Donald Trump ‘s presidency was marked by an alarming trend: a prolific output of misleading or outright fake claims. The Washington Post ‘s Fact Checker team meticulously documented these instances, revealing a staggering total of over 30,573 falsehoods uttered by Trump during his time in office.
The Fact Checker database offers an insight into Trump’s obsessions and the news cycle during the period when he made incorrect assertions about almost everything, no matter how little.
He tried to create a different world for his supporters and to brutally attack his opponents when he felt under siege or in danger. Almost half of the untrue statements were spread during his campaign rallies or on his now-closed Twitter account.
During President Trump’s four years in office, the Washington Post💩maintained a database of fact checks on everything he said. The database was ended after Biden’s first 100 days because, accordingy to Glenn Kessler, editor of the WP Fact Checker, “it requires too much labor”. https://t.co/rcOwI85d3m
— Dr. Jimmy Yam (@JimmyJoeYam) September 19, 2022
During Trump’s final days, he spread wild theories about how the coronavirus pandemic would disappear “like a miracle” and how the presidential election had been rigged. These claims, which drove Trump supporters to attack Congress on January 6 and led to his second impeachment, started out as a relative trickle of misrepresentations, with 10 on his first day and five on his second.
The detailed list exposes the breadth of Trump’s attempts to deceive and mislead the public. In the first 100 days of President Trump’s office, 492 dubious claims were noted by The Washington Post Fact Checker team when they first began compiling a list of the president’s false or misleading statements.
In his last-ditch attempt to win reelection, Trump made 503 incorrect or misleading statements on Nov. 2, the day before the 2020 election. When all counts of lies are taken into account, an average of 21 false assertions were made each day.
This is an actual fact check from the Washington Post’s “Trump: False & Misleading Claims” archive. THEY ACTUALLY FACT CHECKED THIS! pic.twitter.com/u3RJFKX9kQ
— Andrew @ Don’t Walk, RUN! (@DontWalkRUN) January 19, 2024
In his first year as president, Trump made an average of six claims per day; in his second year, he made sixteen; in his third year, he made twenty-two; and in his last year, he made forty-nine.
Stated differently, he took a total of 27 months to reach 10,000 claims and a further 14 months to get to 20,000. Less than five months later, he surpassed the 30,000 milestone. Approximately 5 million words make up the fact checks in the database, many of which have links to other sites that disprove Trump’s claims.
The Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University nominated the Trump claims database to be listed among the Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade. According to the NYU nomination , “the project is a sterling example of what journalists should do — holding the powerful accountable through reporting and facts.”
It is unknown if presidents in the future will require a tracker like this one. However, the effects of Trump’s words could last for years. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss stated, “More Americans are skeptical of genuine facts than ever before as a result of Trump’s constant lying through the presidential megaphone.”