CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria Thursday called Donald Trump a "BS artist" and likened his Republican presidential campaign to a "performance."
"His whole mode of operation is really a BS artist," he told Don Lemon on the cable network in an interview. He is host of "Fareed Zakaria: GPS" on CNN — and he wrote a column on the subject for The Washington Post.
"I talk about an essay by an eminent philosopher [Harry Frankfurt], who said there's a difference between telling lies and BS," he said. "With BS, you don't tell what the truth is or where lies are.
"It's like a performance."
Zakaria also called Trump "pathological" — saying: "Week after week, day after day, he's saying things that are contradicted by facts."
He cited, for instance, Trump's claim to have seen a video of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks.
"He keeps doing it almost day after day," Zakaria said.
The CNN host likened Trump's approach to his years in the business world.
"He goes into these halls, these audiences. He's a salesman — and he feeds off the energy that the crowd has, and he starts riffing and he improvises.
"In that context, I think he's done it his whole life: Whether he was selling a condo or membership to a golf course, this is his mode.
"It's different from lying," Zakaria continued. "Lies, truth, facts are irrelevant.
"He's making up some grand story, which is all fine if you're selling memberships to a golf course.
"But when you're doing it with the presidency of the United States, when you're talking about nuclear security, when you're talking about deterrence, it is scary as hell because he literally is making it up as he goes along."