WASHINGTON – Until this month, U.S. President Donald Trump had not made more than 60 false claims in any single week of his presidency.
He has now made 100 false claims in each of the last two weeks.
After shattering his old record by uttering an astonishing 103 false claims two weeks ago, an average of 14.7 per cent, Trump delivered precisely 100 false claims last week, an average of 14.3 per day.
As usual, part of the explanation for the barrage of lies and other dishonesty was simply that Trump talked a lot.
He tends to make more false claims at campaign rallies than at any other kind of event, and he had two rallies last week. He also did an interview on Fox News, a speech at the Foxconn factory site in Wisconsin, a speech promoting his tax cuts, a speech at a gathering of students and a televised meeting with members of Congress.
The pace of the president’s dishonesty has increased significantly in 2018. After averaging 2.9 false claims per day in 2017, he is averaging 5.1 per day in 2018.
He is now up to 1,929 false claims for the first 528 days of his presidency, an overall average of 3.7 per day.
If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of “false claims,” not lies? Click here for our detailed explanation. The short answer is that we can’t be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not telling the truth.
Daniel Dale is the Star’s Washington bureau chief. He covers U.S. politics and current affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @ddale8
