The Washington Post fact checking team determined on Monday that President Trump had uttered more than 10,000 “false or misleading claims” since the paper began keeping track during Trump’s first 100 days in office.
“It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day,” Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly wrote. “But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period.”
The Post fact checkers said the 10,000 milestone seemed unthinkable when they began the project, but that the rate of Trump’s mistruths had steadily increased as his presidency progressed. The piece singled out several recent instances in which they said Trump dropped dozens of falsehoods or misleading statements.
It counted 45 during his phone call with Sean Hannity last week and another 19 during an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin. The 10,000 figure also included the president’s rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Saturday that included 61 claims, according to the paper.
There was also Twitter.
“The president’s constant Twitter barrage also adds to his totals,” they wrote. “All told, the president racked up 171 false or misleading claims in just three days, April 25-27. That’s more than he made in any single month in the first five months of his presidency.”
Since long before he became president, Trump was known to have a somewhat tenuous relationship with the truth, something he previously explained as “truthful hyperbole” in his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal”
“A little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion,” he wrote.
A rep for the president did not immediately respond to request for comment on the new Post findings, but the president has long been a ferocious critic of the paper which he derides as “fake news.” He is also not fan of the fact checking team.
“The Washington Post is a Fact Checker only for the Democrats. For the Republicans, and for your all time favorite President, it is a Fake Fact Checker!” he said in February