“I don’t stand by anything,” said President Trump this weekend in his 100-days interview with CBS’s John Dickerson, a contentious interview full of easily proven falsehoods and reckless statements that was the ne plus ultra of Trump’s many interviews full of easily proven falsehoods and reckless statements.
Today, the fact-checkers at the Washington Post doesn’t generally stand by what are commonly known as facts. By their count, Trump has made 488 false or misleading statements in his first 100 days in office.
Some of their findings:
488: The number of false or misleading claims made by the president. That’s an average of 4.9 claims a day.
10: Number of days without a single false claim. (On six of those days, the president golfed at a Trump property.)
4: Number of days with 20 or more false claims. (Feb. 16, Feb. 28, March 20 and April 21.) He made 19 false claims on April 29, his 100th day.
Wrote the Post fact-checkers: “While the president is known to make outrageous claims on Twitter — and that was certainly a major source of his falsehoods — he made most of his false statements in unscripted remarks before reporters. (Interviews were another major source of false claims.) That’s because the president would rely on talking points or assertions that he had made in the past — and continued to make, even though they had been fact-checked as wrong This makes Trump somewhat unique among politicians. Many will drop a false claim after it has been deemed false. But Trump just repeats the same claim over and over.”
A separate survey by the bipartisan fact-checking organization Politifact found that Trump’s claims are somewhat false or totally false, mostly false or half true 83 percent of the time.
Buzzfeed has listed 100 of Trump’s untrue statements during his first 100 days in office:
Here are 100 Lies and False Statements From Trump’s First 100 Days – BuzzFeed News https://t.co/w7fvx365cg
— RocktheVote2018 (@Rockthevote2018) April 28, 2017
Today, NBC’s Katy Tur interviewed a former Republican congressman who said he basically treats Trump like a crusty-but-benign grandpa who’s always spouting off:
Joe Walsh: “As a Trump supporter I do my best not to listen to what he says.” Me: Then why are you a supporter? https://t.co/XTKpYtG8cj
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) May 1, 2017
Meanwhile, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that Trump’s base doesn’t care if he’s telling the truth or not. According to the Post, “84 percent of Trump voters think he’s keeping most of his major campaign promises, while only 4 percent think he isn’t, and 89 percent of them think he’s honest and trustworthy.”
