Misplaced Pages

False or misleading statements by Donald Trump

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 174.31.67.38 (talk) at 23:34, 1 November 2018. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 23:34, 1 November 2018 by 174.31.67.38 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Controversy over statements made by president Donald J. Trump

This article is part of
a series aboutDonald Trump
Business and personal
45th & 47th President of the
United States
Tenure
Policies
Appointments (first  · second)
Presidential campaigns
Impeachments
Civil and criminal prosecutions
COVID-19 pandemic
Donald Trump's signature Seal of the President of the United States

Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has made a number of controversial statements which are false or misleading. Trump has made so many false or misleading statements that commentators and fact-checkers have described the rate of his falsehoods as unprecedented in politics. Trump also has "a proclivity to repeat, over and over, many of his false or misleading statements." As of August 2018, "they have counted nearly 150 claims that the president has repeated at least three times, some with breathtaking frequency."Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).

Business career

Within years of expanding his father's property development business into Manhattan in the early 1970s, Trump attracted the attention of The New York Times for his "brash, controversial style," with one real estate financier observing in 1976, "His deals are dramatic, but they haven't come into being. So far, the chief beneficiary of his creativity has been his public image." Der Scutt, the prominent architect who designed Trump Tower, said of Trump in 1976, "He's extremely aggressive when he sells, maybe to the point of overselling. Like, he'll say the convention center is the biggest in the world, when it really isn't. He'll exaggerate for the purpose of making a sale."

The architect Philip Johnson said of Trump in 1984, "Oh, he lies a great deal."

In 2018, journalist Jonathan Greenberg released audio recordings from 1984 in which Trump, posing as his own spokesman "John Barron," made false assertions of his wealth to secure a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans, including claiming he owned "in excess of 90 percent" of his family's business.

A 1984 GQ profile of Trump quoted him stating, "I own the whole block on Central Park South and Avenue of the Americas." GQ noted that the two buildings Trump owned in that area "probably comprise less than a sixth of the block."

Alair Townsend, a former budget director and deputy mayor of New York City during the 1980s, and a former publisher of Crain's New York Business, said "I wouldn't believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized." Leona Helmsley later used this line as her own when she spoke about Trump in her November 1990 interview in Playboy magazine.

His 1987 book Trump: The Art of the Deal stated, "I play to people's fantasies. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion."

When the stock market crashed in October 1987, Trump told the press that he had “sold all of his stock last month” and took no losses. But SEC filings showed that he still owned large stakes in some companies. Forbes calculated that Trump had lost $19 million on his Resorts International holdings alone.

Challenging estimates of his net worth he considered too low, in 1989 Trump stated, "I have very little debt." Reuters reported Trump owed $4 billion to more than 70 banks at the beginning of 1990.

In 1997, Ben Berzin Jr., who had been tasked with recovering at least some of the $100 million his bank had lent Trump, said "During the time that I dealt with Mr. Trump, I was continually surprised by his mastery of situational ethics. He does not seem to be able to differentiate between fact and fiction."

David Fahrenthold investigated the long history of Trump's claims about his charitable giving and found little evidence the claims are true. Following Fahrenthold's reporting, the Attorney General of New York opened an inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation's fundraising practices, and ultimately issued a "notice of violation" ordering the Foundation to stop raising money in New York. The Foundation had to admit it engaged in self-dealing practices to benefit Trump, his family, and businesses. Fahrenthold won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for his coverage of Trump's claimed charitable giving and casting "doubt on Donald Trump's assertions of generosity toward charities."

In 1996, Trump claimed he wagered $1 million on 20-to-1 odds in a Las Vegas heavyweight title boxing match between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson. The Las Vegas Sun reported that "while everyone is careful not to call Trump a liar," no one in a position to know about such a sizable wager was aware of it.

A 1998 New York Observer article entitled "Tricky Donald Trump Beats Jerry Nadler in Game of Politics" reported that "Nadler flatly calls Mr. Trump a 'liar'," quoting Nadler stating, "Trump got $6 million in the dead of night when no one knew anything about it" by slipping a provision into a $200 billion federal transportation bill.

Promoting his Trump University after its formation in 2004, Trump asserted he would handpick all its instructors. Michael Sexton, former president of the venture, stated in a 2012 deposition that Trump selected none of the instructors.

During a 2005 deposition in a defamation lawsuit he initiated about his worth, Trump stated "My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings... and that can change rapidly from day to day."

In The Art of the Deal

Tony Schwartz is a ghostwriter and credited co-author of Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987). In July 2016, Schwartz was interviewed by Jane Mayer for two articles in The New Yorker. In them he described Trump, who was running for president at the time, highly unfavorably, and described how he came to regret writing The Art of the Deal. When Schwartz wrote The Art of the Deal, he created the phrase "truthful hyperbole" as an "artful euphemism" to describe Trump's "loose relationship with the truth." This passage from the book provides the context, written in Trump's voice: "I play to people's fantasies...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 it's a very effective form of promotion." He said that Trump "loved the phrase".

Schwartz said that "deceit" is never "innocent." He added, "'Truthful hyperbole' is a contradiction in terms. It's a way of saying, 'It's a lie, but who cares?'" Schwartz repeated his criticism on Good Morning America and Real Time with Bill Maher, saying he "put lipstick on a pig".

In an article entitled "The Swedish Whopper: Donald Trump's Long-standing Struggle With the Truth," the Trump family lie is revealed to be their claim, maintained for two generations, that they are Swedish, when in fact they are Germans. Donald's father, Fred Trump, "sought to pass himself off as Swedish amid anti-German sentiment sparked by World War II." The lie was repeated by Fred's son Donald, who, in The Art of the Deal (1987), repeated and embellished the lie by claiming that his grandfather, Friedrich Trump, "came here from Sweden as a child", even though he left his family and emigrated from his home town, Kallstadt, Germany, in 1885, when he was 16 years old. In the same book, he also claimed that his father was "born in New Jersey to Swedish parents; in fact, he was born in the Bronx to German parents," as Wayne Barrett pointed out in 1992.

2016 presidential campaign

Within six months of announcing his presidential candidacy, FactCheck.org declared him the "King of Whoppers," stating, "In the 12 years of FactCheck.org's existence, we've never seen his match."

Trump has promulgated a number of conspiracy theories which have lacked substance. These have included Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories from 2011 ("birther" theories); that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 2016; that he would have won the popular vote in the 2016 election (in addition to his electoral college win) if there had not been "millions" of illegal voters in that election cycle; and the Spygate conspiracy theory alleging that the Barack Obama administration planted a spy inside Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to assist Hillary Clinton win the 2016 US presidential election. The latter claim has been widely described as blatantly false.

Trump also made his Trump Tower wiretapping allegations in 2017, for which the Department of Justice has said evidence has yet to be provided. In January 2018, Trump claimed that texts between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were tantamount to "treason", but The Wall Street Journal reviewed them and concluded that the texts "show no evidence of a conspiracy against" Trump.

Trump is a friend of "professional conspiracy theorist" Alex Jones, and has appeared on his show. When InfoWars and Jones were banned from Apple, YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify, Infowars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson called it "censorship" and used the well-known Trump–Jones friendship as an argument: "Infowars is widely credited with having played a key role in electing Donald Trump."

Presidency

Trump's presidency began with a series of falsehoods originated by Trump himself. The day after his inauguration, he falsely accused the media of lying about the size of the inauguration crowd. Then he exaggerated the size, and White House press secretary Sean Spicer backed up his claims. When Spicer was accused of intentionally misstating the figures, Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, defended Spicer by stating that he merely presented "alternative facts". Todd responded by saying "alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."

As president, Trump has frequently made false statements in public speeches and remarks. Trump uttered "at least one false or misleading claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days" in office according to The New York Times, and 1,318 total in his first 263 days in office according to the "Fact Checker" political analysis column of The Washington Post. On Trump's 601st day in office, their tally exceeded 5,000 false or misleading claims, and it had risen to an average of 8.3 per day from 4.9 during his first 100 days in office. According to one study, the rate of false statements has increased, with the percentage of his words that are part of a false claim rising over the course of his presidency. In general, news organizations have been hesitant to label these statements as "lies".

Glenn Kessler, a fact-checker for The Washington Post, told Dana Milbank that, in his six years on the job, "'there's no comparison' between Trump and other politicians. Kessler says politicians' statements get his worst rating — four Pinocchios — 15 percent to 20 percent of the time. Clinton is about 15 percent. Trump is 63 percent to 65 percent." Kessler also wrote: "President Trump is the most fact-challenged politician that The Fact Checker has ever encountered ... the pace and volume of the president's misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up."

A poll in May 2018 found that "just 13 percent of Americans consider Trump honest and trustworthy".

The Editorial Board of The New York Times took this telling sideswipe at Trump when commenting on the unfitness of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court: "A perfect nominee for a president with no clear relation to the truth."

See also

References

  1. ^ Baker, Peter (March 17, 2018). "Trump and the Truth: A President Tests His Own Credibility". The New York Times. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  2. McGranahan, Carole (May 2017). "An anthropology of lying: Trump and the political sociality of moral outrage". American Ethnologist. 44 (2): 243–248. doi:10.1111/amet.12475.
  3. Dale, Daniel (October 22, 2018). "Donald Trump's strategy as midterms approach: lies and fear-mongering". Toronto Star. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  4. Kessler, Glenn; Rizzo, Salvador; Kelly, Meg (September 4, 2018). "President Trump has made 4,713 false or misleading claims in 592 days". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  5. Klemesrud, Judy (November 1, 1976). "Donald Trump, Real Estate Promoter, Builds Image as He Buys Buildings". The New York Times. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  6. Geist, William E. (April 8, 1984). "The Expanding Empire of Donald Trump". The New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2018.
  7. Greenberg, Jonathan (April 20, 2018). "Trump lied to me about his wealth to get onto the Forbes 400. Here are the tapes". The Washington Post.
  8. Carter, Graydon (May 1, 1984). "The Secret to Donald Trump's Success". GQ. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  9. ^ Malanga, Steven (May 12, 2016). "My Pen Pal, Donald Trump Or, the art of the squeal". City Journal. Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
  10. David, Greg (n.d.). "2018 Hall of Fame". Crain's New York Business. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
  11. "It's Leona's Turn in Playboy--Donald Is a 'Skunk'". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. September 21, 1990. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
  12. Swanson, Ana (February 29, 2016). "The myth and the reality of Donald Trump's business empire". The Washington Post.
  13. Plaskin, Glenn (March 12, 1989). "Trump: "The People's Billionaire"". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 28, 2018.
  14. Flitter, Emily (July 17, 2016). "Art of the spin: Trump bankers question his portrayal of financial comeback". Reuters. Retrieved October 28, 2018.
  15. Malanga, Steven (April 6, 2011). "Donald Trump: The Art of the Tease". Real Clear Markets. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
  16. Fahrenthold, David A. (October 4, 2016). "Trump's co-author on 'The Art of the Deal' donates $55,000 royalty check to charity". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 26, 2017.
  17. Gross, Terry; Fahrenthold, David (September 28, 2016). "Journalist Says Trump Foundation May Have Engaged In 'Self-Dealing'". NPR. Retrieved March 1, 2018.
  18. Eder, Steve (October 3, 2016). "State Attorney General Orders Trump Foundation to Cease Raising Money in New York". The New York Times. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  19. Fahrenthold, David A. (November 22, 2016). "Trump Foundation admits to violating ban on 'self-dealing,' new filing to IRS shows". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 31, 2018.
  20. Farhi, Paul (April 10, 2017). "Washington Post's David Fahrenthold wins Pulitzer Prize for dogged reporting of Trump's philanthropy". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 11, 2017.
  21. "2017 Pulitzer Prize: National Reporting". Pulitzer Prize. April 10, 2017. Retrieved April 10, 2017.
  22. "No trace of Trump $20 mil. win". Las Vegas Sun. December 4, 1996. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  23. Sargent, Greg (June 8, 1998). "Tricky Donald Trump Beats Jerry Nadler in Game of Politics". The New York Observer. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  24. Gore, D'Angelo (March 1, 2016). "Trump's Defense of His 'University'". FactCheck.org. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  25. Singer, Mark (July 5, 2016). "Getting Sued by Trump Has Its Upsides". GQ. Retrieved October 28, 2018.
  26. ^ Mayer, Jane (July 25, 2016). "Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Tells All". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  27. ^ Mayer, Jane (July 20, 2016). "Donald Trump Threatens the Ghostwriter of "The Art of the Deal"". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  28. "'Art Of The Deal' Ghostwriter On Why Trump Should Not Be President". NPR. July 21, 2016. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  29. Croucher, Shane (February 24, 2017). "Is Donald Trump stupid or a liar?". International Business Times. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  30. Page, Clarence (January 24, 2017). "Column: 'Alternative facts' play to Americans' fantasies". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
  31. Winsor, Morgan (July 18, 2016). "Tony Schwartz, Co-Author of Donald Trump's 'The Art of the Deal,' Says Trump Presidency Would Be 'Terrifying'". ABC News. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  32. "The Swedish Whopper: Donald Trump's Long-standing Struggle With the Truth". Haaretz. March 25, 2016. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  33. ^ Hansler, Jennifer (November 28, 2017). "Trump's family denied German heritage for years". CNN.
  34. Carlström, Vilhelm (November 28, 2017). "Donald Trump claimed he was of Swedish ancestry – but it's a lie". Business Insider.
  35. Horowitz, Jason (August 21, 2016). "For Donald Trump's Family, an Immigrant's Tale With 2 Beginnings". The New York Times.
  36. Daly, Michael (March 24, 2016). "Donald Trump Even Lies About Being Swedish (Hes Actually German)". The Daily Beast. Retrieved February 24, 2017.
  37. Blair, Gwenda (2000). The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-1079-9.
  38. Barrett, Wayne. The Greatest Show on Earth (First Regan Arts. paperback edition, August 2016 ed.). New York, N.Y.: Regan Arts. p. 33. ISBN 978-1682450-79-6. (Republication of Trump: The Deals and the Downfall (Harper Collins, 1992, ISBN 0-06-016704-1))
  39. "The 'King of Whoppers': Donald Trump". FactCheck.org. December 21, 2015. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
  40. ^ Evans, Greg (May 29, 2018). "8 of the biggest conspiracy theories that Trump has shared". The Independent. Retrieved June 9, 2018.
  41. ^ Blake, Aaron (May 23, 2018). "The No. 1 reason Trump's 'spygate' conspiracy theory doesn't make sense". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
  42. ^ Davis, Julie Hirschfeld; Haberman, Maggie (May 28, 2018). "With 'Spygate,' Trump Shows How He Uses Conspiracy Theories to Erode Trust". The New York Times. Retrieved May 29, 2018.
  43. Aaronson, Trevor (May 31, 2018). "The FBI's use of informants is full of problems, but what happened in "Spygate" isn't one of them". The Intercept. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
  44. Sollenberger, Roger (May 29, 2018). "The Short, Sad Life of SPYGATE!: Trump's Latest Conspiracy Theory Got Debunked By Evidence in A Matter of Hours". Paste. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
  45. ^ Beauchamp, Zack (May 25, 2018). ""Spygate," the false allegation that the FBI had a spy in the Trump campaign, explained". Vox. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
  46. Tatum, Sophie (May 23, 2018). "Carter Page: I 'never found anything unusual' in conversations with FBI source". CNN. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
  47. Bump, Philip (May 23, 2018). "There is no evidence for 'Spygate' — but there is a reason Trump invented it". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 1, 2018.
  48. Darcy, Jeff (May 27, 2018). "'Spygate' is just latest Trump lie: Darcy cartoon". cleveland.com. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
  49. Boot, Max (June 7, 2018). "Trump just keeps on lying — because it works". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 9, 2018.
  50. Wilber, Del Quentin (February 2, 2018). "Inside the FBI Life of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as Told in Their Text Messages". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 9, 2018.
  51. Boot, Max (September 21, 2018). "The Kavanaugh doppelganger theory shows how far the right has descended into madness". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  52. McKay, Rich (August 6, 2018). "Apple, YouTube, and others drop conspiracy theorist Alex Jones". Reuters. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  53. Qiu, Linda (January 21, 2017). "Donald Trump had biggest inaugural crowd ever? Metrics don't show it". PolitiFact. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  54. "Was Donald Trump's Inauguration the Most Viewed in History?". Snopes.com. January 22, 2017. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  55. Robertson, Lori; Farley, Robert (January 23, 2017). "The Facts on Crowd Size". FactCheck.org. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  56. Rein, Lisa (March 6, 2017). "Here are the photos that show Obama's inauguration crowd was bigger than Trump's". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  57. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld; Rosenberg, Matthew (January 21, 2017). "With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift". The New York Times. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  58. Makarechi, Kia (January 2, 2014). "Trump Spokesman Sean Spicer's Lecture on Media Accuracy Is Peppered With Lies". Vanity Fair. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
  59. Kessler, Glenn (January 22, 2017). "Spicer earns Four Pinocchios for false claims on inauguration crowd size". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
  60. Jaffe, Alexandra (January 22, 2017). "Kellyanne Conway: WH Spokesman Gave 'Alternative Facts' on Inauguration Crowd". NBC News. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
  61. Blake, Aaron (January 22, 2017). "Kellyanne Conway says Donald Trump's team has 'alternative facts.' Which pretty much says it all". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 31, 2018.
  62. ^ Qiu, Linda (April 29, 2017). "Fact-Checking President Trump Through His First 100 Days". The New York Times.
  63. ^ Kessler, Glenn; Lee, Michelle Ye Hee (May 1, 2017). "President Trump's first 100 days: The fact check tally". The Washington Post.
  64. Qiu, Linda (June 22, 2017). "In One Rally, 12 Inaccurate Claims From Trump". The New York Times.
  65. ^ Dale, Daniel (July 14, 2018). "Trump has said 1,340,330 words as president. They're getting more dishonest, a Star study shows". Toronto Star. Retrieved July 14, 2018.
  66. Lee, Michelle Ye Hee; Kessler, Glenn; Kelly, Meg (October 10, 2017). "President Trump has made 1,318 false or misleading claims over 263 days". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  67. Kessler, Glenn; Rizzo, Salvador; Kelly, Meg (September 13, 2018). "President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 16, 2018.
  68. Glasser, Susan B. (August 3, 2018). "It's True: Trump Is Lying More, And He's Doing It On Purpose". The New Yorker.
  69. "Lies? False Claims? When Trump's Statements Aren't True". The New York Times. June 25, 2018. Retrieved July 7, 2018.
  70. Dale, Daniel (December 22, 2017). "Donald Trump has spent a year lying shamelessly. It hasn't worked". Toronto Star. Retrieved July 14, 2018.
  71. Milbank, Dana (July 1, 2016). "The facts behind Donald Trump's many falsehoods". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 2, 2018.
  72. Manchester, Julia (May 17, 2018). "Poll: Just 13 percent of Americans consider Trump honest and trustworthy". The Hill. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  73. Editorial Board (September 7, 2018). "Opinion - Confirmed: Brett Kavanaugh Can't Be Trusted". The New York Times. Retrieved September 8, 2018.

External links

Fact-checker archives
Category: