Day 471: WaPo: Trump has lied over 3,000 times
The frequency is rising, too.
Donald Trump is a liar. Always has been, likely always will be. The most obvious recent example was revealed when his newest attorney, Rudy Giuliani, bumblingly revealed to Sean Hannity that Trump knew about the $130,000 hush payment his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to an adult film star just before the election. Giuliani explained that Cohen had been paid back over the course of several months in a scheme where Cohen received monthly checks for no-work and the payments also accounted for taxes and profit.
Trump, just last month on Air Force One, proclaimed he was unaware of the settlement and payment.
According to The Washington Post, that one lie is just one of over 3,000 to date for Trump since his inauguration.
In the 466 days since he took the oath of office, President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.
That’s an average of nearly 6.5 claims a day.
But that number is ever-rising.
When we first started this project for the president’s first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. Slowly, the average number of claims has been creeping up.
Indeed, since we last updated this tally two months ago, the president has averaged about 9 claims a day.
The lies are frequently about policy: the Post noted Trump has lied 72 times about the tax bill passed at the end of 2017 being the largest in history (it’s the eighth largest) and Trump has lied over a dozen times in the last five weeks about a wall currently being built on the U.S.-Mexico border (it’s not).
His lies show an abject misunderstanding of basic economic principle.
He said — for the 29th time — that the U.S. trade deficit with China is $500 billion. But it’s really about $300 billion. He also said “we lose about $500 billion” through the trade deficit even though countries do not “lose” money on trade deficits.
And he generally lies to make himself look better.
He once again claimed that President Xi Jinping of China instantly agreed to a request from Trump to allow the sale of U.S. beef after years of blocking it. But China had already agreed to such sales under a deal brokered by the Obama administration.
Donald Trump: liar.
471 days in, 991 to go
Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer
