters convicted of the violence, including assaults on police officers, at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by maintaining that “they didn’t assault” anyone. He attacked Canada, a NATO ally, by claiming fentanyl was pouring across the border, when in fact less than 1 percent of the drug was traced to the country last year.

2021年1月6日在国会大厦发生的暴力事件中，数百名骚乱者被判定犯有袭警等罪行，特朗普为赦免他们辩解称，“他们没有袭击”任何人。他攻击加拿大这个北约盟国，声称芬太尼正在源源不断地从美加边境流入，事实上，去年追踪到的芬太尼中不到1%来自加拿大。

Brooke Rollins, Mr. Trump’s agriculture secretary, boasted on X that she had canceled a $600,000 contract to study the menstrual cycles of transgender men, when in fact the grant financed a study on using natural fibers like cotton, wool and hemp in feminine hygiene products.

特朗普的农业部长布鲁克·罗林斯在X上吹嘘说，她已经取消了一份价值60万美元、用于研究跨性别男性月经周期的合同，而事实上，这笔拨款在资助一项关于在女性卫生用品中使用棉、羊毛和大麻等天然纤维的研究。

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic who now runs the Department of Health and Human Services, claimed that the measles vaccine routinely kills people every year, though scientists say that is false.

疫苗怀疑论者小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪目前负责卫生与公共服务部，他声称每年都有人因麻疹疫苗死亡，但科学家们表示这是错误的。

目前执掌卫生与公众服务部的疫苗怀疑论者小罗伯特·肯尼迪声称每年都有人因麻疹疫苗死亡，但科学家们说这是错误的。

Audrey McCabe, an analyst at Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog, said the administration had pursued a strategy of “disinformation overload” that was overwhelming not only its opponents but also the judicial system.

无党派政府监督机构“共同事业”的分析师奥黛丽·麦凯布表示，美国政府推行的“虚假信息超载”战略不仅让其对手不堪重负，也让司法系统陷入困境。

“How do we push back on this when it’s coming from someone who was elected as president and those he’s decided to have close to him?” she said.

她说：“对于这种来自当选总统和他安插在自己身边的人的虚假言论，我们该如何反击呢？”

False narratives that once percolated in the darker corners of the internet are now advanced by Mr. Trump and his appointees and amplified by a media echo chamber, muddying the political discourse and compounding a broader erosion of trust in institutions themselves.

曾经在互联网阴暗角落潜滋暗长的虚假言论，如今由特朗普及其任命的官员推崇，并通过媒体的回声室放大，搅浑了政治话语，并加剧了公众在更大层面上对制度本身的不信任。

Elon Musk, the technology executive leading a crusade against federal spending, has repeatedly spread disinformation, including the claim about the condoms for Gaza. He has acknowledged mistakes but presses on unchastened.

埃隆·马斯克这位领导着一场反对联邦开支运动的科技高管曾多次散布虚假信息，包括关于为加沙地带提供安全套的说法。他承认错误，但仍不做出改变。

He more recently called Social Security “the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time,” implying that one of the most popular government programs is a criminal activity.

最近，他又称社会保障是“有史以来最大的庞氏骗局”，暗示最受欢迎的政府项目之一是一种犯罪活动。

埃隆·马斯克走下“空军一号”，他最近称社会保障是“有史以来最大的庞氏骗局”。

Many remarks like that could be construed as exaggerations for rhetorical effect. Other falsehoods emanating from the administration have appeared to be misstatements of facts, perhaps unintentional. Still others arguably fall into the category of disinformation as intentional attempts to mislead Americans.

许多类似的言论可以被理解为夸张或是为了修辞效果。其他一些来自政府的不实言论似乎是对事实的错误陈述，也许是无意的。还有一些则可以说属于有意误导美国民众的虚假信息。

Mr. Trump’s second term has already elevated a new generation of online influencers to prominence, many of whom echo his politics back and forth in posts, news articles, interviews or commentary. He has even brought them into the small White House press pool, which has traditionally operated as a professional, independent chronicler of the president’s every movement and utterance.

特朗普的第二任期已经让新一代网络影响者崭露头角，他们中的许多人在帖子、新闻文章、采访或评论中来回呼应特朗普的政治主张。他甚至让他们进入白宫记者团，也就是传统上以专业、独立的方式记录总统一举一动的那个小群体。

One of them was Brian Glenn, a correspondent for Real America’s Voice, a right-wing streaming and cable channel founded in 2020 that has spread misinformation and conspiracy theories. It was Mr. Glenn who hectored Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for not wearing a suit during his Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump last month, giving voice to grumblings from White House aides.

其中之一是布赖恩·格伦，他是《真正的美国声音》的记者，该频道是一家成立于2020年的右翼流媒体和有线电视频道，一直在传播虚假信息和阴谋论。在上个月特朗普与乌克兰总统泽连斯基的椭圆形办公室会晤中，正是格伦责备泽连斯基没有穿正装，表达了白宫助手们的不满。

“A lot of Americans,” he claimed, about Mr. Zelensky, “have problems with you not respecting the office.”

他声称，“很多美国人”对泽连斯基“不尊重总统”感到不满。

For Mr. Trump’s supporters, the current moment has become a war over the truth that, for now, they are winning.

对于特朗普的支持者来说，当前的时刻已经成为一场争夺真相的战争，而他们目前是这场战争的赢家。

“We are waging a 21st-century information warfare campaign against the left,” Jesse Watters, the Fox News personality, said last month.

福克斯新闻名嘴杰西·沃特斯上个月说：“我们正在发动一场针对左翼的21世纪信息战。”

“It’s like grass-roots guerrilla warfare,” he added. “Someone says something on social media, Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it. By the time it reaches everybody, millions of people have seen it.”

“这就像一场草根阶层的游击战，”他还说。“有人在社交媒体上发表言论，马斯克转发，罗根播客谈论，福克斯播出。当它传到每个人的耳中时，已经有数百万人看到了它。”

In some cases, officials have tried to deflect questions about the false statements. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services pointed to an opinion piece that Mr. Kennedy wrote for Fox News, in which he wrote that vaccines could protect people from measles, while also arguing that “good nutrition” remains “a best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses.”

在某些情况下，官员们试图回避有关虚假言论的问题。卫生与公众服务部的一位发言人推荐了肯尼迪为福克斯新闻撰写的一篇评论文章，他在文章中写道，疫苗可以保护人们免受麻疹的伤害，但同时他也认为，“良好的营养”仍然是“预防大多数慢性病和传染病的最佳方法”。

特朗普总统在佛罗里达州棕榈滩的马阿拉戈庄园接受《真正的美国声音》记者布赖恩·格伦的采访。

And the Department of Agriculture said in a statement that though the contract Ms. Rollins had canceled was in fact for a study of natural fibers “on a surface level,” there was an “educational component” that referred to transgender men. The grant proposal used the word “transgender” once in a summary identifying the populations that might benefit from the research on natural fibers.

农业部在一份声明中表示，虽然农业部长罗林斯取消的合同确实“表面上”是对天然纤维的研究，但其中有“教育部分”提到了跨性别男性。在确定可能从天然纤维研究中受益的人群的摘要中，拨款提案使用了一次“跨性别者”一词。

Other moves by Mr. Trump have reflected animus to efforts to track and identify misinformation and malign foreign influence in the name of free speech. He has moved to dismantle the government agencies responsible, including one created during his first term at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

特朗普的其他举措反映出，他对追踪和识别虚假信息以及恶意外国影响的努力存有敌意，他的这些举措是以言论自由的名义进行的。他已着手解散负责这些工作的政府机构，包括在他第一任期内成立的网络安全和基础设施安全局。

He has done so when many of the industry guardrails against the spread of disinformation have already unraveled under political and legal pressure from the right.

而他在这样做的同时，许多防止虚假信息传播的行业防范措施已经在右派的政治和法律压力下瓦解。

Days before Mr. Trump returned to the White House, Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that the company would end its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, embracing Republican claims that flagging lies was too often politically motivated. The company intends to shift to using Community Notes, a crowdsourced fact-checking effort used by Mr. Musk at X, the platform he bought in 2022.

在特朗普重返白宫的前几天，Meta公司首席执行官马克·扎克伯格宣布，该公司将终止其在Facebook、Instagram和Threads上的第三方事实核查计划，这是在认同共和党的说法，即标记谎言往往是出于政治动机。该公司打算转而使用“社区笔记”，这是马斯克在他2022年收购的X平台上使用的一种众包事实核查方式。

Mr. Trump’s supporters sometimes depict his false or exaggerated statements as negotiating strategies. Mr. Trump himself has described prevarication as a means to an end. “If you say it enough and keep saying it,” he said once at a rally in 2021, “they’ll start to believe you.”

特朗普的支持者有时将他的虚假或夸张言论描述为谈判策略。特朗普自己也把捏造事实描述为达到目的的一种手段。他曾在2021年的一次集会上说：“如果你说得足够多，并且一直说下去，他们就会开始相信你。”