President Trump’s Lies, the Definitive List
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Many Americans have become accustomed to
President Trump’s lies. But as regular as they have become, the country
should not allow itself to become numb to them. So we have catalogued
nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of
office.
Jan. 21 “I wasn't a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)Jan. 21 “A
reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover 14 or 15
times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time
magazine.” (Trump was on the cover 11 times and Nixon appeared 55 times.)Jan. 23 “Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.” (There's no evidence of illegal voting.)Jan. 25 “Now, the audience was the biggest ever. But this crowd was massive. Look how far back it goes. This crowd was massive.” (Official aerial photos show Obama's 2009 inauguration was much more heavily attended.)Jan. 25 “Take a look at the Pew reports (which show voter fraud.)” (The report never mentioned voter fraud.)Jan. 25 “You had millions of people that now aren't insured anymore.” (The real number is less than 1 million, according to the Urban Institute.)Jan. 25 “So,
look, when President Obama was there two weeks ago making a speech,
very nice speech. Two people were shot and killed during his speech. You
can't have that.” (There were no gun homicide victims in Chicago that day.)Jan. 26 “We've
taken in tens of thousands of people. We know nothing about them. They
can say they vet them. They didn't vet them. They have no papers. How
can you vet somebody when you don't know anything about them and you
have no papers? How do you vet them? You can't.” (Vetting lasts up to two years.)Jan. 26 “I
cut off hundreds of millions of dollars off one particular plane,
hundreds of millions of dollars in a short period of time. It wasn't
like I spent, like, weeks, hours, less than hours, and many, many
hundreds of millions of dollars. And the plane's going to be better.” (Most of the cuts were already planned.)Jan. 28 “The
coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost has been so
false and angry that the Times actually apologized to its dwindling
subscribers and readers.” (It never apologized.)Jan. 29 “The Cuban-Americans, I got 84 percent of that vote.” (There is no support for this.)Jan. 30 “Only
109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning. Big
problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage.” (At least 746 people were detained and processed, and the Delta outage happened two days later.)Feb. 3 “Professional
anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the
millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” (There is no evidence of paid protesters.)Feb. 4 “After
being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me
after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!” (It never apologized.)Feb. 5 “We had 109 people out of hundreds of thousands of travelers and all we did was vet those people very, very carefully.” (About 60,000 people were affected.)Feb. 6 “I have already saved more than $700 million when I got involved in the negotiation on the F-35.” (Much of the price drop was projected before Trump took office.)Feb. 6 “It's
gotten to a point where it is not even being reported. And in many
cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it.” (Terrorism has been reported on, often in detail.)Feb. 6 “The
failing @nytimes was forced to apologize to its subscribers for the
poor reporting it did on my election win. Now they are worse!” (It didn't apologize.)Feb. 6 “And
the previous administration allowed it to happen because we shouldn't
have been in Iraq, but we shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out.
It created a vacuum, ISIS was formed.” (The group’s origins date to 2004.)Feb. 7 “And yet the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years.” (It was higher in the 1980s and '90s.)Feb. 7 “I saved more than $600 million. I got involved in negotiation on a fighter jet, the F-35.” (The Defense Department projected this price drop before Trump took office.)Feb. 9 “Chris
Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his
long-term lie about his brave ‘service’ in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!” (It was part of Cuomo's first question.)Feb. 9 Sen. Richard Blumenthal “now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?” (The Gorsuch comments were later corroborated.)Feb. 10 “I don’t know about it. I haven’t seen it. What report is that?” (Trump knew about Flynn's actions for weeks.)Feb. 12 “Just
leaving Florida. Big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road
that the FAKE NEWS media refuses to mention. Very dishonest!” (The media did cover it.)Feb. 16 “We
got 306 because people came out and voted like they've never seen
before so that's the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral
College win since Ronald Reagan.” (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all won bigger margins in the Electoral College.)Feb. 16 “That’s
the other thing that was wrong with the travel ban. You had Delta with a
massive problem with their computer system at the airports.” (Delta's problems happened two days later.)Feb. 16 “Walmart
announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this
year because of our various plans and initiatives.” (The jobs are a result of its investment plans announced in October 2016.)Feb. 16 “When WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information.” (Not always. They have released classified information in the past.)Feb. 16 “We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. Got a bad decision.” (The rollout was chaotic.)Feb. 16 “They’re
giving stuff — what was said at an office about Hillary cheating on the
debates. Which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that
Hillary received the questions to the debates.” (It was widely covered.)Feb. 18 “And there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. There was no nothing.” (Refugees receive multiple background checks, taking up to two years.)Feb. 18 “You look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” (Trump implied there was a terror attack in Sweden, but there was no such attack.)Feb. 24 “By the way, you folks are in here — this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks.” (There was no evidence of long lines.)Feb. 24 “ICE came and endorsed me.” (Only its union did.)Feb. 24 “Obamacare
covers very few people — and remember, deduct from the number all of
the people that had great health care that they loved that was taken
away from them — it was taken away from them.” (Obamacare increased coverage by a net of about 20 million.)Feb. 27 “Since
Obamacare went into effect, nearly half of the insurers are stopped and
have stopped from participating in the Obamacare exchanges.” (Many fewer pulled out.)Feb. 27 “On
one plane, on a small order of one plane, I saved $725 million. And I
would say I devoted about, if I added it up, all those calls, probably
about an hour. So I think that might be my highest and best use.” (Much of the price cut was already projected.)Feb. 28 “And now, based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning to do just that.” (NATO countries agreed to meet defense spending requirements in 2014.)Feb. 28 “The E.P.A.’s regulators were putting people out of jobs by the hundreds of thousands.” (There's no evidence that the Waters of the United States rule caused severe job losses.)Feb. 28 “We
have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a
five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials.” (They can't lobby their former agency but can still become lobbyists.)March 3 “It is so pathetic that the Dems have still not approved my full Cabinet.” (Paperwork for the last two candidates was still not submitted to the Senate.)March 4 “Terrible!
Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just
before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.)March 4 “How
low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred
election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.)March 7 “122
vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo,
have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!” (113 of them were released by President George W. Bush.)March 13 “I saved a lot of money on those jets, didn't I? Did I do a good job? More than $725 million on them.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 13 “First of all, it covers very few people.” (About 20 million people gained insurance under Obamacare.)March 15 “On the airplanes, I saved $725 million. Probably took me a half an hour if you added up all of the times.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 17 “I
was in Tennessee — I was just telling the folks — and half of the state
has no insurance company, and the other half is going to lose the
insurance company.” (There's at least one insurer in every Tennessee county.)March 20 “With just one negotiation on one set of airplanes, I saved the taxpayers of our country over $700 million.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 21 “To
save taxpayer dollars, I’ve already begun negotiating better contracts
for the federal government — saving over $700 million on just one set of
airplanes of which there are many sets.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 22 “I make the statement, everyone goes crazy. The next day they have a massive riot, and death, and problems.” (Riots in Sweden broke out two days later and there were no deaths.)March 22 “NATO, obsolete, because it doesn’t cover terrorism. They fixed that.” (It has fought terrorism since the 1980s.)March 22 “Well,
now, if you take a look at the votes, when I say that, I mean mostly
they register wrong — in other words, for the votes, they register
incorrectly and/or illegally. And they then vote. You have tremendous
numbers of people.” (There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud.)March 29 “Remember
when the failing @nytimes apologized to its subscribers, right after
the election, because their coverage was so wrong. Now worse!” (It didn't apologize.)March 31 “We
have a lot of plants going up now in Michigan that were never going to
be there if I — if I didn’t win this election, those plants would never
even think about going back. They were gone.” (These investments were already planned.)April 2 “And
I was totally opposed to the war in the Middle East which I think
finally has been proven, people tried very hard to say I wasn’t but
you’ve seen that it is now improving.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)April 2 “Now,
my last tweet — you know, the one that you are talking about, perhaps —
was the one about being, in quotes, wiretapped, meaning surveilled.
Guess what, it is turning out to be true.” (There is still no evidence.)April 5 “You
have many states coming up where they’re going to have no insurance
company. O.K.? It’s already happened in Tennessee. It’s happening in
Kentucky. Tennessee only has half coverage. Half the state is gone. They
left.” (Every marketplace region in Tennessee had at least one insurer.)April 6 “If
you look at the kind of cost-cutting we’ve been able to achieve with
the military and at the same time ordering vast amounts of equipment —
saved hundreds of millions of dollars on airplanes, and really billions,
because if you take that out over a period of years it’s many billions
of dollars — I think we’ve had a tremendous success.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.)April 11 “I
like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign
until very late. I had already beaten all the senators and all the
governors, and I didn’t know Steve.” (He knew Steve Bannon since 2011.)April 12 “You
can't do it faster, because they're obstructing. They're
obstructionists. So I have people — hundreds of people that we're trying
to get through. I mean you have — you see the backlog. We can't get
them through.” (At this point, he had not nominated anyone for hundreds of positions.)April 12 “The
New York Times said the word wiretapped in the headline of the first
edition. Then they took it out of there fast when they realized.” (There were separate headlines for print and web, but neither were altered.)April 12 “The
secretary general and I had a productive discussion about what more
NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a
long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism.” (NATO has been engaged in counterterrorism efforts since the 1980s.)April 12 “Mosul was supposed to last for a week and now they’ve been fighting it for many months and so many more people died.” (The campaign was expected to take months.)April 16 “Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!” (There's no evidence of paid protesters.)April 18 “The fake media goes, ‘Donald Trump changed his stance on China.’ I haven’t changed my stance.” (He did.)April 21 “On 90 planes I saved $725 million. It's actually a little bit more than that, but it's $725 million.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.)April 21 “When WikiLeaks came out … never heard of WikiLeaks, never heard of it.” (He criticized it as early as 2010.)April 27 “I want to help our miners while the Democrats are blocking their healthcare.” (The
bill to extend health benefits for certain coal miners was introduced
by a Democrat and was co-sponsored by mostly Democrats.)April 28 “The trade deficit with Mexico is close to $70 billion, even with Canada it’s $17 billion trade deficit with Canada.” (The U.S. had an $8.1 billion trade surplus, not deficit, with Canada in 2016.)April 28 “She's
running against someone who's going to raise your taxes to the sky,
destroy your health care, and he's for open borders — lots of crime.” (Those are not Jon Ossoff's positions.)April 28 “The
F-35 fighter jet program — it was way over budget. I’ve saved $725
million plus, just by getting involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.)April 29 “They're
incompetent, dishonest people who after an election had to apologize
because they covered it, us, me, but all of us, they covered it so badly
that they felt they were forced to apologize because their predictions
were so bad.” (The Times did not apologize.)April 29 “As
you know, I've been a big critic of China, and I've been talking about
currency manipulation for a long time. But I have to tell you that
during the election, number one, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.)April 29 “I've already saved more than $725 million on a simple order of F-35 planes. I got involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.)April 29 “We're
also getting NATO countries to finally step up and contribute their
fair share. They've begun to increase their contributions by billions of
dollars, but we are not going to be satisfied until everyone pays what
they owe.” (The deal was struck in 2014.)April 29 “When
they talk about currency manipulation, and I did say I would call
China, if they were, a currency manipulator, early in my tenure. And
then I get there. Number one, they — as soon as I got elected, they
stopped.” (China stopped in 2014.)April 29 “I
was negotiating to reduce the price of the big fighter jet contract,
the F-35, which was totally out of control. I will save billions and
billions and billions of dollars.” (Most of the cuts were planned before Trump.)April 29 “I think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it.” (There's still no evidence Trump's phones were tapped.)May 1 “Well,
we are protecting pre-existing conditions. And it'll be every good —
bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.” (The bill weakens protections for people with pre-existing conditions.)May 1 “The
F-35 fighter jet — I saved — I got involved in the negotiation. It's
2,500 jets. I negotiated for 90 planes, lot 10. I got $725 million off
the price.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.)May 1 “First
of all, since I started running, they haven't increased their — you
know, they have not manipulated their currency. I think that was out of
respect to me and the campaign.” (China stopped years ago.)May 2 “I
love buying those planes at a reduced price. I have been really — I
have cut billions — I have to tell you this, and they can check, right,
Martha? I have cut billions and billions of dollars off plane contracts
sitting here.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)May 4 “Number
two, they’re actually not a currency [manipulator]. You know, since
I’ve been talking about currency manipulation with respect to them and
other countries, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.)May 4 “We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world.” (We're not.)May 4 “Nobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters.” (Polls show most Americans do care.)May 8 “You know we’ve gotten billions of dollars more in NATO than we’re getting. All because of me.” (The deal was struck in 2014.)May 8 “But
when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was
high — highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.” (Colbert's “Late Show” debut had nearly two million more viewers.)May 8 “Director
Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already
knows — there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.” (Clapper only said he wasn't aware of an investigation.)May 12 “Again,
the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump
campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election.” (The F.B.I. was investigating before the election.)May 12 “When
James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of
the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?” (Clapper said he wouldn't have been told of an investigation into collusion.)May 13 “I'm cutting the price of airplanes with Lockheed.” (The cost cuts were planned before he became president.)May 26 “Just
arrived in Italy for the G7. Trip has been very successful. We made and
saved the USA many billions of dollars and millions of jobs.” (He's referencing an arms deal that's not enacted and other apparent deals that weren't announced on the trip.)June 1 “China
will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we
can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India
will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020.” (The agreement doesn’t allow or disallow building coal plants.)June 1 “I’ve
just returned from a trip overseas where we concluded nearly $350
billion of military and economic development for the United States,
creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.” (Trump’s figures are inflated and premature.)June 4 “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” (The mayor was specifically talking about the enlarged police presence on the streets.)June 5 “The
Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the
watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.” (Trump signed this version of the travel ban, not the Justice Department.)June 21 “They all say it's 'nonbinding.' Like hell it's nonbinding.” (The Paris climate agreement is nonbinding — and Trump said so in his speech announcing the withdrawal.)June 21 “Right now, we are one of the highest-taxed nations in the world.” (We're not.)
All the President’s Lies
President Trump’s political rise was built on a
lie (about Barack Obama's birthplace). His lack of truthfulness has also
become central to the Russia investigation, with James Comey, the
former director of the F.B.I., testifying under oath about Trump's
“lies, plain and simple.”
There is simply no precedent for an American
president to spend so much time telling untruths. Every president has
shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. No other president — of
either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create
an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.
We have set a conservative standard here,
leaving out many dubious statements (like the claim that his travel ban
is “similar” to Obama administration policy). Some people may still take
issue with this standard, arguing that the president wasn't speaking
literally. But we believe his long pattern of using untruths to serve
his purposes, as a businessman and politician, means that his statements
are not simply careless errors.
We are using the word “lie” deliberately. Not
every falsehood is deliberate on Trump's part. But it would be the
height of naïveté to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes. He is
lying.
Trump Told Public Lies or Falsehoods Every Day for His First 40 Days
The list above uses the conservative standard of
demonstrably false statements. By that standard, Trump told a public
lie on at least 20 of his first 40 days as president. But based on a
broader standard — one that includes his many misleading statements
(like exaggerating military spending in the Middle East) — Trump
achieved something remarkable: He said something untrue, in public,
every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. The streak didn’t end
until March 1.
Didn’t tell a public lie or falsehood
First day without
a public lie
or falsehood
Visited a Trump property
and told no public
lie or falsehood
Since then, he has said something untrue on at
least 74 of 113 days. On days without an untrue statement, he is often
absent from Twitter, vacationing at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, or busy
golfing.
The end of May was another period of relative
public veracity — or at least public quiet — for the president. He seems
to have been otherwise occupied, dealing with internal discussions
about the Russia investigation and then embarking on a trip through the
Middle East and Europe.
Visited a Trump
property and told
no public lies
or falsehoods
Washington Post reports Trump shared highly classified intelligence with Russians
New York Times reports Trump hoped Comey would “let this go,” referring to the Flynn investigation
Special counsel appointed in investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign
Trump’s Public Lies Sometimes Changed With Repetition
Sometimes, Trump can’t even keep his untruths
straight. After he reversed a campaign pledge and declined to label
China a currency manipulator, he kept changing his description of when
China had stopped the bad behavior. Initially, he said it stopped once
he took office. He then changed the turning point to the election, then
to since he started talking about it, and then to some uncertain point
in the distant past.
When Trump said China stopped manipulating its currency
April 21
“from the time I took office”
April 29
“during the election”
April 30
“as soon as I got elected”
May 1
“since I started running”
MAY 4
“since I’ve been talking about
currency manipulation”
The Public’s Mistrust of Trump Grows
Trump has retained the support of most of his
voters as well as the Republican leadership in Congress. But he has
still paid some price for his lies. Nearly 60 percent of Americans say
the president is not honest, polls show, up from about 53 percent when
he took office.
Would you say Donald Trump is honest?
David Leonhardt is a New York Times columnist. Stuart A. Thompson is the graphics director for the Opinion section.
Sources: Politifact; Factcheck.org; The Washington Post Fact Checker; The Toronto Star
Correction: June 23, 2017
An earlier version of this graphic included an incorrect total
for the number of days Donald Trump told a lie during his first two
months as president. It was 20, not 25.
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