Republican candidate Donald Trump has been found to say false things. ( Raffi Anderian illustration )
Sure, all politicians lie. But Donald Trump is in a class by himself.
He lies strategically. He lies pointlessly. He lies about important things and meaningless things. Above all, he lies frequently. Since he began his campaign last June, the Republican presidential candidate has subjected America to a daily barrage of inaccuracy and mendacity.
His rival, Hillary Clinton, has her own reputation for dishonesty. Some of it is no doubt earned: she has made false claims this campaign about her email scandal, about her flip-flop on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and about assorted other things. But our scrutiny shows there is just no comparison in their level of accuracy on the campaign trail. At the three presidential debates, for example, we counted 104 false claims for Trump to 13 for Clinton.
The extreme, unprecedented quantity of Trump falsehoods is why we started fact-checking everything he said. From mid-September through Sunday, we did 28 #TrumpCheck analyses of every word he uttered or tweeted in a given day.
The total: 560 false claims, or a neat 20 per day.
Below, find the complete list of the false statements Dale has found.
After that (very long) list, Tanya Talaga examines the errors, exaggerations and lies for patterns. Some remain hard to explain. Click here to jump directly to this analysis.
1. The electoral system is rigged
There is tremendous voter fraud. Oct. 17
After plummeting in the polls after the first two debates, Trump began to repeatedly question the fairness of the election. Rigged became his catchword.
He claimed Hillary Clinton campaign workers hired thugs to cause violence at his rallies, twisting the evidence from an undercover video to unfairly disparage Clinton. He claimed there was widespread voter fraud in Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis cities with large black populations that heavily favour Democrats.
In Greeley, Colo., Trump told his supporters if they dont trust mail-in ballots, they should vote again in person. So, one did. Trump supporter Terri Lynn Rote, a 55-year-old from Iowa, was charged by police for suspicion of voting twice.
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2. Inner cities are dangerous hellholes
You get shot walking to the store. They have no education. They have no jobs. Oct. 19
African Americans do not like Trump. A summer poll showed Trumps support among blacks in swing states Ohio and Pennsylvania was 0 per cent. So, in an apparent effort to broaden his appeal, Trump vowed to rebuild Americas inner cities.
Trump made many of those promises in speeches to practically all-white audiences. And his broad generalizations were seen by many blacks as insulting and racist. Economic data show that many U.S. inner cities are enjoying a resurgence and that many black Americans are educated and live in the suburbs.
Trump also regularly stated that Americas murder rate is the highest in 45 years. Actually, the U.S. murder rate is among the lowest it has been in 45 years. It did rise 10 per cent from 2014 to 2015, but the rate is still historically low at 4.9 out of every 100,000 people. In 1970, it was 7.9 out of every 100,000 people.
In sum, his statements about blacks and inner cities seem directed at white fears, not black need.
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3. Hillary Clinton created Daesh
She gave us ISIS as sure as you are sitting there. Oct. 19
Clinton served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, at a time when the U.S. was following up on Republican president George W. Bushs pledge to pull troops out of Iraq. That move left a power vacuum in northern Iraq that was filled by Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
Perhaps thats why Trump repeatedly stated Clinton and Barack Obama founded the terror group.
But that claim is ridiculous: Daesh was already active and notorious by 2004, when it was known as Al Qaeda in Iraq. And it adopted the Islamic State moniker in 2006, while Bush was still president and Clinton was a senator representing New York.
Trump has also falsely disparaged the U.S.-led fight against Daesh, calling the offensive to retake Mosul in Iraq a total disaster, without providing evidence.
With terrorism fears front of mind for many Americans, Trumps false claims seem aimed at making Clinton a scapegoat for the U.S.s failings in Iraq and Syria.
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4. Muslims are risky
Hundreds of thousands of people (are) coming in from Syria when we know nothing about them. Oct. 9
This is another of Trumps direct appeals to the xenophobic vote.
At the beginning of the campaign he notoriously promised to erect a wall on the southern border to keep out Mexican rapists and drug dealers. He built on that pledge by vowing to bar Muslims them from the United States. He later mused about listing all Muslims in a government database, a move reminiscent of what Adolf Hitler did to Jews in Nazi Germany.
His claims that Syrian refugees 99 per cent are Muslim are terrorists plays to the fears of the other, even though they are extensively vetted and are predominantly women and children. And their numbers is nowhere near Trumps claims about 13,000 have been admitted to the United States in 2016.
Still, Trumps stance has endeared him to fringe, racist groups. This week, a newspaper affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan formally endorsed him.
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5. Clinton plans a big tax increase
Shes going to raise your taxes big league, by the way. Oct. 23
It seems rich that a billionaire who may not have paid income tax for 18 years would say his Democratic rival plans to raise taxes on regular Americans.
She doesnt. The Tax Policy Center says Clintons plan would only increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans people like Trump and the Clintons. Most outside the top 1 per cent would receive minor tax cuts under her plan.
Equally rich is Trumps repeated claim that the U.S. taxes are the highest in the world. Theyre below-average compared with the rest of the industrialized world.
Trumps promise to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share but not too much that they cant create jobs is another whopper. An analysis by The Tax Foundation concluded that a typical American earning $5 million would see her or his tax bill fall by as much as $800,000 under Trumps plan.
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6. Polls favour Trump
Were leading Ohio by five or six points, were even in Florida, were leading North Carolina. Oct. 24
The day he said this, Trump was wrong on all three counts.
It seems clear Trump manipulates, exaggerates or makes up polls that make it sound as if he is doing better than he actually is. This poll denialism gives his supporters licence to dismiss negative polling data, suggests CNN.
His false claims cast doubt on the legitimacy of mainstream polling and perhaps even the vote itself. If supporters feel Trump should be doing better, then the idea of a rigged election seems more credible.
On Oct. 24, he said I won the last two debates, and every poll showed it. In fact, every scientific poll showed that he lost.
Of course, when unscientific online polls came out in his favour, Trump was quick to promote and exaggerate those numbers.
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7. Groping allegations
Many of them have now already been debunked. Oct. 18
Nothing could be further from the truth. None of the allegations against Trump have been definitely disproven, although Trump and his surrogates have offered rebuttals. (One of Trumps favourites: questioning the attractiveness of the accuser.)
Yet allegations that he has sexually imposed himself on women have been around for decades, as has his history of misogynistic comments.
His former wife Ivana once accused him of marital rape, though she said she did not mean it in a literal or criminal sense after their divorce was settled.
The allegations came out after the release of a 2005 video in which Trump bragged it was easy to grope women Grab them by the p---y. You can do anything.
Two women came forward to the New York Times the day after the second presidential debate when Trump insisted he absolutely does not touch women inappropriately to say they were both groped by Trump.
Trump has never shied away from his glorification of the female form. He has even objectified his daughter Ivankas physique on Howard Sterns radio show.
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8. Clinton is corrupt
She put the office of secretary of state up for sale. Sept. 28
Calling Clinton corrupt takes the focus off Trumps own businesses and finances.
There is no evidence Clinton ever put her office up for sale. Neither is there any evidence that Clinton lost $6 billion worth of taxpayers funds when she was secretary of state another frequent Trump falsehood.
The U.S. Inspector General sent a letter to the Washington Post saying the $6 billion had not actually gone missing. There were simply paperwork problems in the failure to adequately maintain contract files in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa, the Post reported. But its all corruption to Trump.
He often describes the Clinton Foundation, a leader in providing life-saving medication to the poor in the developing world, as a criminal enterprise. The foundation has consistently been given good ratings from watchdog organizations.
Conversely, Trump used his own charitable foundation to pay personal debts, made an illegal donation to Floridas attorney general and stiffed hundreds of small businesses who did work for his Atlantic City casinos, sending some into bankruptcy.
Attacking the honesty of the Clintons deflects from all that.
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9. Trump lies about Trump
I was against going into Iraq. And its so well-documented. Sept. 27
This is one of the original Trump falsifications, one that he used to help defeat Republican opponents vying for the leadership of the party. But there is no evidence he was ever against the war from the start.
In 2002, on the Howard Stern radio show, Trump grudgingly said he supported the war effort.
He now denies he was for the war, saying that he used to privately tell Fox Newss Sean Hannity that he opposed it. It was much later when Trump started complained about the cost of the Iraq War, likely as a way of demonstrating his cleverness in foreign affairs. He repeatedly pointed to his quotes in a 2004 Esquire article, but that came 17 months after the war started.
This is one of Trumps more curious kind of lies ones that are easily identified.
Another example is when he claimed he did not tell people to check out a sex tape of Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
He did. On Sept. 30, a Trump tweet included, verbatim, Check out sex tape.
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10. WTF
Palm Beach, Fla., is probably the wealthiest community there is in the world. Sept. 26
Palm Beach, Fla., is probably the wealthiest community there is in the world. Sept. 26
Trumps Mar-a-Lago club is in Palm Beach, and it is undoubtedly an ornate, exclusive place. But Palm Beach is nowhere near the wealthiest community in the world its not even the wealthiest in the United States (its No. 3).
This is easy to dismiss as simple hyperbole, but it fits in an unusual category of Trump falsehoods: Ones that are ridiculous, and ridiculously obvious.
A week earlier he falsely said of a pastor who interrupted his criticism of Clinton: Hes not allowed to talk politics. If he does, they take away his tax exemption. (Pastors are permitted to talk politics as much as they want, although they are prohibited from endorsing or opposing candidates.)
Perhaps Trump was simply displaying his thin skin here. Or perhaps his ignorance.
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Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things ...