“I will always tell you the truth,” Donald Trump declares at his rallies. “I speak the truth for all of you.”
While Trump styles himself as a bold and daring truth-teller, he has led a campaign replete with glaring lies and blatant falsehoods.
Trump’s dishonesty is often part of an effort to corroborate his racist, conspiratorial and paranoid view of America and the world at large, along with his constant need for self-validation, drive to quash critics and inability to ever admit mistakes or apologize.
Trump lies so effortlessly, so frequently and so thoughtlessly that even this list of 101 of his biggest lies is incomplete.
Trump has somehow managed to largely preserve his image as an honest politician, despite the fact that he has shown himself to be nothing more than a pathological liar.
Here are just 101 of the lies Trump has told about himself, others and the country in the lead-up to and during his campaign for president:
Table of Contents
Conspiracy Theories
1) President Obama Lied About His Birth Certificate
Trump once referred to himself as a “proud” birther who was trying to find out the truth about President Obama’s birthplace.
As we’ve noted, “For years, Trump has suggested that President Obama fabricated his birth certificate in order to be eligible to run for president. As evidence of this, he has cited the work of Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, ‘Israeli Science,’ the conspiracy theory clearinghouse WorldNetDaily and an unnamed ‘extremely credible source.’ Trump has falsely claimed that the president spent millions of dollars ‘to keep this quiet’ and wrongly suggested that the president’s grandmother confessed to witnessing his birth in Kenya.”
In a September press conference, Trump claimed that he was actually the one who “finished” the birther controversy by prompting the president to release the long-form version of his birth certificate in 2011. Never mind that Trump repeatedly raised doubts about the president’s long-form birth certificate even after its release, and as recently as January said he planned to write a book laying out his birther theory. In one 2013 tweet, Trump appeared to imply that a Hawaii health official was murdered as part of a government cover-up of the president’s real birthplace.
2) Hillary Clinton Started Birtherism
Trump has repeatedly alleged that Hillary Clinton launched the birther movement, but has been unable to present any credible evidence to substantiate his claim.
He cited as proof of his claim a meeting that Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal had with a McClatchy reporter during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. Blumenthal denies that he ever mentioned the birther conspiracy.
Trump also claimed that Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer, admitted that her campaign launched the movement, when in reality she only said that the campaign fired a volunteer coordinator for forwarding an email that questioned Obama’s Christian faith.
3) Obama Wears An ‘Arabic’‘Ring
In 2012, Trump sent a tweet linking to a WorldNetDaily article that claimed Obama wears a ring inscribed with the Islamic statement of faith.
Why does Barack Obama’s ring have an arabic inscription? http://t.co/upa00265 Who is this guy?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2012
“Why does Barack Obama’s ring have an arabic [sic] inscription? Who is this guy?” Trump asked.
The ring, however, only shows a series of loops that do not say anything in Arabic or any language.
4) Obama Was Born ‘Barry Soetero’
Trump has alleged that Obama has had several real names, including “Barry Sotoro,” “Barry Soetoro” and “Barry Sowoto.”
He told Sean Hannity in 2011 that Obama “was born Barry Soetero,” which is patently false, seeing that Obama was born in 1961 and Lolo Soetero, who married Obama’s mother in 1965, didn’t come to Hawaii until 1962.
5) Bill Ayers Wrote ‘Dreams From My Father’
In 2011, Trump said that Bill Ayers, and not President Obama, wrote Obama’s book “Dreams From My Father.”
“Bill Ayers wrote the book,” he said in a 2011 interview with Sean Hannity, a claim he repeated that same year while talking to Laura Ingraham.
Ayers never said he wrote the book, although he did make a joke about writing it so he could collect royalties.
6) The IRS Is Persecuting Me!
In February, Trump alleged that the government has targeted him for a tax audit, possibly “because of the fact that I’m a strong Christian.
However, Trump’s own lawyers debunked this claim, saying in a statement issued by his campaign that Trump’s audit is “consistent with the IRS’ practice for large and complex businesses.”
7) Vaccines Cause Autism
Prior to and during his campaign for president, Trump blamed autism on vaccines, saying that as president he would try to stop children from receiving “massive shots” that he thinks lead to autism. Trump insists he is not against all vaccines, just that they should be delayed and spaced out over longer periods of time than recommended by mainstream medical organizations.
Experts have strongly denied that vaccines are linked to autism or that vaccines should be delayed, claiming that both arguments are dangerous as they can lead to outbreaks of preventable diseases.
8) Climate Change Is A Hoax
According to Trump, climate change science is “bullshit” and a “hoax” created by China to undermine U.S. manufacturing.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
Climate scientists overwhelmingly believe that human activities contribute to climate change, and one of Trump’s own businesses acknowledged the reality of climate change when, as Politico reported, it lobbied “to build a sea wall designed to protect one of his golf courses from ‘global warming and its effects.'”
9) Rafael Cruz Was Linked To The Kennedy Assassination
Towards the end of the GOP primary, Trump pushed a bogus National Enquirer story alleging that Rafael Cruz, the father of his Republican rival, Ted Cruz, with Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy. Trump called Cruz’s supposed involvement “horrible” and lamenting that “nobody talks about it.”
He continued to promote the false story even after Cruz dropped out of the race, bringing it up again the day after the Republican National Convention.
10) Ted Cruz Never Denied His Father Was Part Of The Kennedy Assassination
Following the Cleveland convention, Trump told the press that while Rafael Cruz is a “lovely guy,” his son, Ted Cruz, “never denied” that his father worked with “Crazy Lee Harvey Oswald.” Trump added that the National Enquirer, the story’s originator, “should be very respected.”
“They never denied—did anybody ever deny that it was the father?” he asked. “They’re not saying, ‘That wasn’t really my father.’ It’s a little hard to do because it looks like him.”
Both Ted and Rafael Cruz vehemently denied Trump’s claims.
11) Obama Founded ISIS
On numerous occasions, Trump has suggested that Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, a claim he made explicit when he referred to the president as the “founder” of ISIS and Clinton as the terrorist group’s “cofounder.”
The Islamic State group was founded in 2006, before Obama became president. While Trump cited Obama’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq after the conclusion of a status of forces agreement signed by President Bush to justify his suggestion that Obama “absolutely” founded the group, Trump himself had called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country in 2008.
12) Obama Is Arming ISIS
According to Trump, the Obama administration is arming the terrorist group ISIS and sending them weapons “through Benghazi.”
The U.S. government has never armed ISIS and has actively fought the group while aiding its rivals.
13) Obama Supports Terrorists
Throughout his campaign, Trump has implied that the president has an ulterior motive when it comes to terrorism.
He told radio host Michael Savage that “maybe [Obama] doesn’t want to get rid of the problem” of terrorism, and said in a campaign stop that Obama “wants to close his eyes” to terrorism “and pretend it’s not happening. “There’s something we don’t know about,” he added.
Following the ISIS-inspired attack in Orlando, Trump told Fox News that Obama “either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind.”
“And the something else in mind—you know, people can’t believe it,” he said. “People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.”
He similarly told NBC that “there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get” the problem of terrorism.
14) ISIS Tried To Attack Me!
After a protester attempted to rush the stage at a Trump rally in March, Trump claimed that the demonstrator had “ ties to ISIS,” citing a hoax video that mocked the man.
When NBC host Chuck Todd challenged Trump for making the false claim, the GOP presidential nominee again cited the bogus ISIS connection, saying, “All I know is what’s on the internet.”
15) 9/11 Hijackers Tipped Off Their Girlfriends
Trump attempted to justify his call for the U.S. to “take out” terrorist members’ families by claiming that the wives and girlfriends of the terrorists who committed the 9/11 attacks “knew what was going on” and “were put into planes and they were sent back” to Saudi Arabia “to watch their boyfriends on television.”
However, the 9/11 Commission report found that only two of the 19 hijackers had wives, neither of whom lived in the U.S. or had advance knowledge of the terrorist plot.
16) We Massacred Muslims With Bullets Soaked In Pigs’ Blood When We Were Tough
Trump has defended his pro-war-crimes stance and view that the U.S. has become “weak” by repeatedly and approvingly talking about how in the good old days, the U.S. military under Gen. John Pershing’s guidance slaughtered Muslim terrorists in the Philippines with bullets drenched in pigs’ blood.
The massacre, however, probably never took place.
17) Muslims Celebrated 9/11 In New Jersey
Last November, Trump alleged that “thousands and thousands” of Muslim-Americans in Jersey City took to the streets to celebrate as “the World Trade Center came tumbling down,” claiming that the massive celebration was “well covered at the time.”
But, as we’ve noted, “Trump cited as sources a blog post on the conspiracy theory outlet InfoWars, his fans on Twitter and an activist and a reporter who both contradicted his claim. His campaign also released a video that ended up debunking the claim. All assessments of what happened in Jersey City found that Trump’s allegation was completely inaccurate.”
18) San Bernardino Attackers’ Neighbors Knew Of Plot
At the third presidential debate, Trump responded to a question about Islamophobia by saying that Muslim-Americans need to do a better job reporting suspected terrorists to the authorities, claiming that neighbors of the San Bernardino assailants “saw the bombs all over the apartment.”
The assertion, which he has made before, is false. The claim relies on the statements of two men, neither of whom were neighbors of the couple who perpetrated the mass shooting in San Bernardino, who gave interviews with local media outlets following the attack. One said he saw “six Middle Eastern guys” who lived in the town out at lunch, wondering, “What are those guys doing in this neighborhood.” Another man said he heard from someone else that the couple behind the attack “received quite a number of packages” and were “working a lot in the garage.”
Far from seeing bombs in the perpetrators’ apartment, neither seems to ever have seen the perpetrators themselves.
Lies About Immigration
19) Christians Are Banned From Entering America
Trump, who has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S., has maintained that under current policies “Muslims can come in but other people can’t. Christians can’t come into this country but Muslims can…. Muslims can come in but Christians can’t, and the Muslims aren’t in danger and the Christians are.”
“If you’re from Europe and you’re a Muslim, you can come in. But if you are from Europe and you’re a Christian, you can’t come in,” Trump has claimed.
He has also claimed that if he proposed banning Christians from the country, rather than Muslims, there wouldn’t have been an outcry.
There are obviously no laws or regulations barring Christian travelers, immigrants or refugees from coming to the U.S.
20) Syrian Refugees Come To The U.S. Without Vetting
Trump has proposed sending legally resettled refugees back to Syria, defending his proposal by claiming that there is “no system to vet them.”
“We’re taking in people we have no idea who they are,” he said.
This is not even close to being accurate, as the refugees are, as NPR reports, “vetted by the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, and the Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security” and are “each individually interviewed by U.S. officials trained to verify that they’re bona fide refugees.”
21) Syrian Refugees Are Mostly Young, Single Men
Implying that many of the Syrian refugees are actually terrorists, Trump said that most of them are “strong, powerful men,” as there are “very few” women and children.”
In reality, “less than half of one percent of those from Syria who resettle in the United States are single young men.”
22) States With Democratic Governors Don’t Receive Refugees
Last November, Trump suggested that the Obama administration is plotting to send Syrian refugees to states with Republican governors “because they know the problem … why would we want to bother the Democrats?” He called the supposed scheme to send refugees only to Republican states “absolute insanity.”
Obviously, this is untrue. Many states with Democratic governors, including California, New York and Pennsylvania, have received large numbers of refugees.
23) Obama Plans To Let In 250,000 Syrian Refugees
In October, Trump said that under Obama “we’re going to take in 250,000 people” from Syria who have “no papers, no documents.”
According to Trump, “our president wants to take in 250,000 [refugees] from Syria,” despite the fact that the Obama administration has only resettled around 10,000 Syrian refugees.
The 250,000 figure did appear in an article from the fake news site Real News Right Now.
24) Hillary Clinton Will Spend ‘Hundreds Of Billions’ On Middle Eastern Refugees
In June, Trump said that Clinton “wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States.” The AP points out that “the entire U.S. budget for refugee resettlement is less than $1.2 billion a year.”
25) Hillary Clinton Will Let In 650 Million Immigrants
At two different campaign events, Trump claimed that Clinton, if elected president, would allow 650 million people to “pour in” and “triple the size of our country in one week.”
As fact-checkers have noted, his assertion is both “logistically impossible” and “in no way what Clinton proposes.”
26) Hillary Clinton Wants Open Borders
Trump has accused Clinton of making a “radical call for open borders, meaning anyone in the world can enter the United States without any limit at all.”
Clinton’s immigration policy does not call for open borders, and a reference to “open borders” she made in a speech, excerpted in a WikiLeaks release, appears to have referred to energy policy, not the movement of people.
27) ICE Endorsed Me!
At all three general election debates, Trump boasted about receiving the endorsement of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. ICE is a federal agency that has not endorsed nor has ever endorsed any candidate.
The group that did endorse Trump is a union representing a few thousand of the agency’s employees that has close ties to the organized anti-immigrant movement.
28) Children Of Muslim Immigrants Aren’t Assimilating
Following the Orlando shooting, Trump said that assimilation among the “second and third generation” of Muslim immigrants has been “pretty close” to “nonexistent.” “There’s no real assimilation,” he told Sean Hannity.
Several studies, however, have found that there is a high rate of assimilation among Muslim-Americans.
29) Immigrants Linked To Crime
Trump, who kicked off his campaign for president by painting Mexican immigrants as criminals, drug dealers and rapists, has repeatedly claimed that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
Researchers have found that immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes and have not contributed to an increase in crime rates.
30) Countries Send Criminals To The U.S.
Trump believes that there is an effort by the Mexican government to send criminals into the U.S. so that it doesn’t have to deal with them at home:
The Mexican government forces many bad people into our country because they’re smart. They’re smarter than our leaders, and their negotiators are far better than what we have, to a degree that you wouldn’t believe. They’re forcing people into our country. … And they are drug dealers and they are criminals of all kinds. We are taking Mexico’s problems
Immigration researchers maintain that the driving forces behind immigration are economic, such as meeting labor demands in the U.S., or social, like family reunification, rather than an unproven government effort to push out criminals. Even the Center for Immigration Studies’ Mark Krikorian, an outspoken opponent of immigration reform, has said the government of Mexico does not force people to move to the U.S.
31) 34 Million Undocumented Immigrants Live In The U.S.
According to Trump, the real number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is 34 million, far more than the generally accepted estimate of 11 to 12 million.
While we are not sure what figure Trump is citing for his estimate, it may have come from Ann Coulter, whom he has commended for her anti-immigrant book “Adios America.” Jeffrey Passel of the Pew Research Center told PolitiFact last year that it “is simply not possible for there to be in excess of 30 million Mexican immigrants in the United States.”
Lies About Crime
32) Hillary Clinton Will Release Violent Criminals
In May, Trump blasted criminal justice reform proposals, warning that Clinton’s agenda is “to release the violent criminals from jail. She wants them all released.”
“She wants people released that you wouldn’t want to walk on the street with, you wouldn’t want to look at,” he said.
In fact, Clinton’s criminal justice reform, one expert told PolitiFact, is “not focused on early release,” and the fact-checking group notes that her plan mainly focuses on addressing the sentences of “nonviolent” offenders.
33) The ‘Most Dangerous’ Cities In The World
According to Trump, “there are places in America that are among the most dangerous in the world.”
“You go to places like Oakland. Or Ferguson. The crime numbers are worse,” he said. “Seriously.”
Despite his contention, neither city ranks among the world’s most dangerous.
34) White People Are Mostly Killed By Black People
Last year, Trump retweeted a racist meme claiming that 81 percent of white homicide victims are killed by black people. The meme originated with a neo-Nazi outlet and cited a nonexistent “Crime Statistics Bureau — San Francisco.” In reality, 82 percent of white murder victims are killed by other white people.
Trump stood by the tweet, saying that he is not going to “check every statistic” and that it came “from sources that are very credible.”
35) Crime Is Hitting Record Levels
While Trump claims that “inner-city crime is reaching record levels,” the crime rate in cities, the Wall Street Journal points out, “remains near historic lows.”
36) The Murder Rate Increased After Stop-And-Frisk Ended
In the first presidential debate, Trump alleged that New York City’s murder rate went up after the city ended its “stop-and-frisk” policy, which was roundly criticized as ineffective, racially biased and unconstitutional.
“Murders are up” in the city, he said.
Trump was wrong: The homicide rate in the city has fallen to record lows.
Lies About The Election And Media Coverage
37) Voter Fraud Is Rampant
Trump believes that voter fraud, including voter impersonation and voting by undocumented immigrants, is “very, very common” and part of a larger conspiracy to rig the election against him.
He even made the false claim that it was “possible that non-citizen voters were responsible for Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina” and wrongly alleged that voting machines are switching Trump votes to Clinton. Trump also thinks that Obama won re-election thanks to votes from “dead people.”
Despite Trump’s claims, voter fraud, whether by impersonation or ineligible voters, is extremely rare.
38) Republicans Received ‘Zero Votes’ In Philadelphia
In a desperate attempt to justify his voter fraud scare, Trump said that Mitt Romney and John McCain each “got zero votes” in the city of Philadelphia when they ran for president.
The two each received thousands of votes in the city, although both received no votes in a few heavily black voting divisions where barely any Republicans lived.
39) MSNBC Edited Abortion Answer
Trump faced an outcry after telling MSNBC host Chris Matthews that ideally “there has to be some of punishment” for women who have abortions. He eventually walked back the statement, but not before taking a series of shifting and contradictory positions on abortion rights.
Trump characteristically claimed both that his comments had been misinterpreted and that they were accurate, boasting that “there were a lot of people who thought that was a very good answer.”
Trump blasted the media for the controversy, alleging that MSNBC “just cut” the “long discussion” he had with Matthews. He said people at the network “don’t want” the full exchange “on television ’cause it was too long.”
However, MSNBC aired Trump’s response and the conversation “in its entirety” and “absolutely no part” was “edited out.”
40) ‘They Won’t Move The Camera’
At many of his campaign rallies, Trump directs rally-goers to jeer at members of the press, claiming that they “won’t move the camera” to show his massive crowds as part of an attempt to suppress the news of his vast support.
Trump often directs his rage at the pool camera that, as the Washington Post explained, does not move because it is required to “maintain a tight focus on the person at the podium, so as to not miss anything that person says or does.”
A BuzzFeed report also notes that Trump’s own campaign makes it impossible to show crowd sizes:
According to two sources familiar with the call, which took place in November, the Trump campaign, citing security concerns from Secret Service, dictated to the networks that their camera crews could only shoot Trump head-on from a fenced-in press pen.
Under the Trump campaign’s conditions, camera crews would not be able to leave the press pen during Trump’s rallies to capture video of audience reactions, known in the industry as “cutaway shots” or “cuts.” Networks would also not be able to use a separate riser set up to get cutaway shots.
…
When Trump complains that the media does not “turn the cameras” to show the size of his crowds, it’s because, unless they turn or zoom out the head on camera, there is no separate angle to show the crowd.
NBC reporter Katy Tur says Trump “does know this to be incorrect” and has “joked in private with reporters about how he understands how the pool camera works,” acknowledging that it is “a shtick that he does to rile up his base.”
41) The Press Skews The Polls
According to Trump, “phony polls put out by phony media” are being used “to suppress the vote” and make sure “people don’t go out and vote.”
As proof, he cited an email released by WikiLeaks from 2008 in which “a prominent Democratic strategy firm recommended ‘oversampling’ certain voters when running polls, including blacks, Hispanics and young people.” Oversampling is a standard polling technique used to get a better read on certain demographic subgroups, and the final results are rebalanced to make sure the groups don’t have a disproportionate impact on the poll’s overall result.
42) Fire Marshals Suppress Rally Sizes
Along with attacking the media, Trump has accused fire marshals of wrongly turning away people from his rallies for political reasons, wondering if they are Democrats. As it turns out, the Trump campaign agreed on attendance caps for safety reasons with the very local fire departments that he criticized.
43) Google Suppresses Negative Clinton Stories
In a campaign rant, Trump insisted that Google has been “suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton,” an allegation promoted by the Russian propaganda site Sputnik.
The claim has been roundly debunked.
He has also promoted the myth that Facebook and Twitter are similarly burying negative Clinton stories.
Lies About Hillary Clinton
44) Hillary Clinton Will Abolish The Second Amendment
Trump has turned the claim that Clinton will “abolish” the Second Amendment into one of his regular talking points, despite the fact that Clinton has never proposed such a step or anything close to it.
45) Hillary Clinton Laughed At A Rape Survivor
While working as an attorney in Arkansas, Clinton was asked by a judge to represent a man who was accused of rape. The defendant later pled guilty to a reduced charge. Trump not only attacked Clinton for representing an accused rapist— thus attacking the Constitution’s guarantee of a right to counsel and a fair trial—but also claimed that Clinton was “laughing at the girl who was raped.”
In a recording from the time, Clinton did laugh at certain unusual aspects of the case, but she never laughed at the victim or about the claim of rape.
46) Hillary Clinton Has Unsuccessfully Fought ISIS For Decades
At the first presidential debate, Trump said that Clinton has been “fighting ISIS” for her “entire adult life,” despite the fact the Islamic State of Iraq, the group’s predecessor, was established in 2006.
47) Hillary Clinton Slept Through Benghazi
As Trump tells it, Clinton “soundly slept in her bed” during the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack. In reality, Clinton was in the State Department offices during the incident, which occurred in the afternoon in U.S. Eastern Time.
While Trump’s claim has been debunked, he still insists that “instead of taking charge that night, Hillary Clinton decided to go home and sleep. Incredible.”
48) Hillary Clinton Mismanaged The State Department
At the third presidential debate, Trump said that when Clinton “ran the State Department, $6 billion was missing. How do you miss $6 billion? You ran the State Department, $6 billion was either stolen—they don’t know. It’s gone, $6 billion.” There was no missing $6 billion, although there were missing or incomplete contract files—paperwork—on contracts worth around $6 billion.
There was no missing $6 billion, although there were missing or incomplete contract files—paperwork—on contracts worth around $6 billion.
Trump has also repeated several false stories about Clinton’s emails and the inquiry into her use of a private email server.
49) Hillary Clinton Will Raise Taxes On The Middle Class
At a Florida event promoting his “Middle Class Tax Relief and Simplification Act,” Trump said that even though “the middle class in our country has been devastated,” Clinton “wants to raise your taxes up to the sky.”
At the second presidential debate, Trump claimed that “she’s raising everybody’s taxes massively.” His campaign also misquoted Clinton to allege that she supports a middle-class tax hike.
In fact, Clinton has not proposed any tax increase for middle-class families, and many of her policies would likely cut taxes for this demographic. “Nearly all of Hillary Clinton’s proposed tax increases would affect the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans,” the AP notes.
50) Hillary Clinton Will Undermine Medicare And Social Security
In October, Trump alleged that Clinton “wants to knock the hell out of your Social Security” and “knock the hell out of your Medicare/Medicaid.”
Clinton actually has called for expanding the three programs.
51) Hillary Clinton Rigged The Debates
Trump accused Clinton of trying to “rig” the three general election debates by making sure two of them were “up against major NFL games.” He even claimed that he received a letter from the NFL complaining about the debate schedule.
The debate schedule was developed by a bipartisan group of past Democratic and Republican party leaders and announced over a year before Election Day, before either Trump or Clinton won their party’s nomination for president and prior to the NFL releasing its game schedule. What’s more, the NFL says it never sent Trump a letter objecting to the debate schedule.
52) Hillary Clinton Wants To End Religious Liberty
While speaking with the Christian Broadcasting Network last month, Trump predicted that “if Hillary Clinton gets in, you’re not going to have religious liberty.”
Clinton, who has spoken publicly about how her Methodist faith has been a driving force in her public service is, of course, not going to end religious freedom in America.
Trump similarly told Religious Right leaders at a meeting in New York this summer that “we don’t know anything about Hillary in terms of religion. Now, she’s been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no—there’s nothing out there.”
The statement wasn’t surprising coming from someone who has suggested that President Obama is a Muslim and that Ted Cruz isn’t a true Christian, while at the same time saying it is “disgraceful” to “question a person’s faith.” It’s also easily disprovable, seeing that Clinton is a lifelong United Methodist who has spoken on many occasions about how her faith shapes her work.
53) The Clinton Foundation Is Corrupt
Trump has made several false claims about the Clinton Foundation,as fact checker Glenn Kessler pointed out:
Trump repeatedly made exaggerated claims about the Clintons that crumbled to dust after scrutiny. Laureate Education did not receive $55 million in grants from the State Department while Bill Clinton was being paid by the company. Hillary Clinton did not give 20 percent of U.S. uranium to the Russians. And Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson did not get a break from Iran sanctions because Bill Clinton gave a speech.
He also repeated a Fox News report that the FBI was likely to request indictments in its inquiries over the operations of the Clinton Foundation even after the network publicly retracted the claim.
54) Hillary Clinton Approves Of Abortion Just Prior To Birth
Trump claimed in an interview with televangelist Pat Robertson that Clinton approves of abortions occurring “a day prior to birth.” He made a similar claim at the third presidential debate, where he said Clinton wants to allow doctors to “rip the baby out of the womb” on “the final day” of pregnancy.
These statements misrepresent Clinton’s actual views on abortion, seeing that such abortions do not take place.
55) Hillary Clinton Has No Child Care Plan
In September, Trump said that Clinton, unlike him, “has no child care plan” and “she never will.”
Clinton, in fact, had listed child care policies on her campaign website well before Trump made his accusation.
Lies About His Business And Charity
56) My Employees Have Child Care Access
In August, Trump claimed that his employees have access to on-site child care programs, bragging that “it’s not an expensive thing, and I do it all over.”
“They call ’em Trump Kids. Another one calls it Trumpeteers, if you can believe it. I have ’em. I actually have ’em, because I have a lot of different businesses,” he said.
However, the AP found that the two programs he mentioned “are programs catering to patrons of Trump’s hotels and golf club. They are not for Trump’s employees, according to staff at Trump’s hotels and clubs across the country.” The wire service found no evidence that Trump provides child care services to his employees.
57) ‘Trump Steaks’ Are Still Being Sold
After Mitt Romney mocked Trump’s many failed businesses, including Trump Steaks, Trump held a press conference at which he boasted that Trump Steaks are still available. He even brought a few steaks to the event.
However, Trump Steaks are no longer available for purchase, and the steaks at his press conference were labeled as Bush Brothers steaks.
58) My Buildings Are So Tall, Like You Wouldn’t Believe
Trump has lied about the sizes of his own buildings, routinely exaggerating and fudging the numbers to make his buildings seem taller, fitting a narcissistic pattern.
59) I Am So Wealthy It Will Make Your Head Spin
Trump has been known to wildly inflate his worth, which he pegs at around $10 billion, and once sued an author who said his worth was in the millions, not the billions. In a deposition in his unsuccessful suit, Trump said he estimates his value based on his feelings and mood.
60) Most Charitable Person You’ve Ever Met, Believe Me
While Trump has claimed to have donated north of $102 million to charity, a Washington Post reporter was only “able to identify $7.8 million in charitable giving from Trump’s own pocket since the early 1980s,” noting that the “charity that Trump has given the most money to over his lifetime appears to be his own: the Donald J. Trump Foundation.”
Since 2008, the Post found, Trump has not donated anything to his foundation. It is now primarily funded by money from other people and is often used to pay Trump’s own expenses, including business and personal expenditures and settlements in legal disputes.
Trump, who identifies himself as an “ardent philanthropist,” didn’t even donate the $1 million he promised to give to veterans’ causes this year until he was contacted by the Post about the nonexistent donation.
61) Promised $10,000 Donation To 9/11 Charity
While Trump promised in 2001 to donate $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund, a report by the New York City’s comptroller office “found no evidence of a donation by Mr. Trump in the year following the attacks.”
62) Pledges To Contribute $100 Million To Campaign
Trump has said that he plans to contribute $100 million from his own pocket to his campaign, while his son Eric said in October that the candidate had already gave his campaign $100 million.
However, campaign finance records show that as of the end of October Trump has only contributed around $66 million to his own campaign. In addition, his campaign has spent millions of dollars reimbursing Trump’s family members’ expenses and his own companies. In one case, Trump significantly raised the rent Trump Tower charged his campaign for office space after he started taking outside donations.
63) Can’t Release Tax Returns Due To Audit
Defying decades of tradition, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, insisting that he will not do so because they are under audit.
But as Bloomberg News reported, “Trump’s income tax returns for the years 2002 through 2008 are no longer under federal audit.”
Before entering the race, Trump repeatedly pledged to release his tax returns if he became a candidate for president, and the IRS has made clear that an audit does not bar a candidate from releasing their returns.
64) ‘My Father Gave Me A Small Loan Of A Million Dollars’
While Trump insists that he only received “a small loan of a million dollars” from his father, real estate mogul Fred Trump, at the start of his career, in reality, Politico notes, “Trump’s father lent him $14 million—a value of $31 million in today’s dollars.” Trump frequently received credit from his wealthy father, and in one instance, Fred Trump bought $3.5 million worth of chips to bail out one of his son’s failing casinos, which gaming commissioners considered an illegal loan.
65) Trump U Receive An A From The Better Business Bureau
Trump responded to the outcry over his Trump University scam by insisting that the Better Business Bureau gave it an “A” rating, even claiming that the bureau sent him a document during a presidential debate confirming the “university’s” “A” status.
The BBB never sent such a document; instead, it noted that Trump U received a “D-” rating in its final year. After the so-called university closed in 2010, its score rose on the BBB’s website because complaints from the time it was functioning expired.
“As the company appeared to be winding down, after 2013, no new complaints were reported” and older complaints were “automatically rolled off.,” the BBB said in a statement.
66) Authored Best Selling Business Book Of All Time
According to Trump, his ghost-written book “The Art of the Deal” is “the No. 1 selling business book of all time.” While the book was a commercial success, PolitiFact found other books in the same genre that “easily outpace” its sales.
I Never Said It
67) I Never Said Climate Change Was A Hoax
In the first debate, Trump denied ever calling climate change a Chinese fabrication Clinton:
Clinton: “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.”
Trump: “I did not—I do not say that.”
68) I Never Said John McCain Wasn’t A Hero
During a March campaign stop, a man asked Trump why he “made a comment to John McCain that you don’t think that captured soldiers are heroes.”
Trump responded, “Oh no no no, I was, I never did that.”
In fact, Trump did do exactly that when asked in 2015 about the senator who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, okay? I hate to tell you.”
69) I Never Said I Supported Invading Iraq
Perhaps one of Trump’s most frequent lies is that he opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq from the beginning. In fact, the only time Trump spoke publicly about the conflict before the invasion was an interview with Howard Stern in which he said he said he supported invading Iraq. Soon after the war started, he hailed it as “a tremendous success.” Trump did come out against the war in 2004, a year after it started.
70) I Never Talked About Intervention In Libya
In February, Trump said he “never discussed” whether the U.S. should have a role in the 2011 military intervention in Libya that ultimately overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. Trump, in fact, said that “we would be so much better off if Gaddafi were in charge right now.”
However, in February 2011, one month before the beginning of NATO’s Libyan intervention, Trump recorded a video calling for intervention against Gaddafi:
I can’t believe what our country is doing. Gaddafi, in Libya, is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is, and we’re sitting around we have soldiers all over the Middle East, and we’re not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage and that’s what it is: It’s a carnage. You talk about things that have happened in history; this could be one of the worst. Now, we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives. This is absolutely nuts. We don’t want to get involved and you’re gonna end up with something like you’ve never seen before.
…
We have to go in to save these lives. These people are being slaughtered like animals. It’s horrible what’s going on. It has to be stopped. We’re making decisions like trade embargoes? What does this have to do with a trade embargo? He’s killing people with machine guns in the streets. We should do, on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya and knock this guy out.
He also told Piers Morgan that “if you don’t get rid of Gaddafi, it’s a major, major black eye for this country.”
71) I Never Said I Have A Relationship With Putin
On several occasions, Trump has bragged about speaking with Vladimir Putin and having a relationship with the Russian president.
In 2013, Trump was asked in a Moscow interview with Thomas Roberts of MSNBC, “Do you have a relationship with Vladimir Putin?”
“I do have a relationship with him,” he said. “He’s done a very brilliant job in terms of what he represents and who he’s representing.”
But when George Stephanopoulos asked Trump earlier this year why he said for three years that he has a relationship with Putin, Trump said he didn’t make such a statement and has no relationship with him.
A few months later, Trump told “Extra” that he would not recant saying he had a relationship with Putin, while also insisting he never said that he said that.
72) I Never Said I’d Cover Legal Fees For Fans Who Attack Protesters
Trump often encourages his supporters to respond to protesters with violence, and once said that if his supporters knock out a protester, “I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.”
After one of Trump’s fans assaulted a protester, Stephanopoulos asked if his pledge to cover legal fees encouraged such violence.
Trump simply denied ever making such a pledge: “I never said I was going to pay for fees.”
73) I Never Said I Support Violence At Rallies
In March, Trump insisted in an interview with CBS that “I don’t condone violence” and “you haven’t seen one person even injured at one of our rallies.”
Neither is true, as Trump time and time again has encouraged rally-goers to meet protesters with violence and several people have been attacked at his rallies.
74) I Never Mocked A Disabled Reporter
During the dust-up over his false claim that thousands of Muslim-Americans in New Jersey took to the streets to celebrate on 9/11, Trump defended his allegation by citing a report from journalist Serge Kovaleski, who mentioned that law enforcement officers questioned people who allegedly celebrated the attacks.
When Kovaleski, who has a joint condition called arthrogryposis, said that his story in no way corroborated Trump’s remarks, Trump mocked him at a campaign rally while mimicking his condition: “The poor guy, you’ve got to see this guy: ‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. Uhh, I don’t remember,’ he’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.'”
In a statement, Trump said he couldn’t have been imitating Kovaleski since he had “no idea” who he is and knows “nothing about him.”
But as the myth-busting outlet Snopes points out, “Kovaleski had covered Trump extensively while working for the Daily News from 1987 to 1993 and had interviewed and talked to the business magnate numerous times during that period,” and Kovaleski said they knew each other on “a first-name basis.”
75) I Never Said China Should Face A 45% Tariff
During a Fox Business News debate in January, Trump denied telling the New York Times editorial board that he would impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
“That’s wrong,” he said. “They were wrong. It’s The New York Times. They’re always wrong. They were wrong.”
However, in audio posted by the newspaper, Trump said he would tax products coming in from China: “I would do a tax and let me tell you what the tax should be. The tax should be 45 percent.”
76) I Never Said Japan Should Have Nukes
While campaigning in June, Trump alleged that Clinton misstated his position on nuclear proliferation, saying that one of her speeches included “lies about my foreign policy,” namely that she said “I want Japan to get nuclear weapons. Give me a break.”
Unfortunately for Trump, he is on record saying that Japan and South Korea would be “better off” if they had nuclear weapons.
77) I Never Asked Jeb Bush About Casinos
While arguing with Jeb Bush during a GOP primary debate, Trump said it was “totally false” that he asked Florida to open the door for casino gambling back when he was a donor to Bush’s gubernatorial campaign.
However, in a 2007 deposition, Trump said he spoke with Bush at fundraising event he held for him about Bush’s opposition to casino gambling: “I thought that he could be convinced otherwise.”
78) I Never Said Wages Are Too High
When Bernie Sanders called out Trump for saying wages are “too high,” Trump responded on his favorite medium, Twitter: “Lie!”
Trump, however, said in a November 2015 debate: “Taxes too high, wages too high.”
79) I Never Said Muslims Should Be Profiled
In September, Bill O’Reilly asked Trump about his vow to “profile certain Muslims.”
“I didn’t say that,” Trump responded. “I am saying … people that maybe look suspicious. I didn’t say they were Muslims.”
But Politifact found instances of Trump expressing support for the profiling of Muslims, including once in the same O’Reilly interview. Trump has also called for government monitoring of mosques and a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., saying he would have government officials ask people entering the country if they are Muslim and bar anyone who says yes.
80) I Never Said Megyn Kelly Should Be Removed From The Debate
During the primaries, Trump repeatedly attacked Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly, and even refused to appear at one of the network’s debates due to her participation. Trump later said that he “never once asked that she be removed” from the debate.
But just days before denying that he asked for Kelly to be excluded from the debate, Trump tweeted that Kelly “should not be allowed” to moderate the forum:
Based on @MegynKelly‘s conflict of interest and bias she should not be allowed to be a moderator of the next debate.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2016
81) I Never Said I Raised $6 Million For Veterans
When he skipped Fox’s debate, Trump instead held a fundraiser for veterans’ groups, which he said raised $6 million, including a $1 million personal contribution from himself.
When reporters looked into Trump’s claims, they found that the total raised was well short of that amount, and that Trump never donated any of his money until he was contacted by the Washington Post about it. In an interview with the Post, Trump denied ever saying that the fundraiser raised $6 million for veterans at all.
Trump also said he had never actually promised that the fundraiser had raised $6 million. “I didn’t say six,” he said.
But, in video of the event, Trump tells the crowd, “We just cracked $6 million! Right? $6 million.”
Trump was told that he did, indeed, say “$6 million.”
“Well, I don’t, I don’t have the notes. I don’t have the tape of it,” he said. “Play [the tape] for me. Because I’d like to hear it.” Before the video could be cued up, Trump had moved on.
82) I Never Said Not Paying Taxes Makes Me Smart
In the first presidential debate, Clinton challenged Trump to release his tax returns and mentioned possible reasons why Trump had not released his returns, including the possibility that the returns show that “he didn’t pay any federal income tax.”
“That makes me smart,” he said.
After the debate, Trump spoke with Dana Bash of CNN about his remark that it was smart not to pay taxes, which he denied making: “No, I didn’t say that at all.”
83) I Never Said People In Orlando Nightclub Shooting Should Have Been Armed
Following the shooting of dozens of people in an Orlando gay nightclub, Trump lamented, “It’s too bad some of the people killed over the weekend didn’t have guns attached to their hips,” saying that “if some of those wonderful people had guns” to go “boom, boom” at the assailant, “that would’ve been a beautiful, beautiful sight.”
After Trump was challenged for saying that a night club, which did have armed security on duty, should have allowed people drinking alcohol to carry firearms, he denied saying that patrons should have been armed.
84) I Never Questioned Ted Cruz’s Faith
While feuding with Pope Francis, Trump said that “no leader” should “have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”
This remark was quite ironic since Trump repeatedly questioned Ted Cruz’s faith during the GOP primary, suggesting that the Texas senator couldn’t be an evangelical Christian because he’s Cuban-American and “lies so much and is so dishonest.”
Trump, when asked about these comments, said he “never questioned” Cruz’s Christian faith, before saying that “you can’t lie and hold up a Bible” as Cruz does because “you can’t say things which are lies and, you know, claim Christianity.”
85) I Never Attacked Heidi Cruz’s Looks
In March, Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, and retweeted a very unflattering photo that negatively compared her to his own wife, Melania.
“@Don_Vito_08: “A picture is worth a thousand words” @realDonaldTrump #LyingTed #NeverCruz @MELANIATRUMP pic.twitter.com/5bvVEwMVF8“
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016
Trump, however, said that the tweet was not an attack on Heidi Cruz’s looks: “I thought it was a nice picture of Heidi. I thought it was fine. I thought it was fine.”
Trump started the attacks on Ted Cruz’s wife after he falsely claimed that the Cruz campaign sent out a partially nude photo of Melania Trump.
86) I Never Said It Was A Mistake To Attack Heidi Cruz’s Looks
In April, Trump said that retweeting the photo of Heidi Cruz “was a mistake” and that he “wouldn’t have sent it” if he “had to do it again.”
In May, Trump said he “didn’t say” it was a mistake, only that he “could have done without it,” while reaffirming that Heidi was “fair game.”
87) I Never Said Pregnancy Was An Inconvenience To Employers
At the first presidential debate, Clinton pointed out that Trump once said that “pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers,” to which he responded, “I never said that.”
But that is in fact what Trump said in a 2004 NBC interview: “Well you know, pregnancy is never—it’s a wonderful thing for the woman, it’s a wonderful thing for the husband. It’s certainly an inconvenience for a business, and whether people want to say that or not, the fact is, it is an inconvenience for a person that is running a business.”
88) I Never Said ‘Check Out Sex Tape’
At the third presidential debate, Trump said “there wasn’t” a tweet from him that said to “check out a sex tape” of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. The tweet, in fact, said, “check out sex tape,” referring to a sex tape that doesn’t exist.
Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016
89) I Never Said My Accusers Were Too Unattractive To Assault
At the third presidential debate, Clinton mentioned that Trump said at his rallies that he could not have sexually assaulted women “because they were not attractive enough” to “be assaulted.”
Trump denied it: “I did not say that. I did not say that. I did not say that.”
Trump, however, did exactly that several times.
90) I Never Said Those Sexist Insults
Infuriated that Megyn Kelly asked him why he had called women he didn’t like “‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals,'” Trump said he was misquoted … he wasn’t.
He also falsely claimed that the allegations of sexual assault levied against him have been “largely debunked.”
91) I Never Said I Was Perfect
While giving a half-hearted apology for a 2005 tape showing him bragging about being able to get away with sexually assaulting women, Trump said he “never said I’m a perfect person.”
However, in 2014, Trump wrote, “I consider myself too perfect and have no faults.”
92) I Have The World’s Greatest Memory
While defending his lie that thousands of Muslim-Americans in New Jersey celebrated on September 11, 2001, Trump said that he remembered the nonexistent event because he has “the world’s greatest memory.” He also said he had “one of the all-time great memories.”
In a deposition involving the Trump University fraud case, Trump said he did not recall saying that.
Other Lies
93) Unemployment Rate Is Really 42 Percent
Trump has repeatedly alleged that the country’s unemployment rate is as high as 42 percent, insisting that the actual unemployment rate is a “phony” figure. While the official unemployment rate does not count everybody who is out of work, even figures that count people who have stopped looking for work are nowhere close to any of Trump’s estimates.
He has similarly claimed that African American youth have a 59 percent unemployment rate, a bogus statistic that includes many people who aren’t necessarily looking for jobs, such as high school and college students.
94) America Is ‘The Highest Taxed Nation In The World’
According to Trump, “we’re the highest taxed nation in the world” and U.S. “businesses pay more taxes than any businesses in the world.”
As PolitiFact noted, “the United States is far from the most taxed nation overall and for businesses.”
95) I Saw Michelle Obama Attack Hillary Clinton
In the second presidential debate, Trump said he saw “Michelle Obama talking about you, Hillary,” in a very “vicious” way.
The line was misquoted by conservative media to make it appear that Obama, when talking about her own family, was actually talking about Hillary Clinton.
96) I Saw The Iran Money Transfer
On at least two occasions, Trump insisted that he watched a nonexistent “tape” of a money transfer between the U.S. and Iran.
But in an almost unprecedented move, Trump eventually admitted the tape didn’t show a money transfer.
97) ISIS Controls Libya’s Oil
At the second presidential debate, Trump said that the terrorist group ISIS had gained control over “a good chunk” of Libya’s oil fields as a result of Clinton’s support for military intervention in the country’s civil war. In reality, ISIS in Libya only controls a few neighborhoods of one town.
98) Putin Is Bombing ISIS While U.S. Delays
Throughout his campaign, Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for bombing ISIS while the U.S. sits on its hands. Trump is wrong, as Russia has actually been mostly bombing Syrian rebel forces fighting against ISIS, while U.S. and its allies have targeted ISIS with airstrikes.
99) Obama Is Being Humiliated Overseas
As part of his plan to make America great again, Trump believes that it is time that presidents, while visiting other countries, fly off if the head of state doesn’t greet them at the airport. Trump claimed that for “the first time in history” the heads of state didn’t great President Obama in countries like Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia, and that if he was president, he would have just up and left.
Trump’s claim, which he cited as proof that Obama brought down America’s stature, is false.
100) Obama Screamed At Protester
In case you needed further proof that Trump will lie about anything and everything, in the final days of his presidential campaign he attacked President Obama for urging a campaign crowd to treat a pro-Trump protester with civility and respect, insisting that the president actually screamed at the demonstrator.
“He was talking to the protester, screaming at him, really screaming at him,” Trump said of Obama. “By the way, if I spoke the way Obama spoke to that protester, they would say, ‘He became unhinged!’ Go back and look and study and see what happened. They never moved the camera. And he spent so much time screaming at this protester and frankly, it was a disgrace. ”
Anyone who does “go back and look” at the video will see that Trump’s characterization was the exact opposite of what took place.
