False or misleading statements by Donald Trump

[21] In June 2023, a criminal grand jury indicted Trump on one count of making "false statements and representations", specifically by hiding subpoenaed classified documents from his own attorney who was trying to find and return them to the government.

[31] 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 and controversial style, with one real-estate financier observing in 1976, "His deals are dramatic, but they haven't come into being.

Recalling her career with New York Post's Page Six column, Susany Mulcahy told Vanity Fair in 2004, "I wrote about him a certain amount, but I actually would sit back and be amazed at how often people would write about him in a completely gullible way.

News organizations like the Associated Press (AP), The Washington Post, and The Star-Ledger reported rumors of 9/11 celebrations in New Jersey, but they were found to be unfounded, unsourced, or finding that people were memorializing the event.

[113][114] In 2015, Buzzfeed News' Andrew Kaczynski reported that Trump, despite having claimed to have the best memory in the world, had a history of "conveniently forgetting" people or organizations in ways that benefit him.

"[118][119] On June 4, he called into Newsmax, claiming he always believed it would have been "terrible to throw the president's wife and the former secretary of state ... into jail", yet this time adding the threat: "It's very possible that it's going to have to happen to them.

In 2021, several lawyers who had previously worked with Trump, reportedly declined to assist him in asserting executive privilege over the subpoenas served by the House Select Committee on January 6.

[217][218] Political commentators and high-ranking politicians from both main parties dismissed Trump's allegations as lacking evidence and maintained that the FBI's use of Halper as a covert informant was in no way improper.

In an official statement, Trump said that (1) he had "never met [Carroll] in my life" although she provided a photograph of them socializing in 1987, and (2) the store shared security footage debunking the claim though in his 2022 deposition for the case, he denied having reached out to the company.

[256] As Hurricane Dorian approached the Atlantic coast in August 2019, Trump presented himself as closely monitoring the situation, tweeting extensively as The New York Times reported he was "assuming the role of meteorologist in chief".

[302] Some of Trump's allies have suggested that the "crime" involved the FBI launching an investigation into incoming national security advisor Michael Flynn,[304] or possibly the "unmasking" by outgoing Obama officials to find out the name of a person who was reported in intelligence briefings to be conversing with the Russian ambassador.

[306] The AP in May 2020 addressed Obamagate in a fact check, stating that there was "no evidence" of Trump's suggestion that "the disclosure of Flynn's name as part of legal U.S. surveillance of foreign targets was criminal and motivated by partisan politics."

He wrote a letter to Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, saying: "I'm asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him—the memory of my dead wife—and perverted it for perceived political gain".

"[357] Anthony Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained in a Science interview that before press conferences, the task force presents its consensus to Trump "and somebody writes a speech.

When reporter Paula Reid questioned him about this in August 2020, noting that he repeatedly made a "false statement" in taking credit for the program, Trump abruptly walked out of the news conference.

[418]On July 18, 2023, when responding to Sean Hannity at a town hall meeting in Iowa, Trump told a new lie: "I also have to say something else, 'cause the one thing a lot of people, including you, don't talk about: they also create phony ballots, and that's a real problem.

[422] In a January 7, 2021, White House video, Trump claimed, falsely, that he had "immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders".

[434] Trump's claim echoed his September 16, 2021, written statement that "Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly relating to the January 6th protest concerning the Rigged Presidential Election".

[438] In reference to a New York policy that allows race to be a consideration when dispensing oral antiviral treatments, Trump lied at a rally that white people don't get the vaccine and "have to go to the back of the line" for COVID-19 care.

Because Trump deliberately misled him, Corcoran drafted a "sworn certification" that all subpoenaed documents had been returned, and another attorney, Christina Bobb, provided it to "the grand jury and the FBI".

[22] On June 27, 2023, responding to the revelation that in 2021 he showed off a classified document and told the writers in the room to "look" at it, Trump described his own audiotaped words as "bravado, if you want to know the truth...

[456] The New York Times Fact Check stated that "Mr. Trump repeated many familiar exaggerations about his own achievements, reiterated misleading attacks on political opponents and made dire assessments that were at odds with reality.

[470] Trump has repeated this assertion throughout his campaign, falsely stating that foreign leaders are deliberately emptying insane asylums to send "prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mental patients, terrorists" across America's southern border as migrants.

[476] Trump falsely alleged that immigrants commit crimes because they have "bad genes," invoking what science writer Daniel Vergano describes as "the deeply dishonest scientism" of eugenics.

[474] The Bulwark uploaded a satirical video showing and debunking clips of Trump blaming migrants for "all problems," including "hurricane damage, bribery prosecutions, veteran homelessness, missing pets, and, the decline of little league baseball.

[512] Dina LaPolt, an entertainment attorney who helped advance the law, told Variety "Trump did nothing on [the] legislation except sign it, and doesn't even know what the Music Modernization Act does.

[528] CNN and PBS NewsHour reported in the aftermath of the September 2024 hurricane that Trump had engaged in several days of spreading lies, distortions, disinformation and conspiracy theories about the federal response, which public officials said created confusion and hindered recovery efforts.

[562] In a campaign speech in Howell, Michigan, on August 20, 2024, Trump falsely accused Harris of a "vicious, violent overthrow" in replacing Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee.

[565] Among other false claims, Trump repeated a debunked hoax spread by neo-Nazi groups,[566] right-wing politicians and media figures that immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

"We're gonna have—I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care.

Fact-checkers from The Washington Post [ 1 ] (top, monthly), the Toronto Star [ 2 ] and CNN [ 3 ] [ 4 ] (bottom, weekly) compiled data on "false or misleading claims", and "false claims", respectively. The peaks corresponded in late 2018 to the midterm elections , in late 2019 to his impeachment inquiry , and in late 2020 to the presidential election. The Post reported 30,573 false or misleading claims in four years, [ 1 ] an average of more than 20.9 per day.
Donald Trump's father, Fred , c. 1986
President Trump receives an update on Hurricane Dorian on August 29, 2019. This map was later altered to show the hurricane impacting Alabama.
President Trump displays the altered Hurricane Dorian map in a video published by the White House on September 4, 2019.
In the early stages of the pandemic, Trump's pronouncements "evolved from casual dismissal to reluctant acknowledgement to bellicose mobilization". [ 333 ] Though Trump "occasionally adopted health officials' more cautious tone", the optimism that dominated his early response "hadn't completely disappeared", [ 334 ] Trump having downplayed the threat of COVID-19 over 200 times by November 3, 2020. [ 335 ]
As U.S. cases reached 4,800,000 and deaths reached 157,690 in the summer of 2020, Trump repeated his assertion that he believes coronavirus will "go away" despite his top public health expert warning that it could take most of 2021 or longer to get the pandemic under control. [ 336 ] Trump "made numerous versions of this assertion over...more than six months". [ 336 ]
After the December 2020 introduction of COVID vaccines, a partisan gap in death rates developed, indicating the effects of vaccine skepticism. [ 337 ] As of March 2024, more than 30 percent of Republicans had not received a Covid vaccine, compared with less than 10 percent of Democrats. [ 337 ]
CNN fact checker Daniel Dale reported that through June 9, 2021, Trump had issued 132 written statements since leaving office, of which "a third have included lies about the election"—more than any other subject. [ 403 ]
To sow election doubt, Trump escalated use of "rigged election" and "election interference" statements in advance of the 2024 election compared to the previous two elections—the statements described as part of a "heads I win; tails you cheated" rhetorical strategy. [ 459 ]
Trump's opposition to wind power involves repeated claims that " windmills " "kill the birds", [ 486 ] but cats in the U.S. actually kill on the order of 10,000 times as many birds as wind turbines . [ 487 ]
A house in Goffstown, New Hampshire displays a sign endorsing Kamala Harris in the 2024 Presidential Election which parodies " Make America Great Again " as "Make Lying Wrong Again" in response to Trump's record of misinformation.