President Trump has made 18,000 false or misleading claims since 20 January, 2017. That’s according to The Washington Post‘s Fact Checker, which tracks his untruths.
The Post reports that his 1,170 days in office up to 3 April, President Donald Trump has made an average of 15 false or misleading claims every single day. That number has jumped to 23 per day during the period between this fact check and the last one.
Last time the newspaper counted Trump’s lies was before the Coronavirus outbreak – back on 19 January. Since then, the President has made 350 false or misleading statements about the virus.
In 2019, Trump’s record was 22 false or misleading statements per day. The global pandemic has led him to break new ground, according to The Washington Post.
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The newspaper notes that Trump’s favorite talking points about “an economic boom are woefully out of date” and cites his own comments on 3 April.
“We had our best ever. We had probably the best economy in the history of the world, bigger than China, bigger than anybody,” Trump said.
Trump’s daily Coronavirus briefings are now “a rich source of misinformation” as the President has “over-promised” and “sought undue credit or tried to pin the blame for the crisis on others.”
The newspaper cites Trump’s attacks on former President Barack Obama for his handling of swine flue.
“They were horrific mistakes. Seventeen thousand people died. And I’ll be honest, they shouldn’t be criticizing because we’ve done a fantastic job. The only thing we haven’t done well is to get good press,” Trump falsely claimed.
The article concludes by showing that Trump has a “penchant for repeating false claims” while around 20% of these misleading statements “stemmed from his itchy Twitter finger.”
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Darragh Roche is a journalist covering U.S. politics and media
