False or misleading statements by Donald Trump: Difference between revisions

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Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has made a number of controversial statements which are false or misleading.^[1] Trump has made so many false or misleading statements that commentators and fact checkers have described the rate of his falsehoods as unprecedented in politics.^[1][2][3] Trump also has "a proclivity to repeat, over and over, many of his false or misleading statements." As of August 2018, "they have counted nearly 150 claims that the president has repeated at least three times, some with breathtaking frequency."Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).^[4]

The Trump family has a long history of untruthfulness. In an article entitled "The Swedish Whopper: Donald Trump's Long-standing Struggle With the Truth," the Trump family lie is revealed to be their claim, maintained for two generations, that they are Swedish, when in fact they are Germans.^[5] Donald's father, Fred Trump, "sought to pass himself off as Swedish amid anti-German sentiment sparked by World War II."^[6] The lie was repeated by Fred's son Donald, who, in The Art of the Deal (1987),^[6][7][8] repeated and embellished the lie by claiming that his grandfather, Friedrich Trump, "came here from Sweden as a child",^[9] even though he left his family and emigrated from his home town, Kallstadt, Germany, in 1885, when he was 16 years old.^[10] In the same book, he also claimed that his father was "born in New Jersey to Swedish parents; in fact, he was born in the Bronx to German parents,"^[11] as Wayne Barrett pointed out in 1992.^[11][12]

Within years of expanding his father's property development business into Manhattan in the early 1970s, Trump attracted the attention of The New York Times for his "brash, controversial style," with one real estate financier observing in 1976, "His deals are dramatic, but they haven't come into being. So far, the chief beneficiary of his creativity has been his public image." Der Scutt, the prominent architect who designed Trump Tower, said of Trump in 1976, "He's extremely aggressive when he sells, maybe to the point of overselling. Like, he'll say the convention center is the biggest in the world, when it really isn't. He'll exaggerate for the purpose of making a sale."^[13] In 2018, journalist Jonathan Greenberg released audio recordings from 1984 in which Trump, posing as his own spokesman "John Barron," made false assertions of his wealth to secure a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans, including claiming he owned "in excess of 90 percent" of his family's business.^[14] His 1987 book Trump: The Art of the Deal stated, "I play to people's fantasies. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion."^[15]

Alair Townsend, a former budget director and deputy mayor of New York City during the 1980s, and a former publisher of Crain's New York Business, said "I wouldn't believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized."^[16][17] Leona Helmsley later used this line as her own in talking about Trump in her November 1990 interview in Playboy magazine.^[18]

In 1997, Ben Berzin Jr., who had been tasked with recovering at least some of the $100 million his bank had lent Trump, said "During the time that I dealt with Mr. Trump, I was continually surprised by his mastery of situational ethics. He does not seem to be able to differentiate between fact and fiction."^[19][16]

Tony Schwartz is a ghostwriter^[11] and credited co-author of Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987). In July 2016, Schwartz was interviewed by Jane Mayer for two articles in The New Yorker.^[20][11] In them he described Trump, who was running for President at the time, highly unfavorably, and described how he came to regret writing The Art of the Deal.^[20][11][21] When Schwartz wrote The Art of the Deal, he created the phrase "truthful hyperbole" as an "artful euphemism" to describe Trump's "loose relationship with the truth."^[11] This passage from the book provides the context, written in Trump's voice: "I play to people's fantasies...People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration — and it's a very effective form of promotion."^[22] He said that Trump "loved the phrase".^[11][23]

Schwartz said that "deceit" is never "innocent." He added, "'Truthful hyperbole' is a contradiction in terms. It's a way of saying, 'It's a lie, but who cares?'"^[11] Schwartz repeated his criticism on Good Morning America and Real Time with Bill Maher, saying he "put lipstick on a pig".^[24]

David Fahrenthold has investigated the long history of Trump's claims about his charitable giving and found little evidence the claims are true.^[25][26] Following Fahrenthold's reporting, the Attorney General of New York opened an inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation's fundraising practices, and ultimately issued a "notice of violation" ordering the Foundation to stop raising money in New York.^[27] The Foundation had to admit it engaged in self-dealing practices to benefit Trump, his family, and businesses.^[28] Fahrenthold won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for his coverage of Trump's claimed charitable giving^[29] and casting "doubt on Donald Trump's assertions of generosity toward charities."^[30]

Within six months of announcing his presidential candidacy, FactCheck.org declared him the "King of Whoppers," stating, "In the 12 years of FactCheck.org's existence, we've never seen his match."^[31]

Trump's presidency started out with a series of falsehoods initiated by Trump himself. The day after his inauguration, he falsely accused the media of lying about the size of the inauguration crowd. Then he proceeded to exaggerate the size, and Sean Spicer backed up his claims.^{[32][33][34][35]} When Spicer was accused of intentionally misstating the figures,^[36][37][38] Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, defended Spicer by stating that he merely presented "alternative facts".^[39] Todd responded by saying "alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."^[40]

As president, Trump has frequently made false statements in public speeches and remarks.^{[41][42][43][44]} Trump uttered "at least one false or misleading claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days" in office according to The New York Times,^[41] and 1,318 total in his first 263 days in office according to the "Fact Checker" political analysis column of The Washington Post.^[45] On Trump's 601st day in office, their tally exceeded 5,000 false or misleading claims, and it had risen to an average of 8.3 per day from 4.9 during his first 100 days in office.^[46][47] According to one study, the rate of false statements has increased, with the percentage of his words that are part of a false claim rising over the course of his presidency.^[44] In general, news organizations have been hesitant to label these statements as "lies".^[48][49][44]

Glenn Kessler, a fact checker for The Washington Post, told Dana Milbank that, in his six years on the job, "'there's no comparison' between Trump and other politicians. Kessler says politicians' statements get his worst rating — four Pinocchios — 15 percent to 20 percent of the time. Clinton is about 15 percent. Trump is 63 percent to 65 percent."^[50] Kessler also wrote: "President Trump is the most fact-challenged politician that The Fact Checker has ever encountered ... the pace and volume of the president's misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up."^[42]

A poll in May 2018 found that "just 13 percent of Americans consider Trump honest and trustworthy".^[51]

The Editorial Board of The New York Times took this telling sideswipe at Trump when commenting on the unfitness of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court: "A perfect nominee for a president with no clear relation to the truth."^[52]

Trump has been involved in the promotion of a number of conspiracy theories which have lacked meaningful substance. These have included promoting Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories from 2011 ("birther" theories); claiming that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 2016; claiming that he would have won the popular vote in the 2016 election (in addition to his electoral college win) if there had not been "millions" of illegal voters in that election cycle;^[53][54] and the Spygate conspiracy theory^{[55][56][57][53][54]} alleging that the Barack Obama administration planted a spy inside Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to assist Hillary Clinton win the 2016 US presidential election.^[58][59] It has been widely described as blatantly false.^{[55][60][58][61]}

Trump also made his Trump Tower wiretapping allegations in 2017, for which the Department of Justice has said evidence has yet to be provided. In January 2018, Trump claimed that texts between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were tantamount to "treason", but the Wall Street Journal reviewed them and concluded that the texts "show no evidence of a conspiracy against" Trump.^[62][63]

Trump is a friend of "professional conspiracy theorist"^[64] Alex Jones, and has appeared on his show. When InfoWars and Jones were banned from Apple, YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify, Infowars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson called it "censorship" and used the well-known Trump-Jones friendship as an argument: "Infowars is widely credited with having played a key role in electing Donald Trump."^[65]

Trump's incessant attacks on the media, reliable sources, and truth have kept an army of fact checkers busy, the latter having never encountered a more deceptive public person. Tony Burman wrote: "The falsehoods and distortions uttered by Trump and his senior officials have particularly inflamed journalists and have been challenged — resulting in a growing prominence of 'fact-checkers' and investigative reporting."^[66] The situation has not improved, but is rapidly getting much worse, as described by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Ashley Parker: "President Trump seems to be saying more and more things that aren't true."^[67]

Professor Robert Prentice summarized the views of many fact checkers:

Several major fact checking sites maintain databases and report regularly.

PolitiFact

• "Comparing Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump on the Truth-O-Meter"^[69]

• "Donald Trump's file"^[70]

• "PolitiFact designates the many campaign misstatements of Donald Trump as our 2015 Lie of the Year."^[71]

• "Fact-checking Trump's TIME interview on truths and falsehoods."^[72]

• "7 whoppers from President Trump's first 100 days in office."^[73]

FactCheck.org

• Donald Trump's file^[74]

• "100 Days of Whoppers. Donald Trump, the candidate we dubbed the 'King of Whoppers' in 2015, has held true to form as president."^[75]

• "The Whoppers of 2017. President Trump monopolizes our list of the year's worst falsehoods and bogus claims."^[76]

The Washington Post

• "Throughout President Trump's first 100 days, the Fact Checker team will be tracking false and misleading claims made by the president since Jan. 20. In the 33 days so far, we've counted 132 false or misleading claims."^[77]

• "Fact-checking President Trump's claims on the Paris climate change deal"^[78]

• President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims^[79]

Toronto Star

The Star's Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Dale, has been following Donald Trump's campaign for months. He has fact checked thousands of statements and found hundreds of falsehoods:

• "Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things."^[80]

• "Confessions of a Trump Fact-Checker"^[81]

• "The Star's running tally of the straight-up lies, exaggerations and deceptions the president of the United States of America has said, so far."^[82]

The Guardian

• "How does Donald Trump lie? A fact checker's final guide."^[83]

• "Smoke and mirrors: how Trump manipulates the media and opponents."^[84]

Here are a few of Trump's notable claims which fact checkers have rated false:

• that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States;^[85][86][87] Obama is a natural born citizen, born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton "founded ISIS"^[88][89] Pants on fire.^[90]
• that the Obama administration was "actively supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq"^[91][92]
• that Hillary Clinton started the Obama "birther" movement;^[93][94]
• that Trump was "totally against the war in Iraq".^[95][96][97]
• that Hillary Clinton received 3-5 million illegal votes;^[98][99]
• that Trump's electoral college victory was a "landslide";^{[100][101][102]}
• that three states he did not win in the 2016 election had "serious voter fraud"^{[103][104][105][106]}
• that "the murder rate in our country is the highest it's been in 47 years"^{[107][108][109]}
• that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower^[110][111]
• that polar ice caps are "at a record level"^{[112][113][114]}
• that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is the biggest tax cut in history^{[115][116][117]}
• that wages are rising for the first time in many years^{[118][119][120]}
• that "I never said Russia did not meddle in the election"^{[121][122][123]}
• that he raised military pay for the "first time in 10 years"^{[124][125][126]}
• that Nancy Pelosi "came out in favor of MS-13"^{[127][128][129]}
• that the economy on his watch is the best in American history^{[130][131][132]}
• that "Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign"^{[133][134][135]}
• that US Steel is opening several new mills^{[136][137][138]}
• that he enacted unprecedented defense budgets^[139][140]
• that he and Republicans "will protect patients with pre-existing conditions" while "some of the Democrats have been talking about ending (coverage for) pre-existing conditions."^{[141][142][143]}
• that USMCA is the biggest trade deal in American history^[144][145]
• that his 2017 arms deal with Saudi Arabia would create up to one million American jobs^{[146][147][148]}
• that Democrats want to give free cars to undocumented immigrants^{[149][150][151]}
• that "a lot of people in California" are "rioting now" because of sanctuary cities^{[152][153][154]}

• Fear: Trump in the White House
• Fire and Fury
• The Making of Donald Trump

• Donald Trump archive, FactCheck.org
• "Trump and the Truth", a series of 14 articles by different authors in The New Yorker, starting September 2, 2016. They "examine the untruths that have fueled Donald Trump's Presidential campaign."
• "Our Dishonest President", a seven-part series by The Times Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times, starting April 2, 2017.