On Monday, analysts across the political spectrum tried to figure out what President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani meant when he said that “truth isn’t truth.”

Fox News host Shepard Smith turned to the dictionary for help. In a segment that aired Monday, Smith provided Fox News’ audience with the working definition of truth.

“Webster’s defines it as the body of real things, events and facts and the state of being the case. It’s truth. It’s noble. Often demonstrable. Sometimes elusive…. but truth is truth,” Smith determined.

Of course, in our current political moment that’s not always clear cut. Smith points out that “truth is truth” is destined to enter the pantheon of Trumpian attacks on reality, such as the president commanding his followers not to believe what they see and read and Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts.”

Giuliani later clarified that he hadn’t meant to start a philosophical discussion about the nature of truth but rather point out that different people might have different stories, creating a ‘he said, she said'” scenario.

“My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic “he said, she said” puzzle,” Giuliani said. “Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn’t.”

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