While it’s certainly true that politicians spin facts and sometimes say things that are demonstrably false, Donald Trump may set a world record for the number of lies he’s told while in office. Often, those lies are about small and petty things, like the one he’s told seven times since taking office about winning Michigan’s Man of the Year Award.
There is no such award, yet Trump has insisted that he was honored at a Lincoln Day dinner in 2013. CNN’s fact-checker Daniel Dale hunted down the roots of that lie and finally found answers from a former GOP congressman who no longer cares if he upsets the president.
One award Trump may actually win someday is the Most Prolific Liar Award. On August 12, The Washington Post noted that Trump had reached a milestone after telling more than 12,000 lies during just 928 days in office. Most surprisingly, those lies are often easily fact-checked and debunked.
Some of the lies that Trump tells repeatedly are about big issues, like immigration and the economy. He’s said over and over that his wall is definitely being built (it isn’t), that the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s ever been in history (it’s not), that he gave military members the largest raise in history (he didn’t), and that he passed the largest tax cuts in American history (he didn’t).
In addition to those “accomplishments,” Trump lies frequently about the size of the crowds at his rallies and at his inauguration, how tariffs will affect the American consumer, and who is responsible for economic gains. Often, however, it’s just small, ridiculous claims. He hangs fake Time magazine covers in his golf resorts. He says he won the 2016 presidential election by the largest landslide in GOP history. He claims to be more popular in polls than Abraham Lincoln was, even though there were no polls during Lincoln’s presidency.
While his lies are no longer a shock, the idea that some of the GOP members will finally come clean after leaving office still is. There are a lot more of them coming in 2020.
Twitter had a field day with Dale’s fact check. See some of their comments below:
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
