What PolitiFact learned in 1,000 fact-checks of Donald Trump
The 45th president stands apart -- and the election year has barely started. Here's what our fact-checking data shows us about his Truth-O-Meter record so far.
Posted — UpdatedPolitiFact has hit a milestone: We published our 1,000th rated fact-check of Donald Trump.
In classic Trump fashion, he claimed in his New Hampshire primary victory speech Jan. 23 that Democrats used the COVID-19 pandemic to "cheat" in the 2020 presidential election.
It's not unusual for politicians of both parties to mislead, exaggerate or make stuff up. But American fact-checkers have never encountered a politician who shares Trump’s disregard for factual accuracy.
Our fact-checking saga of Trump began in 2011, when he used his celebrity to amplify "birther" conspiracy theories to undermine former President Barack Obama’s eligibility. The pace of our checks intensified in 2015, with his surprise Republican primary ascent and his 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton. Trump’s turbulent policy-by-Twitter updates kept our reporters sprinting during his presidential tenure. He downplayed the COVID-19 public health threat and fanned persistent falsehoods about voting and election results that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump’s fast-and-loose style surely endears him to some of his supporters, who propelled him to the White House in 2016 and made him the Republican front-runner to challenge President Joe Biden in 2024.
The 45th president stands apart — and the election year has barely started. Here's what our fact-checking data shows us about his Truth-O-Meter record so far.
It will be some time before another politician hits 1,000 ratings. After Trump, our three most-fact-checked politicians are all Democrats: former President Barack Obama with 603 fact-checks, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton with 301, and President Joe Biden with 286.
Trump stands alone for the share of rated claims that are some degree of false. About 76% of his statements earned ratings of Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire. The median rating for his 1,000 checks is False.
More than 18% of our fact-checks of Trump landed at Pants on Fire, which we define as a statement that is not just false but ridiculous.
Trump’s median rating of False is worse than a cross-section of frequently checked Democratic and Republican politicians. Politicians with median ratings of Half True include Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton; three senators who ran for president, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and two longtime congressional leaders, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Trump has also fared worse than three frequently checked politicians who have a median rating of Mostly False: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.; and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
"It's been an astounding eight years in American politics," said Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M University communication professor and a historian of American political rhetoric. "He’s built his entire political identity on the fact that he doesn't owe anyone the truth about anything."
A relentless flow of ‘truthful hyperbole’
In his 1987 best-seller "The Art of the Deal," Trump described "why a little hyperbole never hurts."
"People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole," Trump wrote. "It's an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion."
He talks a lot — in TV interviews, on social media, at campaign rallies that stretch for nearly two hours. As president, Trump made Twitter essential reading, before the social media platform exiled him after the Capitol riot. Of the tweets we checked, about 79% rated Mostly False or lower. So far, on his Truth Social platform, we have not yet rated a claim higher than Mostly False.
Among his most common settings for claims, Trump fared best in State of the Union addresses. His median Truth-O-Meter rating for those annual speeches inched into the Half True range.
In practice, we have looked at many more Trump statements than just the 1,000 cited in this article.
Even though these mentions were usually brief rather than fully detailed fact-check articles, and even though they included many repeated claims, compiling the database was "exhausting," Kessler told us. The database ended up at about 5 million words.
If the past is prologue, 2024 will be another peak year for checking Trump. Our rated fact-checks peaked in 2016 and 2020, the two years he ran for president.
In the beginning, there was birtherism
For Trump’s accusations and insults, accuracy hardly matters.
"Hey, Bill, Bill, am I gonna check every statistic?" Trump said. "I get millions and millions of people."
- In 2015 for three outrageous claims in the Republican presidential primary, including the claim about Black people.
- In 2017 for calling claims of Russian election interference a "made-up story."
- In 2019 for saying a whistleblower got his call with Ukraine’s president "almost completely wrong" when the account was close to the White House’s own transcript.
By topic, Trump’s immigration claims stand out
PolitiFact’s focus has been on Trump’s more consequential statements. His rhetoric around immigration often distorts reality.
Trump’s falsehoods have fueled threats to democracy
Trump’s election falsehoods increasingly became focused on grievances.
Trump’s election result denial has poisoned many Americans’ views on voting, misleading the public about how elections are run.
More than 1,200 people have been charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Court records show that some have said Trump told them to act. Whether Trump faces consequences for actions to subvert lawful election results remains to be seen in Fulton County, Georgia, and the federal courts.
What is PolitiFact’s role?
Readers sometimes ask us what our endgame is with a politician like Trump. They say our fact-checks don’t keep Trump from repeating his false claims, including lies about the 2020 election.
It’s not our job to silence Trump or force him to change his rhetoric. Nor is it our job to tell voters how they should mark their ballots.
Our job is to provide factually vetted information to voters so they can make informed choices.
We fact-check all major political parties, holding their leaders and candidates accountable for misleading rhetoric. We write for Americans who are open to considering evidence. And we document for the historical record, including analysts who will study the Trump era for decades to come.
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