In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total. Photo / AP
In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total. Photo / AP
Because of summer vacation schedules, we had fallen a month behind in updating The Fact Checker's database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.
It turns out that's when the president decided to turn on the spigots of false and misleading claims. As of day 558, he's made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.
That's an overall average of nearly 7.6 claims a day.
In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total. Photo / AP
When we first started this project for the president's first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. But the average number of claims per day keeps climbing the longer Trump stays in office. In fact, in June and July, the president averaged 16 claims a day.
Put another way: In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total.
Our award-winning interactive graphic, created with the help of Leslie Shapiro and Kaeti Hinck of The Washington Post's graphics department, displays a running list of every false or misleading statement made by Trump. We have updated the graphic to allow readers to see the number of claims on a daily or monthly basis.
On July 5, the president reached a new daily high of 79 false and misleading claims. On a monthly basis, June and July rank in first and second place, with 532 and 446 claims, respectively.
Not surprisingly, immigration is the top single source of Trump's misleading claims, now totaling 538. Photo / AP
Trump has a proclivity to repeat, over and over, many of his false or misleading statements. We've counted nearly 150 claims that the president has repeated at least three times, some with breathtaking frequency.
Almost one third of Trump's claims — 1,293 — relate to economic issues, trade deals or jobs. He frequently takes credit for jobs created before he became president or company decisions with which he had no role. He cites his "incredible success" in terms of job growth, even though annual job growth under his presidency has been slower than the last five years of Barack Obama's term.
Just on trade, the president has made 432 false or misleading claims. He frequently gets the size of trade deficits wrong or presents the numbers in a misleading fashion.
He also indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. In June and July, more than 20 times the president said some variation of the claim that the United States "lost" money on trade deficits. Just about every economist would give a student an "F" for making such a statement.
Almost one third of Trump's claims - 1,293 - relate to economic issues, trade deals or jobs. Photo / AP
A trade deficit simply means people in one country are buying more goods from another country than people in the second country are buying from the first. Trade deficits are also affected by macroeconomic factors, such as the relative strength of currencies, economic growth rates, and savings and investment rates.
Not surprisingly, immigration is the top single source of Trump's misleading claims, now totaling 538. Thirty times just in the past five months, for instance, the president has falsely claimed his long-promised border wall with Mexico is being built, even though Congress has denied funding for it.
But moving up the list quickly are claims about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether people in the Trump campaign were in any way connected to it. The president has made 378 statements about the Russia probe, using hyperbolic claims of "worse than Watergate," "McCarthyism" and, of course, "witch hunt." He often asserts the Democrats colluded with the Russians, even though the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign were victims of Russian activities, as emails were hacked and then released via WikiLeaks. All told, nearly 160 times the president has made claims suggesting the Russia probe is made up, a hoax or a fraud.
Just on trade, the president has made 432 false or misleading claims. Photo / AP
Misleading claims about taxes — now at 336 — are also a common feature of Trump's speeches. Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history.
On foreign policy, the president consistently misstates NATO spending. More than 60 times, he has falsely said the United States pays as much as 90 percent of the alliance's costs and that other NATO members "owe" money. But he is conflating overall defense spending with NATO obligations — and the United States, unlike many NATO allies, has global responsibilities.
We also have catalogued the president's many flip-flops, since those earn Upside-Down Pinocchios if a politician shifts position on an issue without acknowledging that he or she did so.
Misleading claims about taxes - now at 336 - are also a common feature of Trump's speeches. Photo / AP
Given that the president has been in office more than 18 months, we decided to begin phasing out the listing of his astonishing flip-flop on the accuracy of the unemployment rate. During the campaign, he repeatedly claimed that it was a phony number and the real unemployment rate was really many times higher. Now, he regularly touts unemployment statistics as proof of his economic agenda's success, though he does not always get them right. His refusal to acknowledge this shift has been frustrating, but even flip-flops have a statute of limitations.
