Trump’s 10,000 Lies

The President has hit a dubious milestone barely two years into his administration.

Image via Institute for Policy Studies

The Washington Post has been cataloging President Donald Trump’s prevarications, untruths, fibs, and other assorted misstatements since he took office. This past Friday, he hit a new milestone.

It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day.

But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many rallies he held before the midterm elections, the partial government shutdown over his promised border wall and the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the presidential election.

This milestone appeared unlikely when The Fact Checker first started this project during his first 100 days. In the first 100 days, Trump averaged less than five claims a day, which would have added up to about 7,000 claims in a four-year presidential term. But the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger.

As of April 27, including the president’s rally in Green Bay, Wis., the tally in our database stands at 10,111 claims in 828 days.

Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly, “President Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims

The number is staggering. But, of course, we should always challenge spectacular claims. After all, having started such a list, the motivation is high to code every statement possible as “misleading” in order to add to the total.

In recent days, the president demonstrated why he so quickly has piled up the claims. There was a 45-minute telephone interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News on April 25: 45 claims. There was an eight-minute gaggle with reporters the morning of April 26: eight claims. There was a speech to the National Rifle Association: 24 claims. There was 19-minute interview with radio host Mark Levin: 17 claims. And, finally, there was the campaign rally on April 27: 61 claims.

The president’s constant Twitter barrage also adds to his totals. All told, the president racked up 171 false or misleading claims in just three days, April 25-27. That’s more than he made in any single month in the first five months of his presidency.

Again, though, Trump supporters are unlikely to click through these links and weigh each of the charges.

About one-fifth of the president’s claims are about immigration issues, a percentage that has grown since the government shutdown over funding for his promised border wall. In fact, his most repeated claim — 160 times — is that his border wall is being built. Congress balked at funding the concrete wall he envisioned, and so he has tried to pitch bollard fencing and repairs of existing barriers as “a wall.”

Trump’s penchant for repeating false claims is demonstrated by the fact that The Fact Checker database has recorded nearly 300 instances when the president has repeated a variation of the same claim at least three times. He also now has earned 21 “Bottomless Pinocchios,” claims that have earned Three or Four Pinocchios and which have been repeated at least 20 times.

Aha. So, we don’t have 10,000-plus separate lies but 10,000-plus instances where something deemed “misleading” has been uttered or Tweeted, with unlimited counting of duplicates. Indeed, there are 21 claims that account for at least 420 of the total and another 300 that account for at least 900. I’m not sure that’s the best methodology. (This is the same mentality that had President Obama’s constant repetition of the “If you like your health care, you can keep it” mantra as the Lie of the Year for 2013. Personally, the size of the lie matters more to me than the number.)

Still, quantity has a quality all its own. And Trump’s sheer disregard for veracity is breath-taking:

Trump’s campaign rallies continue to be a rich source of misstatements and falsehoods, accounting for about 22 percent of the total. The rally in Green Bay on April 27 was little different, with claims that covered a range of issues:

— He exaggerated the size of trade deficits with Japan, China and the European Union and falsely claimed the United States loses money from such deficits.

— He said he had “nothing to hide” from the Russia investigation but refused to testify under oath.

— He continued his practice of inflating the jobs created under his administration by starting the count from the election, not his inauguration.

— He launched a series of exaggerated or false attacks on Democrats, including claiming the Green New Deal will require every building in Manhattan be replaced (no) and saying Democrats support the killing of healthy babies that have been born (no).

— He overstated the possible impact of the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico in myriad ways and trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement, even though the differences are modest.

— He took credit for funding a program — the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative — his administration tried to eliminate.

— He made a series of false claims about immigration, such as “open borders bring tremendous crime” (there is no documented link between illegal immigration and crime).

— He claimed he passed the biggest tax cut in history (no) and he said he had cut the estate tax to “zero” (no).

— He said he was one vote away from repealing Obamacare (no).

— He falsely said the United States paid for “almost 100 percent” of NATO (no), that Saudi Arabia inked $450 billion in deals with the Trump administration (no) and even that the United States subsidizes the Saudi military (U.S. aid amounts to $10,000 a year).

— He even claimed that he insisted the new embassy in Jerusalem be made of Jerusalem stone even though ever since the British mandate in then-Palestine, municipal laws have required that all buildings must be faced with this local form of limestone that has a warm, golden hue.

That Trump is a serial liar with no regard for the truth is rather self-evident. That “all politicians lie” is both true and beside the point: Trump isn’t just in a different weight class, he’s playing a different sport.

Still, many of the above-listed “lies” are problematic.

  • It’s theoretically possible to have “nothing to hide” and refuse to testify. Now, I think he’s got plenty to hide. But the mere listing of the dichotomy doesn’t make it so.
  • If your argument is that businesses gained the confidence to spend upon the news that Donald Trump was going to be President rather than Hillary Clinton, it’s not dishonest to start from Election Day rather than Inauguration Day. (Again, I think it’s a BS argument. But it’s not a “lie.”)
  • Taking credit for funding a program his administration tried to eliminate is an example of extreme chutzpah. It is not, however, a lie. After all, his signature was required to fund it.
  • He might indeed have “insisted” that the Jerusalem embassy be built of Jerusalem stone. That it would have been built out of it regardless doesn’t make it a lie.

Most of the remaining examples, though, are either clearly lies or, perhaps just as damning, a sheer disregard for facts.

For example, I think it’s entirely that he sincerely believes “open borders bring tremendous crime.” If that’s the case, it’s not a lie when he says it. That’s there’s no evidence for it, however, is something the President of the United States should surely have had pointed out to him many, many times by now. But he doesn’t seem to be a guy who cares much about pesky things like facts.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Sleeping Dog says:

    I see nothing wrong with counting a repeated false claim as a lie. The audience maybe different, but the intent is the same, to deceive or distract the listener from an uncomfortable truth.

    7
  2. Lynn says:

    You forgot:

    “President Donald Trump made an incendiary remark at a rally Saturday night, veering from criticism of Wisconsin’s Democratic governor to a false claim that mothers and doctors have the option to “execute” babies. (CNN)

    7
  3. James Joyner says:

    @Lynn: How did I “forget” something not in the report I’m talking about? But that’s a very good example of my underlying point: I think those sorts of lies—huge and incendiary—are more significant than dozens of instances of repeating the same opinion-based untruth that the WaPo team is documenting. I think focusing on the 100 most outrageous lies is more useful than the 9000 “Oh, Donald” lies.

    6
  4. SenyorDave says:

    @Lynn: I’d say that even for Trump that is vile, but fortunately it doesn’t play beyond his supporters. I would love to see the first 10 questions at Sanders’ next press briefing address that specific lie – ask her why the president uses false rhetoric of this type.

    4
  5. OzarkHillbilly says:

    For example, I think it’s entirely that he sincerely believes “open borders bring tremendous crime.” If that’s the case, it’s not a lie when he says it.

    Trust me on this James, having lived with a pathological liar for 5 years and dealt with her for a further decade plus, I can tell you with certainty that he knows statistics show that “open borders do not bring tremendous crime” (which just for the record, we don’t have), AND that he sincerely believes they do merely because he wants it to be true. In his mind these 2 things can exist comfortably side by side.

    So yes, it is a lie. He knows it’s a lie. But he wants it to be the truth. Therefor, his desire trumps reality, and in his mind that is all that really matters.

    8
  6. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    Dennison in Wisconsin on Saturday night:

    “The baby is born, the mother meets w/the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully. Then the doctor and mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”

    Look…if he isn’t lying about this, then he is delusional. In either case he is unfit to hold the office.
    And the people, like JKB and Guarneri, who lap up this nonsense like kittens at the milk bowl…are total idiots.

    8
  7. Teve says:

    631 days until a Democrat replaces this toxic lying idiot. I just hope we make it that long without a depression or invasion of Iran.

    1
  8. James Joyner says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    He knows it’s a lie. But he wants it to be the truth. Therefor, his desire trumps reality, and in his mind that is all that really matters.

    That’s reasonable enough.

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl:

    Look…if he isn’t lying about this, then he is delusional. In either case he is unfit to hold the office.

    Correct.

    6
  9. CSK says:

    Trump lies because, like every good con artist, he knows what his marks want to hear, and he gives it to them. Actually, they may not even believe him any longer–they just know that whatever b.s. he spews will “own the libturds,” and that’s all that counts.

    6
  10. drj says:

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl:

    That lie (which is about infant palliative care, btw) is going to get people killed.

    All in the name of getting a nice audience reaction.

    1
  11. Mikey says:

    Still, many of the above-listed “lies” are problematic.

    The Post lists these claims as “false or misleading.” So yeah, it may not be a lie to start the count of jobs created from Election Day rather than Inauguration Day, or to claim he insisted an embassy be built of materials it would have been built of regardless, but it’s certainly misleading.

    1
  12. Teve says:

    @CSK: a week ago in the parking lot of a Walmart in North Florida, I saw a bumper sticker with a very simple message. On the left side, a Confederate flag. On the right side, the words “CUZ YOU SAID I CAN’T”.

    2
  13. Liberal Capitalist says:

    10,000 is a publicly documented number. When you think about the number that could be added for his staff meetings, it must shoot up even higher.

    GOP criticisms of Dems over the last 20 years… I mean, how is there even any legitimate conversation with a person that is a Trump supporter today with ANY of that?

    It reminds me of the argument sketch.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

    1
  14. SenyorDave says:

    @drj: That lie (which is about infant palliative care, btw) is going to get people killed.
    My niece is in the final year of a fellowship in OB-GYN, and she becomes apoplectic when she talks about Trump and this lie (which he had a version of during the debates with Hillary). Most (not all) of the anti-abortion movement has been peddling this garbage for years. My SIL is a rheumatologist and has had patients over the years need to undergo late term abortions for medical reasons (usually immuno-related issues), and she says that is most heartbreaking you can imagine. These aren’t women who wake up one day and say “time to kill my baby”. This is just more evidence that addition to not being fit for any office, Trump is a piece of garbage.

    7
  15. Franklin says:

    The actual method of accounting for lies is less important than just making sure we use the same consistent method for past or future Presidents. Then we could do a fair comparison, and I’m 100% sure that Trump would still “win” by a landslide.

    1
  16. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    Classic Dennison…promised to pay NoKo $2M for Otto Warmbier.
    But never paid, according to John Bolton.
    It’s one thing when you lie to a bunch of rabid red-necks at your delusion-rally.
    It’s another when you do it in Foreign Relations.

  17. CSK says:

    @Teve: Well, that says it all, doesn’t it?

    1
  18. CSK says:

    @SenyorDave: Trump’s defenders are saying that Trump is merely quoting Ralph Northam exactly on this issue.

  19. Three points:

    1. I would argue it does make sense to count multiple instances of the same lie as a new lie, especially when the media has repeatedly called Trump out on that lie. It shows the brazenness of his fabrication and reveals something important about his personality.

    2. Obviously some lies are bigger than others, but with Trump the fact that it’s a constant drumbeat of lies that are reinforced by his staff and by his supporters ajes even the small ones important.

    3. If Trump keeps this pace of lying up, which is likely, he will have told more than 17,600 lies in his first term alone. If he keeps it up through a second term that total will come to more than 34,000. Personally, I expect that pace of lying will continue and most likely accelerate as Democrats continue their investigations and as we get closer to the 2020 election.

    2
  20. gVOR08 says:

    Why is it so hard to just say Trump lied? Via LGM,

    Osita Nwanevu‏ @OsitaNwanevu
    Reviving an inaccurate refrain is when you sing “Hold me closer, Tony Danza”

    The New York TimesVerified account @nytimes
    Fact check: At a rally on Saturday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, President Trump revived an inaccurate refrain about doctors “executing babies” https://nyti.ms/2ZH6oQL

    12:09 PM – 28 Apr 2019

    It’s like the old ‘W believed the bad intel (he ordered) so he didn’t lie about WMDs in Iraq.’ The best liars I’ve personally experienced were good because in the moment they sincerely believed whatever nonsense they were saying. Two minutes later they could believe the exact opposite without missing a beat. Talking about what Trump believes is a category error, not an excuse. for him.

    If you look at as a moral question, “Is he a liar?” you can twist yourself into knots with unanswerable questions about what he knows, what he believes, what his motives are. Pragmatically the only question is, “Is it true?” If not, and repeatedly not, nothing he says can be trusted. Isn’t that the point?

    Kessler has done so many, ‘Democrat said 10 million based on respected organization X, but Y estimated 9.5 million. So three Pinocchios for the Dem.’ that I’m going to be hard put to feel any sympathy for any lack of erring on the side of caution for any R.

    5
  21. gVOR08 says:

    @Doug Mataconis:

    Personally, I expect that pace of lying will continue as Democrats continue their investigations and as we get closer to the 2020 election.

    Too true. The lying will only cease when we reach the Trumpularity and his statements become so incoherent it’s impossible to say what they mean.

    2
  22. MarkedMan says:

    It’s important to remember that Trump is the natural leader of the modern Republican Party, and not an outlier. When the Republican Party saw how effective ignoring inconvenient truths was for Ronald Reagan, they chose to embrace that path wholeheartedly. In the beginning, party leaders knew the truth and figured it was ok to tell the rubes what they wanted to hear “for the greater good”. But that repelled people that valued truth and attracted the shallow. And starting in the aughts a generation of Republicans raised on nonsense started to assume power. As shown by their astounded reaction when they learned that Paul Ryan didn’t actually have a health care plan ready to go, these are people constitutionally incapable of discerning reality from Fox News blather.

    2
  23. Michael Reynolds says:

    @James Joyner:
    Trump is gaslighting the country. The multiplicity of repeated lies is absolutely as important as the top 100. That’s the essence of gaslighting. It’s the essence of moving the Overton window and of norming Trump’s madness. It wasn’t one big lie that nurtured anti-semitism, for example, but the millions of repeated lies, the unchallenged lies that become seen as truth.

    5
  24. gVOR08 says:

    @MarkedMan: We’ve moved from the generation of Republicans who lied on FOX News to the generation who grew up on the lies.

    1
  25. Kylopod says:

    As a general principle I am comfortable with fact-checkers being cautious about calling a lie a lie. For one thing, to some extent I think making that determination goes beyond a fact-checker’s job, which is simply to assess what’s factual, not to probe a person’s inner motives. But in practice many of the most prominent fact-checkers do get into the latter–it’s implicit in the WaPo’s “Pinocchio” designations, and then there’s Politifact’s “Pants on Fire,” not to mention “Lie of the Year.” I’ve long been critical of these devices, which I view as gimmicky and sensationalistic, not based on a serious attempt to separate intentional deception from error.

    To cite one example, I was pleased to see in the above list that WaPo debunked the story about McCain singlehandedly stopping Obamacare repeal by a single vote. But it’s not just Trump who has repeated this story; in my experience a great deal of liberals seem to believe it as well, and I’ve had to correct people on this point repeatedly whenever it has come up.

    One thing that needs to be realized about Trump is that while there’s no question some of his misstatements are due to ignorance or delusion, the overarching fact is that he never, ever communicates in good faith. At any moment he literally doesn’t care whether what’s coming out of his mouth is true or not. So even if he happens to say something that accurately corresponds with how he sees things, it’s practically a coincidence; he’s never trying to stick to the truth, and if he speaks in error, you can be pretty damn certain he’ll continue saying it even after he knows it’s been corrected. He just doesn’t give a damn.

    2
  26. Teve says:

    @gVOR08:

    We’ve moved from the generation of Republicans who lied on FOX News to the generation who grew up on the lies.

    Pod Save America had an interview with Seth Moulton, and regardless of what you think of him (generic smart honorable veteran with probly decent values) he had an amusing line, paraphrasing, “It’s time for the generation who served in Iraq and Afghanistan to take over from the generation who sent us there.”

    4
  27. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    For all of these lies, the fourth estate is weirdly reticent to call them lies.
    The NYTimes about Dennisons infanticide story paints him as;

    reviving on Saturday night what is fast becoming a standard, and inaccurate, refrain about doctors ‘executing babies.’”

    You know what…call it what it is, a bald-faced lie. Anything else only normalizes his abhorrent behavior.
    The fourth estate is again failing this country.

    1
  28. SenyorDave says:

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl: The NYT seems to have gone out of their way on numerous occasions to not call out Trump. As a New York city paper that had covered Trump extensively back in the day they were uniquely positioned to peel back the layers of the Trump Organization’s business dealing prior to the election. They didn’t even seem to try. The NYT was busy putting out articles about the Clinton Foundation that implied wrongdoing, but completely ignored the Trump Foundation. David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigation of the Trump Foundation “charity” which he revealed to be nothing more than a slush fund for Donald Trump and his kids.

    2
  29. Paul L. says:

    So the standard is now false and misleading claims == Lie
    Obama Lied.

    “I had an uncle who was . . . part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps,”

    And politifalse strangely dispenses with its usual ratings…
    Obama’s Auschwitz error

  30. Paul L. says:

    And politifalse strangely dispenses with its usual ratings at the top of the page.

    Now, in order to rule on Obama’s statement, PolitiFact needed to answer two questions: First, what military unit liberated the camp at Ohrdruf? And most important, was Obama’s great uncle in that unit at that time? Here’s the answer to both:

    Handwaving the first question Did US troops liberate Auschwitz?
    “Auschwitz was liberated in 1945 by Soviet, not American, troops”

    But even with this error in locations, Obama’s statement was substantially correct in that he had an uncle — albeit a great uncle — who served with troops who helped to liberate the Ohrdruf concentration/work camp and saw, firsthand, the horrors of the Holocaust. We rate the statement Mostly True.

  31. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Paul L.:
    You don’t care a fig for the truth, you lie, you believe lies, you repeat lies, your entire world view cannot survive without a constant diet of lies, so spare us the bullshit. You belong to a cult of personality led by a pathological liar who you love because his lies are your favorite lies. You have a taste for racist, misogynist, paranoid lies.

    6
  32. Kylopod says:

    @Paul L.: Trump claimed to have opposed the Iraq War from the start, despite an audio clip to the contrary. He claimed to have stopped questioning Obama’s birthplace after the release of the long-form birth certificate. (He was still bringing it up later.) He claimed to have scored one of the largest electoral victories in history. (It was actually the 11th smallest.) He claimed the tax bill was the largest tax cut in history (it wasn’t). He claimed to have signed more bills than any other president up to this point (not by a light year). He claimed Paul Manafort (his campaign chairman for five months in 2016) was with the campaign for a “very short period of time.” He claimed El Paso went from being “one of the most dangerous cities in the country to one of the safest cities in the country overnight” after construction of a wall. (It wasn’t even close to being one of the most dangerous cities, and crime actually rose after construction of a fence.) As the above article notes, he has claimed 160 times that a border wall is already being built, despite the fact that nothing like that has even remotely happened during his presidency so far.

    Your response to all this? A single Obama remark in which he correctly credited his uncle with helping liberate a Nazi death camp, but incorrectly stated which Nazi death camp it was–and then acknowledged the error. That’s the best you can do?

    8
  33. Paul L. says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Remember claiming the Cohen raid is the end of Trump.

    By the way, here’s a nice lollipop for you two to suck on: the Feds and the NY State AG both now have the evidence. Do you understand what that means? It doesn’t disappear even if Mueller does. It’s too late for Trump to fire Mueller and have it work. We have reached the Nixon Tapes moment, the tipping point, when it is too late. You’re not getting it (what a shock) but it is too damn late.

  34. Paul L. says:

    @Kylopod:
    Obama did not acknowledge the error. His campaign did. Just like the Hilary campaign walking back she supports Australian style Gun registration and confiscation.

    the Obama campaign acknowledged getting the location wrong but said Obama’s great uncle

    That is a false and misleading claim == Lie

  35. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Paul L.:
    A mistaken (and it it wasn’t: SDNY is yet to speak) prediction of mine is a lie? Do you even know the difference anymore? I think you do, I think you are deliberately, consciously lying, which you justify with, ‘well, someone somewhere told a lie once so it’s OK!’ Because that’s your level. ‘How about someone else who raped a child, that makes it OK, right?’

    You’re a cult member, brainwashed, dead to reason, prepared to claim the sky is pink if it advances cult leader’s agenda. You barely exist, Paul, you’re just a tape recorder replaying the lies you’ve been fed by your cult.

    After we put Trump in prison, maybe you could look into the Scientologists. They love credulous nitwits looking to abandon all pretense of rational thought.

    8
  36. Paul L. says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    You’re a cult member, brainwashed, dead to reason

    I am worst than that.

    To cut to bare bones, there are two kinds of Trump supporters: those who fully appreciate what a vulgar, amoral ignoramus he is, but will pretend not to notice as long as he gives them things they want, such as conservative judges, and those who are blinded by the game show host myth that he’s some billionaire genius who knows stuff*. The former are cynics, willing to sell their souls, so there’s nothing to be done to dissuade them from supporting Trump.

    Get him to sign the Assault Weapons ban and run a Democrat who will appeal it..

  37. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Paul L.:
    Finally we agree: you are a liar and cult member. I appreciate your acknowledging that.

    3
  38. Paul L. says:

    Nope I am on the side of the cynics.
    HA HA
    Trump Strikes Again: Dumping the UN Arms Treaty
    You are projecting. You are a liar and cult member for the Democrats no matter who they nominate.

  39. Kylopod says:

    @Paul L.:

    That is a false and misleading claim == Lie

    No, a lie is an intentionally false and misleading statement. An error is not a lie. It’s strange you would conflate the two, since that very subject was discussed at length in this post. It’s not always easy to tell the two apart, but there are some guidelines. A factual misstatement is likely an error rather than a lie if (a) most of what was being said was accurate (b) the misstatement was relatively minor (c) the party acknowledged the error as soon as it was brought to their attention and didn’t repeat it again.

    Obama’s statement about his uncle fits all these criteria. Most of Trump’s false claims listed above do not.

    That’s not to suggest Obama has never lied. He certainly has, like most politicians. But the fact that this is the example you’re seizing on shows how little you’ve actually got.

    In January I showed you how moronically easy it was to document Trump’s falsehoods by pointing out 5 he had said just in the previous month, and on the same topic (the border wall). I then challenged you to do the same for Obama: “Tell me 5 unambiguous, provably false statements Obama made on the same topic within a single month of his presidency.” You have ignored my challenge three times already, but it still stands.

    Failure to meet this challenge, however, is an implicit admission that you know Trump lies far more than Obama ever did.

    7
  40. Teve says:

    Trying to argue that Obama was as much a liar as Trump is sort of like trying to argue that the Knicks have a better chance of winning the championship this year than Golden State. It’s not just that you’re going to fail to make a case and lose, it’s that even trying tells the world you’re an idiot.

  41. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    @Paul L.:

    Just like the Hilary campaign walking back she supports Australian style Gun registration and confiscation.

    Dude…look at what she said…that it is worth looking at. Not that she supports it.
    If you have to lie to support YOUR position, it’s not much of a position to begin with.

    5
  42. SenyorDave says:

    @Teve: I wondered why I got 200 to 1 odds on the Knicks when the playoffs began.

    1
  43. Paul L. says:

    @Kylopod:
    I’ll bet Obama make 5 unambiguous, provably false statements about the Snowdon leaks within a single month of his presidency.”
    ‘There Is No Spying On Americans’

    Of course, Cult44 will defend that lie as necessary for National Security.

  44. Paul L. says:

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl:
    Smartest and the most qualified and experienced person to ever run for President did not know that Australia used national mandatory gun buyback programs.

  45. Kylopod says:

    @Paul L.:

    I’ll bet Obama make 5 unambiguous, provably false statements about the Snowdon leaks within a single month of his presidency.

    Then state them.

  46. Paul L. says:

    @Kylopod:
    “most transparent” administration in U.S. history.
    “As president, Barack Obama will close the detention facility at Guantanamo.”
    “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”

  47. Paul L. says:

    @Kylopod:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance
    “most transparent” administration in U.S. history.
    ‘There Is No Spying On Americans’
    “NSA surveillance was transparent and claimed that the NSA is unable and had made no attempt to monitor the phone calls and emails of American citizens”
    “Obama argued that his administration was already in the process of reviewing the NSA surveillance programs when they were leaked by Snowden.”
    “Obama promised to make public information about government surveillance and work with Congress to increase public confidence in the government.”
    “Obama promised increased restrictions on data collection of American citizens, which would include the requirement of court approval for searches of telephone records.”
    “Obama called for increased oversight and admitted the dangers NSA surveillance posed to civil liberties.”

  48. An Interested Party says:

    To compare Trump to Hillary and Obama when it comes to lies is like comparing the Black Death to a couple of people having a cold…in other words, if you are making this comparison, you have already lost the argument…

    3
  49. Kylopod says:

    @Paul L.: Remember what you said you could find: “5 unambiguous, provably false statements about the Snowdon leaks within a single month of his presidency.”

    Only two of the examples on your list qualify as false statements: his claim that the NSA made no attempt to monitor phone calls, and his claim that the US doesn’t spy on American citizens. Those two statements were made months apart. In fact most of your examples are spread out over a six-month period–except for your first example, the one where he supposedly promised to be the “most transparent” administration in US history. That was, presumably, from 2008, a good 5 years before any of the other quotes. While there are plenty of valid criticisms of Obama regarding his record on transparency, I have been unable to find this particular quote anywhere.

    Also, a broken promise isn’t the same thing as a lie. Nobody here has called Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare a “lie” simply because he failed at it. (We have, on the other hand, correctly called it a lie when he claimed to have already repealed the law.) Changing one’s position isn’t proof of lying either. As I’ve explained to you, I think Obama was lying when he said he believes marriage is between a man and woman, just as I think Trump was lying when he suddenly announced he was pro-life in 2011. But there’s no way to prove either of those things, which is why neither has ever shown up on fact-checking lists. You know why we never bring up Trump’s many, many flip-flops as proof of his “lying”? Because we don’t need to. The fact that you keep harping on Obama’s SSM evolution speaks volumes about how little you’ve got.

    Trump’s presidency has been an endless stream of lies, falsehoods, and bullshit every bit as brazen as if he repeatedly pointed to the sky and insisted it was purple. That’s why it was so easy for me to find examples of Trump lying five times on the same topic within just a single month. You scrounge around for examples you can pin on Obama in a desperate, pathetic attempt at equivalence in which you lump together massive lies with minor, quickly corrected factual errors, shifts in positions, and broken promises. And even then you fail to find five examples within a single month.

    And of course not once here have you even bothered attempting to defend Trump. All you’ve got is a limited series of lame “Whatabout Obama?” examples that you picked up from other sites, and as soon as people point out the flaws in your examples, you just ignore the objections and move onto another example. Which is what you’re going to do now, assuming you don’t just flee the thread like last time.

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  50. Warren Peese says:

    Even if Kessler & Co. are half wrong, 5,000 false and misleading statements over 27 months in office is still staggering.

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  51. Paul L. says:

    Also, a broken promise isn’t the same thing as a lie.

    Unless Trump said it. “Mexico will pay for the wall.”

    To be fair to Obama on spying on Americans , He was defended and given a pass by the Bush loyalists and Neocons.

    Trump was lying when he suddenly announced he was pro-life in 2011.

    Still enjoyed the Pro-choice meltdown (including Doug) when he paraphrased the racist Governor of Virginia. (TRUMP quoted a RACIST!)

    Trump is a bullshiter but this nitpicking of his promises, opinions and jokes as false and misleading claims is not doing the Press’s creditably any favors.

    I noticed that your five examples within a single month of Trump “lying” do not cite when and where is said them. You most likely got them from a progressive blog that distorted and took them out of context.

  52. Kylopod says:

    @Paul L.:

    Also, a broken promise isn’t the same thing as a lie.

    Unless Trump said it. “Mexico will pay for the wall.”

    But that’s just the point. “Mexico will pay for the wall” has not been flagged by fact-checkers as an example of a lie. You won’t find it among the 10,000 mentioned in this post or any of the previous posts on the subject. You’ll find them flagging false statements he has made about that promise, such as his claim that Mexico will be paying for the wall indirectly through TRAFTA, or that he never promised it would pay for the wall directly. But the broken promise itself is just that, a broken promise. Politifact happens to have a separate section tracking the president’s promises, but it doesn’t refer to the broken promises as lies.

    Trump is a bullshiter but this nitpicking of his promises, opinions and jokes as false and misleading claims is not doing the Press’s creditably any favors.

    How is pointing to the 160 times Trump has mentioned a nonexistent border wall already in construction, or any of the other examples I gave you in this post, “nitpicking of his promises, opinions and jokes”? You still haven’t bothered to defend a single one of these examples, you’ve been too busy on your “Whatabout Obama” kick.

    I noticed that your five examples within a single month of Trump “lying” do not cite when and where is said them.

    If left to my devices I’d have provided links to each one. But OTB puts a strict limit on number of links per comment and has a history of throwing out comments with seeming little rhyme or reason; I’m therefore wary of including more than one or two links in any comment.

    But just for the record, here are the exact quotes and dates:

    * “Mexico is paying for the Wall through the new USMCA Trade Deal. Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built. We have done a lot of work. $5.6 Billion Dollars that House has approved is very little in comparison to the benefits of National Security. Quick payback!” — tweet, Jan. 2

    * “When during the campaign I would say ‘Mexico is going to pay for it,’ obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they’re going to write out a check. I said they’re going to pay for it. They are.” — White House lawn, Jan 10

    * “Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States, a dramatic increase. These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.” — Oval Office address, Jan. 8

    * “At the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall.” — Oval Office address, Jan. 8

    * “In El Paso…it was one of the most dangerous cities in the country. A wall was put up. It went from being one of the most dangerous cities in the country to one of the safest cities in the country overnight.” — speech before the American Farm Bureau Federation, Jan. 14; said more or less the same thing at SOTU address that month

    You most likely got them from a progressive blog that distorted and took them out of context.

    Previously you said you “bet” you could find 5 false statements by Obama in the same month specifically about the Snowden leak. You failed the bet even by your own standards. (Several of your examples weren’t false statements, but even if they were they weren’t all in the same month.) Now you’re saying it’s “likely” my examples of Trump lies are distorted.

    That’s the difference between you and me. You just assert, I do my homework.

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  53. Paul L. says:

    * “Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States, a dramatic increase. These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.” — Oval Office address, Jan. 8

    “but there’s no evidence of that in the available statistics.”
    So how many migrant children were illegally brought into the United States that month Jan 2019, last month?
    After all the US Government can accurately count unreported rapes why not this?