A President Who Believes He Is Entitled to His Own Facts

WASHINGTON — 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 Drumpf 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.”

Michael V. Hayden, a former C.I.A. director who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said that Mr. Drumpf could be coaxed into believing objective reality, but that it “is not the instinctive departure point for what Donald Drumpf does.”

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