In an interview with ABC Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Donald Trump said that he strives to tell the truth. Photo / AP
In an interview with ABC Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Donald Trump said that he strives to tell the truth. Photo / AP
United States President Donald Trump has said that he always tries to tell the truth, "when he can".
In an interview with White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, the journalist pinned down the President about his campaign promise to "never lie" to the American public.
"You remember well in the campaign you made a promise," Karl said. "You said, 'I will never lie to you'.
"Can you tell me now, honestly, have you kept that promise at all times? Have you always been truthful?" Karl asked during yesterday's ABC News interview.
"Well, I try. I do try, I think you try too. You say things about me that aren't necessarily correct," Trump claimed. "I do try and I always want to tell the truth. When I can, I tell the truth.
"And sometimes it turns out to be where something happens that's different or there's a change, but I always like to be truthful."
In an interview with ABC Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Trump said that he strives to tell the truth.Photo / ABC News
However, according to The Washington Post's Fact Checker report last month, Trump had made more than 5000 false or misleading claims in the first 601 days of his presidency — an average of 8.3 claims a day — and according to the publication, that statistic is increasing.
The Washington Post reported that he promised a middle-class tax cut would be passed yesterday (November 1) despite Congress not being in session.
He also repeatedly asserted that Republicans were more committed than Democrats to protecting people with pre-existing health conditions, despite numerous past actions contrary to that claim.
Trump also went as far as claiming that the US was the only country to grant automatic citizenship to children born on its territory — there are 30 other nations with similar "birthright citizenship" policies.
According to an article released by FactCheck.org on Wednesday "there are dozens of examples of Trump not 'telling the truth' on social media — including retweets that spread false information from dubious sources".
It referred to a retweet Trump shared of a bogus graphic purporting to show the percentage of whites killed by blacks and other homicide data by race.
"But almost every statistic was wrong — some grossly inaccurate. For example, the graphic said 'whites killed by blacks 81 per cent'," the article read.
The Washington Post's recent Fact Checker report claimed Mr Trump had made more than 5000 false or misleading claims in the first 601 days of his presidency. Photo / AP
The New York Times and Politifact have all kept running tallies of what they term Mr Trump's lies and misleading statements.
Politifact, which is owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute, currently has 11 pages on Trump's false statements.
Trump hasn't backed off with his assault on US media. Ahead of next week's midterm elections, he said a third of Americans believed that the media was "the enemy of the people".
However, when CNN journalist Jim Acosta recently asked his press secretary Sarah Sanders to reveal the name of which journalists he was referring to, she refused to answer.
Sanders said that "the President is not referencing all media".
