President Trump’s number of lies or misleading statements surged past 5,000 last week, according to the running total kept by the Washington Post.
The frequency and intensity of his lies is also increasing. Earlier this month, Trump set a one-day record for false statements: 125 on Sept. 7. On Sept. 13, he tweeted a denial that 3,000 Americans died in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, and that the death toll was inflated by Democrats to make him look bad, reportedly shocking advisers.
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
…..This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
Trump’s total untruths hit 5,000 on the 601st day of his presidency, the Post reported. Trump’s 5,000th lie was one he frequently tells: “Russian ‘collusion’ was just an excuse by the Democrats for having lost the Election!” he tweeted. Trump had been averaging 8.3 false claims a day, but in the nine days leading to Sept. 13, he averaged 32 a day. When the Post started keeping tabs on the president’s false statements, he was averaging 4.9 a day.
In the last two months, Trump’s former personal lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort have begun cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller to improve their own legal prospects, putting Trump’s presidency and businesses in jeopardy. And two best-selling books, by iconic Watergate reporter Bob Woodward and former White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman, have portrayed Trump as inept, impulsive and uninformed.
About one-third of Trump’s misleading claims have been about the economy. “He frequently takes credit for jobs created before he became president or company decisions with which he had no role,” says the Post. “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 President Barack Obama’s tenure. Almost 50 times, Trump has claimed that the economy today is the ‘greatest’ in U.S. history, an absurd statement not backed up by data.”
On Sept. 7, Trump set his one-day record of 125 untruths during two fundraisers and brief interviews with reporters. His total speaking time: Less than 120 minutes.
