Political spin is defined by Encyclopedia Britannia as “the attempt to control or influence communication in order to deliver one’s preferred message” …  it refers to “the sophisticated selling of a specific message that is heavily biased in favor of one’s own position and that employs maximum management of the media with the intention of maintaining or exerting control over the situation, often implying deception or manipulation.”

What Trump’s attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, is blasting out over the airwaves is not spin but outright lies.

Now that the Michael Cohen tape of his discussion with Trump, concerning how to deal with paying former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, has gone public, Giuliani is telling anyone who cares to hear his take on the recording that “it’s powerful exculpatory evidence.”

Okay. Good spin, I’ll give him that.

But how Trump wanted to pay McDougal, cash or check, is a whole other issue.

According to Giuliani, in the recording, Trump is saying to his fixer, Cohen, “Don’t pay with cash.”

Yet a careful review of the tape shows that Giuliani has gone beyond spin and into snow job territory.

While the audio is somewhat muffled, Trump can be heard saying to “pay with cash,” and Cohen says, “no, no, no.”

Does this really matter in the big scheme of things? Probably not. Yet it’s another example of team Trump lying to the American people.

Yesterday at a Veterans of Foreign Wars gathering in Kansas City, Trump went completely Orwellian when he told his audience not to believe their own eyes and ears.

“Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening,” said Trump.

For many Trump supporters who are either too lazy or brainwashed to actually listen to the Cohen recording, this is exactly what they’ll believe. Fake news.

Photo | rawstory.com/CNN