Let's begin with a prediction: The Republican National Convention is under way in Milwaukee and former President Donald Trump is likely to tell many lies there before it ends Thursday.

How do we know? History. The fact-checkers really earned their pay after Trump's nomination acceptance speeches at the 2016 and 2020 conventions.

Will Trump lean into the truth now, with his new national "unity" messaging, after surviving an assassination attempt Saturday? Seems unlikely. But we can hope.

Trump lies so often and so blatantly that it's easy to be bewildered in the whirlwind of prevarication. But he does become predictable if you listen to him long enough and understand the circumstances and context swirling around his remarks.

I met Trump as a failing casino operator in 2005 and then started covering him as a presidential candidate in 2015. With two decades of experience, I've narrowed the field to the five most likely lies Trump will tell this week ‒ if he returns to what he considers a normal way of politicking ‒ and why he feels the need to tell them.

But first, let's talk about why Trump lies so much.

First, and most obviously, Trump has a hypersensitivity to accountability that often makes acknowledging the truth impossible for him. Stop and think – when was the last time Trump took responsibility for anything that reflected poorly on him or his one term as president or his campaign?

Then there is ego. Trump is widely regarded – correctly – as a narcissist. And he has a loyal base of supporters eager to believe anything he says while lashing out at fact-checkers for the temerity of telling the truth. Imagine the sense of power an egocentric politician experiences from that kind of........

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