When Donald Trump adds a new lie to his act, he repeats it so often word for word that he probably is soon unaware that he is lying. Take for example, his favorite lie about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—that it contains more oil than Saudi Arabia.

He repeated his fairy tale while boasting with Elon Musk: “I got ANWR in Alaska approved. Ronald Reagan couldn’t do it. Nobody could do it. Everybody tried. Nobody could do it. I got it approved. The first thing that Biden did was unimprove it to get rid of it. He ended it. His secretary went in and she ended it. And what a disgrace. That’s ANWR. That’s bigger, or they think it could be bigger than Saudi Arabia in Alaska.”

Trump, who has long demonstrated that he has no idea what the letters in ANWR stand for, has been telling this lie in almost the identical way since 2017.

Congress had approved lease sales in 2017, largely because of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, but Trump immediately began to brag that he and he alone had achieved something that Reagan couldn’t accomplish. Inflating ANWR’s oil potential to exceed Saudi Arabia inflated Trump’s ego.

“I really didn’t care about it, and then when I heard that everybody wanted it, for 40 years they’ve been trying to get it approved, I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR,’” Trump said in early 2018 at a GOP retreat.

“A friend of mine called up who’s in that world and in that business and said, ‘Is it true that you think about ANWR?’ I said, ‘I think we’re going to get it, you know.’ He said, ‘Are you kidding? That’s the biggest thing, by itself.’ He said, ‘Ronald Reagan and every president has wanted to get ANWR approved.’”

(After that retreat Sen. Dan Sullivan told the Washington Post that Trump knew more about ANWR than he was letting on. The Post report on Feb. 1, 2018 said Sullivan countered Trump’s ANWR tale this way: "No, no, no, look," Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said in an interview after Trump's speech, recalling exactly how he and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) made their pitch. ‘We had the opportunity to brief the president last year. It was early, like February or March. Over an hour, in the Oval, you know, that's a lot of time.’"

With then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke also in “the Oval,” Sullivan and Murkowski went into detail with Trump, who already knew a lot about Alaska, according to Sullivan.

"It was maps, it was on his desk, Zinke was there. And it was all about Alaska, all about Alaska issues, all about our priorities. And we talked about ANWR," Sullivan said.

"He's been rock solid on this, ever since, ever since," Sullivan told the Post in 2018.)

The rock solid Trump never tells the story that way. It’s possible that he didn’t remember the maps he was shown in 2018, which is why he said a friend told him about ANWR.

On Dec. 17, 2017, the day that he signed the giant GOP tax cut, Trump first told the story about his alleged ANWR friend at a press conference attended by Sullivan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Rep. Don Young and other GOP members of Congress.

"We've been trying to get that passed, the whole country, the world,” said Trump, quoting his alleged friend. “They tried in Ronald Reagan, they tried with the Bushes, they tried with everybody. They never got ANWR.”

“But we got ANWR in this bill,” Trump said.

(Later, he began to lie that he didn’t want ANWR in the bill at all because Murkowski crossed him. “I didn’t want to get it approved because I thought that someone had treated me very badly, very badly.”)

In April 2020, while signing a COVID relief bill, Trump repeated the lie about the oil prospects of ANWR at the White House. “Ronald Reagan tried to get it approved; couldn’t do it. Every President tried to get ANWR, and they couldn’t do it. I got it approved,” Trump said.

Sullivan, standing behind Trump, cheered him on. “Yes sir. Great,” beamed Sullivan.

At that event Trump also launched into a patented pout about how he didn’t get enough credit for ANWR oil leasing.

“People don’t even talk about it and that’s OK. They don’t have to talk about it. That’s why I talk about it. Because no one else will,” said Trump.

“We love it in Alaska, I’ll tell you that,” said Sullivan.

“But ANWR is perhaps the largest find in the world. Right? It could be,” says Trump.

Sullivan echoed Trump’s lie that it could be the largest oil field in the world.

“Could be,” said Sullivan.

“But it’s certainly one of them,” said Trump.

“Yes sir,” said Sullivan.

Trump went on to say it was “maybe the largest find anywhere in the world.”

No one who knows anything about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge believes that it contains the largest oil deposits in the world.

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