The Liar King of the USA
It’s no secret that Donald Trump lies.
He is the Pinocchio of the Republican party and in the US election campaign of ’16.
In fact, he has made fabrication and exaggeration a key tool of his presidential campaign.
Lies are his main weapon.
He is sometimes fabricating a new lie to protect the first. He is the lie-swinger of America.
Or he changes his mind, if needed. From lie to reality – or from reality to lie.
In the end, many Americans do not know if white is black or black is white. Maybe he does not know either.
The media attention that his hyperbolic statements bring helps keep him in the minds and conversations of voters across the United States.
At the same time, the pace at which he delivers untruths makes it incredibly difficult for an easily distracted media to hold him to account.
Each new claim just becomes another link in the ever-lengthening chain of Donald Trump lies.
Below you can read some of the most outlandish falsehoods that have come from the Republican primary frontrunner.
- Trump says: Obama was not born in America
“Growing up no one knew him” – on Good Morning America, March 2011
Years before he was a contender for President, Donald Trump was already grabbing political media attention through wild claims by tapping into the “birther” movement, challenging the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency based on doubts as to his place of birth. The Apprentice star aligned himself with birthers during an interview on Good Morning America, admitting he was a “little” sceptical of the President’s citizenship. President Obama’s long form birth certificate was released on 27 April 2011 clearly showing that he was born in Hawaii. Yet as recently as July 2015, Trump was still expressing doubt about Obama’s birthplace to the media.
- Trump Says: Mexico is encouraging criminals to relocate to the US
“What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.” – in a written statement, 6 July 2015
A central part of Trump’s election platform is his promise to build an impenetrable wall along the US-Mexico border. His reasoning? Illegal Mexican immigrants are destroying America as part of a plot by the Mexican Government to undermine its northern neighbour. After expressing his outlandish theory, Trump went into even greater detail in a three-page statement released in July, in which he thunders that “the worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican Government”. Not only is there no evidence that pushing criminals into the US is Mexican policy, but statistics show that immigrants are in fact less likely to engage in criminal activity than those born in America.
- Trump Says: He met Vladimir Putin on 60 Minutes
“I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes, we were stablemates” – at Republican primary debate, 10 November 2015
In one of his more bizarre lies, the Donald bragged during the Republican debate that an episode of current affairs show 60 Minutes featuring interviews with Trump and the Russian President proved they could work well together. Yet the two men were on separate continents, and the interviews were conducted individually; they never met at all during the taping of the show. This makes Trump’s claim that he got to know Putin “very well” perplexing – and clearly false.
- Trump Says: Thousands of Muslim Americans celebrated the collapse of the World Trade Center
“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down” – at a rally in Birmingham, 21 November 2015
The presidential hopeful made this claim shortly after the Paris attacks, hoping to capitalise on the heightened sense of insecurity and fear of Islamic terrorism for political advantage. Yet no one has been able to produce any record or testimony that such a celebration actually occurred, let alone that it was filmed or broadcasted. As Trump was in his Manhattan apartment during the 9/11 attacks, it is unclear how he could have seen something like this place. According to Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, the Donald either “has memory issues or wilfully distorts the truth”.
- Trump Says: More Whites are killed by black than blacks killed by whites
“Blacks killed by whites – 2%
Whites killed by blacks – 81%” – on Twitter, 22 November 2015
Last November, Donald Trump tweeted an image loaded with racial homicide statistics. The tweet claimed that black-on-white murder rates far exceeded white-on-black murder rates, citing the “Crime Statistics Bureau” of San Francisco. Just one problem: no such agency exists. Further, the figures in the graphic were wildly inaccurate; FBI data from 2014 shows far lower percentages than asserted by Trump – 15% for white-on-black homicide and just 8% for black-on-white.
- Trump Says: He won’t run as a third candidate…or will he?
“I’m going to be a Republican, I’m not going to be doing a third party. No matter what.” – on CNN, 15 December 2015
“I’m going to have to see how I was treated. Very simple… I want to be treated fair.” – on Fox News Sunday, 3 April 2016
Obviously with the Republican presidential nomination still up for grabs this claim has yet to be disproven. However, Trump’s cagey statements about whether he will actually honour the pledge he made last year, coupled with his notoriously unpredictable nature, mean that come November 2016 voters could very well face an independent Donald Trump presidential bid. At that point, this statement would just be the latest in an extensive chain of Trump lies.