Former Clinton spokesman says Trump incapable of telling truth: 'This has never happened before

Former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart, who previously served under former President Bill Clinton, said Sunday that President Donald Trump is simply "incapable of telling the truth."

What are the details?

On CNN's "Reliable Sources," Lockhart declared, "This has never happened before. We've had great presidents, we've had terrible presidents, Republicans and Democrats, but we've never had anything like this — where we have a president who is incapable of telling the truth."

Lockhart, 59, pointed to a May Washington Post report, which, according to a The Hill, reported that the president tells an average of 6.5 to 9 "false or misleading claims per day."

He also went on the offensive against former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and current White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"The job of the press secretary, even with an honest president, is very, very hard because you’re balancing the interests of the president’s political fortunes and the government with the press, and the public’s right to know things," Lockhart said. "And it is hard. But I think with both [former White House press secretary] Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders, they’ve crossed the line here."

"Now, [they think] the facts don’t matter and they reflect the boss, and if the boss lies, well, then, I can lie," Lockhart added. "And that’s just a terrible place to be for the country. And it has consequences."

What else did Lockhart say?

Lockhart said that "no one knows what the truth is," and continued to lay into Sanders for what he said is "aiding and abetting the process" of undermining the public's confidence in the free press.

"The White House podium used to be a place that around the world, people could ... take it to the bank — this is our policy, this is what we’re doing," Lockhart explained. "Right now, no one knows what the truth is and they could say the sun’s gonna come up in the east tomorrow and there would be speculation that it’s not going to because the lies just get told."

"I think for Sarah Sanders, she’s now gone beyond the point of being just in a tough situation with a hard boss, and she’s now aiding and abetting the process," he continued. "The process is designed to undermine the public confidence in the one tool they have to keep the government accountable."

"We've never had anything like this, where we have a president who is incapable of telling the truth," argues former Clinton WH press secretary Joe Lockhart pic.twitter.com/ji8YrM2RaD

— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) August 5, 2018

Who is Lockhart, anyway?

Lockhart was deputy to former White House press secretary Mike McCurry during Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal, in which the former president lied about — and later admitted to — having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, who was a White House intern at the time.

Lockhart succeeded McCurry and became White House press secretary after Clinton made the admission about his relationship with Lewinsky and served throughout the impeachment process.

According to a 1998 report by the Washington Post, Lockhart admitted that trust would need to be built back up after the president lied.

"It makes the job harder when you've got a credibility problem, and we've got one of those right now," Lockhart admitted. "It'll be a slow, painstaking process of repairing the credibility damage."

According to a 1998 New York Times report, "'We have a problem now after the President acknowledged misleading' the country about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky," Lockhart  said. "'We have to build back that trust.'"