He Might Register 2,000 Lies in 2017: Donald J. Trump Liar Par Excellence Bigly

“Bigly” Lie from the Liar-in-Chief

Americans Who Trust Trump Soon After He Opens His Mouth

Short Introduction to Trump and his history of lying:

All presidents lie. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, yet he orchestrated the most shamelessly crooked act (Watergate scandal) in the modern presidency.

Ronald Reagan said he wasn’t aware of the Iran-Contra deal; there’s evidence he was was aware. (Later he publicly said: “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”)

Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with “that woman (Monica Lewinsky)” but he did (close enough to be called sex).

Lying in politics transcends political party and era. It is, in some ways, an inherent part of the profession of politicking.

Donald J. Trump is in a totally different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton were protecting their reputations – Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of lying.

A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false. Trump dubbed Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary” had a mere 26 percent of her statements labeled deemed false.

Those who have followed Trump’s career say his lying isn’t just a tactic, but an ingrained habit. New York outlets who covered Trump as a real estate mogul on the rise in the 1980’s and ’90s found him categorically different from the other self-promoting celebrities in just how often, and pointlessly, he would lie to them.

In his own autobiography, Trump used the phrase truthful hyperbole a term coined by his ghostwriter referring to the flagrant truth-stretching that Trump employed, over and over, to help close deals. Trump apparently loved the wording, and went on to adopt it as his own.

But, as of January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump's record of “truthful hyperboles” would no longer be relegated to the world of deal-making or campaigning – they now impact our national agenda and programs and policy, and to a larger extent are impacting events and policy on a global level (insulting the U.N. and most of our allies).

My question for Mr. and Mrs. America is simple: Why do any of us accept so many Trump lies and just brush them aside as “Well, that’s who he is.” 

Note this careful documentation of his lies from the Washington Post: Their year-long project analyzing, categorizing and tracking every false or misleading claim by President Trump seemed like quite a burden in the past month. 

The numbers are in and here is why: In the past 35 days, Trump has averaged an astonishing nine claims a day. His total score sheet now stands at 1,628 claims in 298 days, or an average of 5.5 claims a day. That puts him on track to reach 1,999 claims by the end of his first year in office, though he obviously would easily exceed 2,000 if he maintained the pace of the past month. 

(See Washington Post full interactive graphic here). 

Trump has a tendency to repeat himself — often. There are now at least 50 claims that he has repeated three or more times. Trump’s most repeated claim, uttered 60 times, was some variation of the statement that the ACA is dying and “essentially dead.” The CBO still says that the program despite well-documented issues, are not imploding and are expected to remain stable for the foreseeable future. Indeed, healthy enrollment for the coming year has surprised health-care experts.

Classic Trump: His statements change with repetition. Sometimes, Trump can’t even keep his untruths straight. After he reversed a campaign pledge and declined to label China a currency manipulator, he kept changing his description of when China had stopped the bad behavior. Initially, he said it stopped once he took office. 

He then changed the turning point to the election, then to since he started talking about it, and then to some uncertain point in the distant past.

Dates and Statements Trump Made About China Stopping Their Currency Manipulation.

• APRIL 21: “From the time I took office”
• APRIL 29: “During the election”
• APRIL 30: “As soon as I got elected”
• MAY 1: “Since I started running”
• MAY 4: “Since I’ve been talking about currency manipulation”

Thanks for stopping by and keep your own list – don’t expect him to change – not one bit.