Donald Trump Reportedly Made Twice As Many False Claims In 2019 As The Previous Two Years Combined
Since he took office, The Washington Post has been tracking the number of false or misleading claims Donald Trump has made. This year’s report reveals that the president has made 8,155 such statements in 2019 — a massive increase over the first two years of his presidency.
In 2017, Trump made 1,999 statements that The Post deemed to be false or misleading — an average of six statements each day. The next year, he made 5,689 similar claims for an average of 16 a day. Between the two years, he made a total of 7,688 statements. He blasted past that number in 2019 alone, with an average of 22 claims said to be false or misleading each day.
The president made the most misleading or false statements in October and November for two years in a row — 2018 and 2019. October and November 2018 were the months surrounding the election in which Democrats took back control of the House of Representatives. Trump frequently made statements about the people running or those who won their elections and about the issues progressives were running under.
The increase in October and November of 2019 seems to be related to the July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, which began gaining broad attention around that time, as the House began its impeachment inquiry.
In the four months since the Ukraine investigation began to track nationally, Trump has made nearly 1,000 false or misleading statements about it, including dozens of misleading statements that the whistleblower complaint that brought the phone call to light was inaccurate.
Trump also frequently made suspect statements about the economy and jobs in the U.S., with one in five of the statements rated by The Post falling under the topic, which includes the claim that the economy is the best it has ever been. Many of his statements relate to his tax cuts, which he has called the largest in history. One in six of Trump’s false or misleading statements related to immigration.
I agree with him on this, 100%. But why would anyone vote Democrat? We are setting all time records with the economy! https://t.co/trTemE8iUz
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2020
The Post says it began the project as a way to cover Trump’s first 100 days in office, but because of the number of false or misleading claims he made, it took on a life of its own after readers asked that they continue their coverage.
“We started this project as part of our coverage of the president’s first 100 days, largely because we could not possibly keep up with the pace and volume of the president’s misstatements,” explained The Post. “We recorded 492 claims — an average of just under five a day — and readers demanded that we keep it going for the rest of Trump’s presidency.”
