Trump Continues To Lie, The Truth Continues To Die
The President continues to lie at an astounding rate that only seems to be getting worse. Does anyone care?
The fact checkers at The Washington Post are back with their latest update on the President’s penchant for lying that dates back to the start of his Presidency, and it is becoming quite the record:
Powered by his two-hour stemwinder at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 — which featured more than 100 false or misleading claims — President Trump is on pace to exceed his daily quota set during his first two years in office.
The president averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. He hit nearly 16.5 a day in his second year. So far in 2019, he’s averaging nearly 22 claims a day.
As of the end of March 3, the 773rd day of his term in office, Trump accumulated 9,014 fishy claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.
Trump’s performance at CPAC is emblematic of his version of the truth during his presidency — a potent mix of exaggerated numbers, unwarranted boasting and outright falsehoods. His speech helped push March 3 to his fourth-biggest day for false or misleading claims, totaling 104.
The speech included his greatest hits: 131 times he has falsely said he passed the biggest tax cut in history, 126 times he has falsely said his border wall is already being built, and 116 times he has asserted that the U.S. economy today is the best in history. All three of those claims are on The Fact Checker’s list of Bottomless Pinocchios, as well as other claims Trump made during his CPAC speech.
Since the Bottomless Pinocchio list was introduced in December, it has continued to grow. The president now has 20 claims that qualify.
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More than a quarter of Trump’s claims since he became president, 2,574, came during remarks during press events. An additional 2,088 came during remarks during his campaign rallies, and 1,576 were the result of the president’s itchy Twitter finger. Another 1,374 occurred during interviews.
In terms of subjects, false or misleading claims about immigration top the list, totaling 1,688. Claims about foreign policy was second, at 1,015, followed by claims about trade (939), the economy (840) and jobs (815).
This is all becoming part of a recurring theme, of course. There isn’t a day that doesn’t go by where, if the President speaks publicly or sends a message out via Twitter, he does not tell a lie, mislead, or simply invent things out of whole cloth. In many cases, of course, these lies are duplicative in the sense that they are things he has lied about before, and which he returns to on a regular basis even when it’s pointed out just how wrong he is. Indeed, at times it seems like pointing out that a lie is a lie only causes the President and his supporters to double down and keep repeating the falsehoods time and time again until they become articles of faith on the right no matter how untrue they are. This is especially true with regard to many of the accusations he has made about Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation. Every now and then, though, something new enters his repertoire and, if he thinks that it works it gets added to the long and growing list of Presidential lies that, sadly, we all seem to have become all too used to over the past two years.
Based on the Post’s numbers as of March 3rd, the President is averaging roughly 11.7 lies per day over the 773 days that the Post based its numbers on. If he maintains this average, he will have told an astounding 17,048 lies for the duration of his first term in office. If he maintains this average over the course of two terms, then he will have told just over 34,000 lies over the course of an eight-year Presidency. As has been the case each time the Post fact-checkers have updated these numbers, this represents a fairly significant increase over where he stood the last time we looked at these numbers in October. As I said back then while I’m as cynical as the next person when it comes to the tendency of politicians to lie, this is an extraordinary number of lies coming from one person and it’s arguably consistent with the type of person who either does not believe he is obliged to tell the truth or that he is simply so used to lying that it comes as easily to him as putting on a pair of shoes.
This latest update should come as no surprise. Shortly after the Republican National Convention in 2016, Politifact found that nearly 80% of the claims that candidate Trump had made on the campaign trail since entering the race the year before had been a lie of some form or another. That trend continued for the balance of the campaign, including even during Trump’s Presidential debates with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. While there were several points during those debates that either one of the moderators or Clinton herself called these lies out, their sheer number was almost impossible for any one person to keep track of without losing their mind. This trend continued after the election, of course, and Trump wasn’t even in office for twenty-four hours before he told the first of his many lies regarding the size of his Inauguration Day crowd. From that point forward, the trend was set and we’re now at the point where I’m sure that Glenn Kessler and the rest of the fact checkers at the Post and other similar outfits are glad to have access to a computer that can keep track of the numbers for them.
The fact that the President seems to be increasing the number and frequency of his deceptions then should come as no surprise. After all, as Jennifer Rubin puts it, his supporters certainly don’t seem to care:
[I]t’s not just the CPAC crowd that applauds his lies. Members of Congress will insist that Trump never lied about Russia (Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio) and that the investigation into Carter Page was inspired by crooked FBI agents relying on the dossier (Jordan still repeats this). Republicans in both houses routinely insist that there is no evidence of any cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russians. They insist that there is a border emergency and that Democrats want open borders (both are false). You cannot believe climate change science, but you must believe anything and everything Trump says, even when Trump contradicts himself.
(…)
It’s one thing for an ordinary person who has marinated in Fox News and Rush Limbaugh propaganda for decades to believe just about anything Trump says, but what’s the excuse of elected officials and those appointed to high offices? What’s the excuse of the supposedly informed conservative pundits?
Let’s not overthink this. Republicans repeat and endorse Trump’s lies because they are afraid to incur the wrath of Trump, his state TV (Fox News) and the mob (the GOP base and its echo chamber in right-wing media).
Don’t take my word for it. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) tweeted last week that Congress is there to check the president, and it’s not members’ job to defend Trump 100 percent of the time. Heretic! Such thoughts put Amash outside the bounds of acceptable Republican dogma these days.
The party is all about — and only about — agreeing with Trump. And you better agree or pretend that you agree (since you apparently think voters are rubes who cannot understand the truth) lest you be cast out of the party and maybe have to go find work elsewhere.
Given the extent to which he makes things up on the fly, whether it’s during one of his rallies, during an interview, or on Twitter, it’s hardly surprising that the President has faired so badly with the fact-checkers. From the start of his campaign, he’s made false and easily disproven claims about Mexicans and crime, about immigrants in general, about Muslims, and about policy issues ranging from international trade to foreign policy to history. Indeed, it can truly be said there are few politicians in American history who have been quite as skilled as Donald Trump when it comes to being able to lie so easily and so frequently. Additionally, the ease with which he does so makes it seem as though he believes what he’s saying, or that he simply doesn’t care if it’s true or not. It’s a skill he honed during the time he was considered a “celebrity” before becoming a Presidential candidate. Back then, of course, even his most obviously exaggerated claims about his own business success would be slavishly repeated by the media rather investigated to see if they were actually true. If Trump learned from that experience is that it largely did not matter if the claims he made were true or not. For the most part, the people reporting the “news” about Trump back then were not inclined to check just how much of what he said was true. Indeed, given the fact that it was his status as an ostentatious celebrity that caused the public to tune in or buy newspapers and magazines when they covered him, it was not in their interest to deflate him, but rather to build him up since the relationship between celebrities and the media that covers them is largely a symbiotic one where the media benefits by inflating the ego of the celebrity, and the celebrity benefits by letting the media cover him or her.’Throughout his pre-Presidential life, Trump took advantage of that relationship with the media to hype his “brand” even when it meant telling outright and obvious lies that only a handful of reporters bothered to try to verify.
No. It’s hit “old man yells at clouds”-level of WTF-are-we-supposed-to-do? Seriously, short of muzzling the man, there’s no way to stop his lies and no way to make his cult followers give a damn. Pathological liars lie. They *have* to, it’s part of their disorder. You could ask them what they had for lunch and they’d lie about it for no real reason other then they feel compelled to. This is simply fact – Trump’s going to go to his grave lying his head off and the first words out of his mouth at the Gates of Hell will be a lie that he doesn’t belong there. It’s just who he is.
The real concern is the morons who listen to these lies and deliberately turn off their brains in order to accept them. I’m not talking about the poor, deluded Trumpkins who *can’t* tell if he’s lying because they have the same issues – I’m talking about the folks who *know* he’s full of sh^t and *don’t care* because it’s getting them what they want. “Yeah, yeah Mr. President, we’re totally being invaded. Blue tape crimes everywhere! Now let’s talk some more about keeping those brown folks out….” or “It’s absolutely a witch hunt! There’s no way you’d be so dumb as to grift obviously like that! Now let’s talk about our newest grift…”
The acceptance of these lies is the major crisis we as a nation are facing. The President just spewing untruth left and right we could survive as long as the country was willing to acknowledge it. There’s no reason for a Trumpkin to not admit “Well, that was a lie but the fundamental concept he’s trying to convey is blah blah blah”. They just straight up refuse to admit the man’s going around telling obvious whoppers. One day he’s going to say something like the sky is pink and they’ll have to dodge around it rather then just staying the man is lying. We as a nation cannot survive if we can’t get something that basic right.
If the Mueller investigations clears Trump, which seems possible, he’ll deny he ever said anything short of complimentary about Mueller, or that eh ever called the investigation a witch hunt. Oh, no. that was Hillary, or AOC, or Obama. He always had Mueller’s back, people say it. not me, other people. people say this.
Some day I want to crawl into bed and sleep until this bad dream goes away.
Remember that his supporters take him seriously but not literally. IOW they dont care what he actually says just as long as it is something they like. Pointing out the lies just makes them support him more. On the plus side, at least we are starting to use the word lie. It seemed like for the first 5000 or so lies people kept trying to find euphemisms. Let’s just call them what they are, lies.
Steve
Does anyone care? Of course. Even on this forum, all but the most deranged Trumpers condemn him and think him unfit for office. The real question (and I know I’ll get downvoted again for raising this) is what does it say about his supporters who accept his lies? Personally I think they fall into a few different categories.
First, are people that are completely tuned out of day to day politics and don’t even realize what a horrendous liar he is. This is probably a pretty big chunk, if not the majority of Trump supporters. And I don’t think you can gather much about them other than they don’t pay attention to governance and politics.
Second are the gullible people who believe him. From that, we know they don’t have the intellectual heft to even understand that Trump says contradictory things in literally the same sentence. It’s safe to say that these people are unable to tell the difference between truth and lies, and that they are unable to even recognize internal contradictions. Individually, they may be honest and it’s probably safe to do business with them if that business concerns things that are pretty cut and dried and doesn’t involve sifting through competing claims. But you should be very cautious about going to them for financial or medical advice.
Third and last are the people who know he is lying but really don’t care. You should be very cautious about doing any kind of business with them whatsoever. They don’t have any meaningful internal moral compass and, however well they treat you today, if they find it to their advantage I’m sure they can could come up with a reason why it is okay to lie to you and take advantage. I think about the police and judges in Ferguson who might be very nice to their fellow church goers or their nieces and nephews but who have managed to convince themselves that it is OK to fund an entire city by harassing, fining and even imprisoning the black citizens while staying pretty hands off of the white ones. I’m sure their friends would say that these are decent people, but since when do we judge decency by how you treat the people you like?
I would disagree with you in calling it a skill. I think it’s more a reflection of what he lacks–namely, the slightest trace of shame, as well as his pathological inability to use the more subtle methods of deception employed by traditional politicians, such as obfuscation, semantics, and lying by omission.
Screaming that black is white and up is down doesn’t require skill. Anyone could do it if they wanted to. The reason most people don’t is either because they have some sense of morality or because they realize that’s not the most effective method of getting someone to believe you. Trump excels at nurturing a cult of personality in which his mob of followers will literally believe anything he says, and he’s protected by a network of right-wing media as well as the institutional GOP who work tirelessly to promote and amplify his lies–often in a far more sophisticated manner than he’s capable. But make no mistake: he’s not a good liar. His lies are about as clever as a 3rd-grader insisting “The dog ate my homework.” The reason he resorts to them isn’t because they’re the most effective way to convince people, it’s because he lacks the capacity to do anything else.
Third and last are the people who know he is lying but really don’t care.
See Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. and his Republican lickspittles.
The people who can’t tell they’re dealing with a conman are called the marks.
Individual-1 is the end result of the Republican movement. They’ve always lied through their teeth, knowing that the dupes would buy bought it. Dennison simply made it an art form.
It wasn’t long ago that the ACA had Death Panels, and the Fourth Estate treated it like it was a thing.
Now they are lying about Infanticide, and the Fourth Estate is letting it pass. Soon it will be a thing, mark my word.
Climate change denial, trickle-down economics, WMD in Iraq…the lies are myriad, are nothing new, and will not stop anytime soon.
It is often Trump who is the mark and Fox News running the con.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house
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https://twitter.com/davidharsanyi/status/1102558063817560064
But if false or misleading claims is now the standard.
https://web.archive.org/web/20171226023701/https://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/05/obama_and_auschwitz_part_ii.html
Bonus points for quoting Jennifer Rubin who was characterized by left as a discredited idiot when she was shilling for Romney in 2012.
Yikes.
I think the skill Trump has is not in lying, per se, but in finding lies that his supporters like, and wish were true. He says it, they say it, so it is true. That’s the bargain being struck.
I have no idea how to counter it politically, though. My best guess is to look at how they finally beat Silvio Berlusconi.
Others, clearly jokes.
I’ll bet you laughed out loud when your boyfriend Rupert Trumpkin ripped off these groaners:
The Trumpkins have an official response to any claim that Trump is lying: The press calls him a liar, and the press promulgates only Fake News about Trump, so, therefore, Trump never lies.
You could make a syllogism out of it.
@Jay L Gischer:
Also, simple answers to complex problems. Simpletons love simple, and Trump delivers.
There is a movie playing in Mr Trump’s head in which he is always right, always triumphant over malignant forces and always acclaimed by throngs of admirers. He stars as a strong leading man with sensitivity and skill. Each individual lie is something that cannot stand alone, that fails quickly upon close examination but the movie is a beautiful interlinked whole, indivisible and unbreakable.
His supporters like the movie too. Some of them have similar movies spinning in their own heads in which they are not so certain to be the winners and probably don’t have the strength of character that Mr Trump does. So they are overjoyed to hitch a ride and share his triumph.
Much better than that show we call “reality”.
@Paul L.: Just a reminder that the last time this subject came up, I did a point-by-point refutation of your claims; I showed how easy it is to prove Trump’s lies by citing five whoppers he told just in the previous month, and all on the same topic (the border wall); I then challenged you to do the same for Obama.
As usual, you ignored everything I wrote and fled the thread.
But fear not, I’m giving you another chance to meet my challenge! Tell me 5 provably false statements Obama made on the same topic within a single month of his presidency, just as I did for Trump. Can you do that? Or are you once again just going to ignore me and wallow in the delusion that you’ve accomplished something other than getting your ass handed to you?
@Teve:
An ecological niche in the media has been created by 4+ decades of GOP tactics, cozying up to the racists, bigots, grifters etc. If Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Bill Shine were to not exist, there would be some other right wing media enterprise filling that niche, behaving much the same as Fox News, as the niche is there to be filled.
@Kylopod: Trump, a 72 year old who was born in 1946, claimed last week at CPAC:
It’s almost like Trump’s lies are deliberately ridiculous, to demonstrate the total power he has over the reality of toadies like Paul.
@Kylopod: Kind of amusing, but catching out a Trumper in an inconsistency is like catching beads at Mardi Gras. (For those who don’t get the reference, you just hold up your hand as a float goes by and then open and close it quickly and voila, beads!) I’m more curious as to which category he fits in, given my post above. Since he posts regularly on a political site, he doesn’t fall into category 1. Which puts him “on the spectrum” between 2 and 3.
“At times”?
“It seems”??
I thought you would have been much more familiar with the propaganda tactic of The Big Lie than you seem to be, Doug.
@Kylopod:
Usually the sycophants go to the same claim; you can keep your doctor. Not actually a lie…I did keep my doctor.
So I actually had to go look this up…and Politifact calls the claim mostly true (Obama got the location wrong). Hardly a lie.
It’s funny that:
1) The dupes don’t try to defend Dennison’s lies, but only engage in “whataboutism”
2)When the dupes go looking for an Obama lie…they have to lie about it being actually a lie.
OT…but a potentially huge deal…
Alabama, one of the few places in the world where life begins at conception, is now allowing a man to sue an abortion provider in the name of his aborted “son’s” estate.
Just to be clear…an aborted fetus is now being recognized as a person with legal rights.
The procedure happened at 6 weeks. At 6 weeks a fetus is the size of a pea. Most first pre-natal exams aren’t given until 8-9 weeks. An at home pregnancy test isn’t very accurate until you have missed a period…so up to about 3-4 weeks?
And what happens if a woman miscarries? will she be tried for murder?
Nice try, but there is a substantial difference between what Obama said and most of what comes out of Trump’s mouth…
If Trump only misspoke rather than being a pathological liar…
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: It’s March 5th and Trump’s on record telling more lies so far this month than Barack Obama told in his entire presidency, even counting questionable statements as lies, by a factor of 10.
@Teve:
I would guess more lies than most of us have told in our entire lives. Seriously…have you told 8,000 lies?
@KM:
The sky IS pink at sunset. Particularly over Puget Sound when there are clouds on the Western horizon. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. Hamilton Viewpoint or the larger one on Admiral Way are good places to see it.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Remember a meme in the early days of Obama’s presidency, which had a smiling W. Bush with the caption “Miss me yet?”
Yet.
@Kathy: there is a horrifying Ted Rall cartoon recently that makes the point that we thought Reagan sucked and then we got George W bush. Then we thought George W bush sucked and we got Donald Trump. Now we think Donald Trump sucks…just wait.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: 8,000 lies is only a lie a day for 20 years.
“You look as beautiful as the day we met.”
“I’m trying to lose weight.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I love you, cat. You too, other cat.”
Totally doable. Doing it in 2 years is impressive. Also, is this 8,000 distinct lies, or one lie 8,000 times?
Talking points memo:
dang….
@Teve:
I don’t think any committed Republicans would attempt to clone Nixon. And in any case, that’s not really possible yet.
@Teve:Yeah, but with 89% approval in the GOP of Trump and the GOP representing~40% of the electorate that votes, what guarantee is there that the “we” that thinks that Trump sucks isn’t, at least metaphorically, equivalent to you and the mouse in your pocket?
@Teve:
Absolutely. When I heard Trump’s claim about not having white hair, I immediately thought of NK state propaganda which once claimed the late Kim Jong Il never used the toilet. It isn’t just laughable, it’s tinpot dictator territory.
It’s true that Reagan repeatedly denied dyeing his hair well into old age (the subject of a classic, very funny column by Michael Kinsley), but even he didn’t dwell on the absurdity of it to anywhere near the degree Trump does with his lies.
Andrew Sullivan nailed it early in Trump’s presidency:
“But all the traditional political fibbers nonetheless paid some deference to the truth — even as they were dodging it. They acknowledged a shared reality and bowed to it. They acknowledged the need for a common set of facts in order for a liberal democracy to function at all. Trump’s lies are different. They are direct refutations of reality — and their propagation and repetition is about enforcing his power rather than wriggling out of a political conundrum. They are attacks on the very possibility of a reasoned discourse, the kind of bald-faced lies that authoritarians issue as a way to test loyalty and force their subjects into submission. That first press conference when Sean Spicer was sent out to lie and fulminate to the press about the inauguration crowd reminded me of some Soviet apparatchik having his loyalty tested to see if he could repeat in public what he knew to be false. It was comical, but also faintly chilling.”
60 lies in 2 hours