From birther conspiracies to election lies, Donald Trump’s public statements have been a wellspring of falsehoods over the past decade. Fact-checkers at PolitiFact, The Washington Post, Snopes, and others have documented an unprecedented volume of misinformation. As President, Trump averaged 21 false or misleading claims per day, culminating in 30,573 untruths during his first term alone. Below is a year-by-year breakdown of Trump’s false statements since 2012, highlighting the most egregious examples, the number of false claims recorded each year, and patterns in his deception.
2012: Birtherism and Other Early Conspiracies
False claims: In 2012, Trump was not yet a candidate but loudly promoted the debunked “birther” conspiracy that President Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. He falsely claimed to have evidence of Obama’s Kenyan birth – a lie he would not renounce until years later. That same year, Trump tweeted that climate change was a “hoax” invented by China, a statement scientists and fact-checkers quickly refuted. He also began spreading vaccine misinformation, suggesting childhood shots cause autism, a theory thoroughly discredited by medical authorities.
Pattern: Trump’s 2012 falsehoods tapped into fringe conspiracies. He attacked President Obama’s legitimacy and sowed doubt about science, foreshadowing tactics he’d use later. Fact-checkers like PolitiFact and Snopes repeatedly debunked these claims, rating them Pants on Fire false, but Trump showed an early willingness to ignore evidence and embrace “truthful hyperbole” (as he once described it).
2013: Amplifying Unfounded Theories
False claims: In 2013, Trump continued to forge his political brand through falsehoods. He gave credence to baseless anti-vaccine theories – at one point tweeting in agreement with a user pushing “vaccine damage” claims – despite no evidence linking vaccines and autism. He also kept insinuating that Obama’s records were suspect and fanned rumors on issues from health care to foreign policy without facts to back them. While not yet a candidate, Trump’s media appearances and tweets were laced with exaggerations (for example, inflating U.S. unemployment or crime rates) that fact-checkers later highlighted as false or misleading.
Pattern: Trump’s pre-campaign rhetoric showed a penchant for repeating unverified information that aligned with his narrative. These years lacked formal fact-check counts, but the seeds of Trump’s political misinformation strategy – undermining official data and stoking fear – were clearly planted. He built an audience by attacking consensus reality, a trend that would explode in subsequent years.
2014: Fearmongering and Exaggeration
False claims: In 2014, Trump leveraged real-world crises to spread misinformation. During the Ebola outbreak, he stoked public panic with exaggerated claims. He demanded President Obama’s resignation after a doctor who treated Ebola patients returned to the U.S., and implied the virus was poised to spread widely on American soil. In reality, only two Ebola-related deaths occurred in the U.S. that year, and health officials stressed that the disease was not easily transmissible. Trump’s alarmist rhetoric – including tweets calling for travel bans and blaming Obama – ignored the scientific facts and was rated false by fact-checkers who noted he was exaggerating the threat for political gain.
Pattern: This year demonstrated Trump’s tendency to amplify fears with false claims. Whether the topic was Ebola or crime, he frequently presented worst-case scenarios or outright misinformation (contradicting experts) to criticize incumbents and portray himself as a truth-teller. It was a strategy of playing on anxieties, one that previewed how he’d handle future issues like immigration and public health. Fact-checkers began taking greater notice, preparing for the onslaught to come.
2015: Campaign Misstatements Galore
False claims: Once Trump entered the 2015 presidential race, the fact-checkable falsehoods multiplied. PolitiFact found that by December, 76% of Trump’s checked claims that year were Mostly False, False or “Pants on Fire” – an unprecedented share. In fact, PolitiFact collectively crowned **“the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump” as the 2015 Lie of the Year. Some of the most egregious examples included:
• “Thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered on 9/11.” Trump insisted he saw TV footage of “thousands and thousands” of people celebrating as the Twin Towers fell. This claim was outright false – no such footage or evidence exists – and earned a Pants on Fire rating. (New Jersey officials and media observers confirmed it never happened.)
• “The Mexican government is sending criminals over the border.” Trump alleged that Mexico was deliberately exporting its “bad” people to the U.S. No evidence supports this – illegal immigration largely consists of individuals seeking work or refuge, not a state-sponsored operation. Fact-checkers labelled the statement false, noting that Trump’s narrative ignored a net decline in Mexican migration at the time.
Pattern: In 2015, Trump perfected the “outrageous untruth as a campaign tool” . His falsehoods were often spectacular and provocative (claiming seen-with-his-own-eyes proof of terror sympathizers, painting immigrants as invaders) – all designed to grab headlines. Fact-checkers like PolitiFact scrambled to keep up, and no other politician had accrued as many low Truth-O-Meter ratings. Trump’s disregard for factual accuracy became a hallmark of his candidacy, and the sheer volume of lies set him apart in the GOP primary field.
2016: “Fake News” and False Attacks in the Election
False claims: The onslaught of falsehoods continued through the 2016 election year. Trump repeatedly echoed fabricated “fake news” stories and conspiracy theories circulating online, effectively mainstreaming them. He also lobbed a barrage of false attacks at his opponents. For example, he falsely claimed “millions of people voted illegally” in the election he won, alleging massive voter fraud with no evidence. Just weeks after Election Day, Trump tweeted, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” a statement for which no proof existed – PolitiFact rated it Pants on Fire. (Courts and experts have consistently found voter fraud rates in the U.S. to be negligible.) He also tried to rewrite history by blaming Hillary Clinton for the birther conspiracy he started, another outright falsehood.
Pattern: By 2016, Trump had become the single greatest source of election-related misinformation. His embrace of “fake news” – both as a pejorative against legitimate media and through his own propagation of hoaxes – was the PolitiFact Lie of the Year. Many of his false claims aimed to undermine democratic institutions (e.g. casting doubt on election integrity or U.S. intelligence). Fact-checkers documented that roughly 70% of Trump’s statements reviewed during the campaign were mostly false or worse, an extraordinary level of untruth. These patterns set the stage for his presidency, where his ad hoc relationship with facts would only intensify.
2017: The Pinocchio Presidency Begins
False claims: Trump’s first year as president set a blistering pace for dishonesty. According to The Washington Post Fact Checker database, Trump made 1,999 false or misleading claims in 2017 – an average of about 6 per day. He kicked off with the infamous lie that his inauguration crowd was the largest ever (photos and transit data proved it was much smaller than Obama’s in 2009). That was swiftly debunked (“Pants on Fire!” as PolitiFact put it). From there, Trump misled about matters big and small. Notably, he repeatedly denied Russian interference in the 2016 election, calling it a “made-up story” or hoax, despite unanimous findings by U.S. intelligence agencies to the contrary. This persistent denial – flying in the face of evidence of Kremlin meddling – was so egregious that PolitiFact named “Russia’s election interference is a made-up hoax” the Lie of the Year for 2017.
Pattern: In 2017, Trump established a new norm of presidential dishonesty. Many falsehoods were attempts at self-aggrandizement (inflating crowd sizes, claiming unprecedented accomplishments) or deflecting scandals (dismissing the Russia investigation). Fact-checkers noted a refusal to correct course – Trump would double down on debunked claims. The year also revealed a strategy of casting doubt on any information that painted him negatively (hence “fake news” attacks). The sheer volume of lies was unprecedented for a U.S. president, foreshadowing an even more fact-bending road ahead.
2018: A Surge in Falsehoods – from Tax Cuts to Caravans
False claims: As Trump’s tenure continued, the frequency of false statements swelled. Washington Post fact-checkers counted 5,689 false or misleading claims in 2018 (about 16 per day on average) – nearly triple the previous year’s total. Trump repeatedly misrepresented his policy achievements and stoked fears on contentious issues. Among his most oft-repeated lies: that the U.S. economy was “the best in history” under his watch, and that he passed the biggest tax cut ever. He made this economy claim at least 257 times in 2018, but in reality, multiple post-war booms (under Eisenhower, Johnson, Clinton) outperformed the Trump-era economy. Similarly, his 2017 tax law was not the largest cut in U.S. history – fact-checkers showed it ranked behind several others – yet Trump touted this false superlative over 180 times.
He also leaned heavily into immigration falsehoods ahead of the midterm elections. When a caravan of Central American migrants headed toward the border, Trump claimed “unknown Middle Easterners” were mixed in and that it was an imminent dangerous “invasion.” Reporters on the ground and U.S. officials found no evidence of Middle Eastern terrorists in the group, and Trump eventually admitted he had “no proof” for the allegation. Nonetheless, the President’s fearmongering on this and related claims (like wrongly asserting Democrats wanted “open borders” and crime) dominated headlines until fact-checkers could intervene.
Pattern: By 2018, Trump’s false statements were escalating in frequency and ambition. He frequently repeated debunked claims hundreds of times, relying on sheer volume to muddy the waters. Two themes stood out: exaggeration of his successes (economic stats, veterans’ care, etc., often taken out of context or flatly untrue) and demonization of perceived threats (immigrants, political opponents) with false narratives. The midterm year showed Trump using dishonesty as a political tool – a torrent of lies to energize his base and distract from unfavourable news. Fact-checkers, in turn, raced to correct the record, but the sheer speed of misstatements often meant falsehoods spread widely beforethe truth could catch up.
2019: Repetition and the Road to Impeachment
False claims: Trump’s penultimate year in office saw an even greater flood of falsehoods – 8,155 false or misleading claims in 2019, per the Washington Post (about 22 per day on average) . By now, many of Trump’s lies had become highly repetitive talking points. He continued to distort facts about the economy, immigration, and the Mueller investigation, often regurgitating the same false claims dozens of times. But 2019’s most consequential lies revolved around the Ukraine scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment. In the summer of 2019, Trump pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate rival Joe Biden. When a whistleblower complaint exposed this, Trump worked hard to discredit the whistleblower, insisting more than 80 times that the complaint was “totally false” or “almost completely wrong.” This was blatantly untrue – the whistleblower’s account was largely validated by the White House’s own call summary and multiple witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. PolitiFact declared Trump’s claim that the whistleblower got it wrong the 2019 Lie of the Year. Trump also repeatedly claimed he’d built large sections of border wall (in fact, most of what existed then was repairs of existing fencing) and that the U.S. had “lost money on trade deals” (economists note trade deficits don’t equate to literal losses). Each of these narratives was flagged as false by fact-check organizations throughout 2019.
Pattern: In 2019, Trump’s falsehoods became more entrenched and shamelessly defended. Even when confronted with contrary evidence – be it an official transcript or bipartisan fact-checks – he never backed down, instead attacking the messengers. We see a pattern of scandal management through lies: as investigations into his conduct mounted (Mueller report, Ukraine call), Trump answered with blanket denials and attempts to invert reality (calling truthful whistleblowers liars, and liars truthful). His base often heard only his version, repeated loudly and frequently. The year also cemented the idea of the “alternate facts” White House: a presidency in which false narratives were not anomalies but daily fare. By year’s end, the stage was set for an even more tumultuous election year to follow.
2020: The Big Lie and COVID-19 Misinformation
False claims: The year 2020 was a perfect storm for presidential falsehoods, with Trump confronting a global pandemic and a re-election campaign – and unleashing an unprecedented wave of lies about both. Fact-checkers tallied well over 20,000 false or misleading claims in 2020 alone, pushing Trump’s four-year total past the 30,000 mark. COVID-19 became a central subject of Trump’s misstatements. He downplayed the severity of the novel coronavirus from the start – claiming the situation was “totally under control” and that the virus would “disappear… like a miracle.” He compared COVID-19 to the seasonal flu and spread medical misinformation about unproven treatments. All of this contradicted what health experts – and Trump himself, in private – knew. (In a taped interview, Trump admitted the virus was “deadly” and worse than the flu, even as he publicly minimized it .) PolitiFact named the “Coronavirus downplay and denial” the Lie of the Year for 2020 , noting that Trump’s false assurances and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 (for instance, suggesting it was a hoax or that cases were only rising because of testing) were not just misleading but dangerous, hindering the public health response.
As Election Day neared, Trump shifted his dishonesty into overdrive on the subject of election integrity. He repeatedly and preemptively claimed the 2020 election would be rigged, and when he lost, he promoted the “Big Lie” – the baseless assertion that massive voter fraud stole his victory. In speeches, tweets, and eventually court filings, Trump alleged a vast conspiracy without evidence. He claimed “We won the election, and it was stolen,” even as federal and state officials (many from his own party) affirmed the vote was secure and courts threw out dozens of frivolous fraud lawsuits. By late November, Trump was on national TV insisting “We won the election easily” and that there was “no way” Joe Biden got 80 million votes – all patently false. In reality, Biden earned 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million, and no evidence of widespread fraud ever emerged. Fact-checkers from AP, Reuters, PolitiFact and Snopes spent the post-election period debunking claim after claim: from dead people voting (false), to voting machines being rigged (false), to forged ballots (false). But Trump’s repetition of the stolen election lie to millions of followers inflicted lasting damage, eroding trust in democracy.
Pattern: 2020 was defined by two parallel floods of misinformation from Trump. On COVID-19, his false claims seemed aimed at preserving his image and the economy, even at the expense of public health – a form of reality denial that misled many Americans about a deadly threat. On the election, Trump’s lies were an unprecedented attempt by a sitting president to subvert the democratic process. In both cases, Trump showed a willingness to shatter norms: rejecting data from his own agencies, smearing professionals (scientists, judges, election officials) who contradicted him, and refusing to acknowledge facts even as casualties and evidence mounted. The legacy of 2020 is a testament to how consequential Trump’s falsehoods became: they were not just numerical tallies or “Pinocchios,” but fuel for a national crisis of truth that culminated in chaos.
2021: The Insurrection Lie and Aftermath
False claims: The first few weeks of 2021 were a crescendo of Trump’s election lies – and they had violent consequences. On January 6, 2021, Trump rallied supporters in Washington, repeating the false claim that the election was stolen and urging them to “fight like hell” or “you’re not going to have a country anymore.” A mob then stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results. In the immediate aftermath, Trump continued to make false statements: initially claiming the crowd was peaceful and included “patriots,” and later suggesting the rioters were left-wing infiltrators or that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi somehow bore responsibility. These attempts to whitewash the Jan. 6 insurrection – denying the reality of a violent attempt to disrupt Congress – were widely debunked. (Multiple investigations confirmed the rioters were almost exclusively Trump supporters, and Trump himself had egged them on.) PolitiFact dubbed “Lies about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and its significance” as the 2021 Lie of the Year. Even as evidence of the assault played on Americans’ screens, Trump and his allies pushed false narratives: that the rioters were just tourists, that the 2020 vote count was the real coup, and other distortions. These falsehoods served to excuse or minimize one of the gravest attacks on American democracy in modern history.
After Trump left office on January 20, 2021, he did not relent in spreading misinformation. Through statements (he was banned from Twitter at the time) and later rallies, the former president kept insisting he had actually won the 2020 election. He described ongoing investigations into his conduct (from his second impeachment for inciting insurrection to state probes of his finances) as “witch hunts” based on lies. Fact-checkers continued to rebut these claims; for instance, Snopes and others refuted false rumours that Trump had secretly won or that the Capitol riot was staged. While the volume of Trump’s statements decreased without the presidential megaphone, the core lies – chiefly, the “Big Lie” about a rigged election – remained a refrain in 2021.
Pattern: 2021 underscored the enduring impact of Trump’s biggest falsehoods. Even out of office, Trump’s commitment to his election lie did not waver, demonstrating how entrenched the false narrative had become. The year also illustrated a dangerous evolution: Trump’s false statements moved beyond mere political bluster to incitement of real-world action. The Jan. 6 falsehoods created an alternate reality for his followers, one in which overturning a lawful election could be justified. This blurred line between rhetoric and action marked a dark turning point. Fact-checkers, meanwhile, faced the challenge of debunking a lie that had become an article of faith for millions – a lie continuously nurtured by Trump throughout 2021. The patterns of denial, blame-shifting, and refusal to accept facts, honed over a decade, would continue to shape American politics.
2022: Persisting Narratives and New False Claims
False claims: In 2022, as a former president, Trump kept a somewhat lower profile, but whenever he did speak – at rallies, in interviews, or online (notably on his Truth Social platform) – the misinformation continued. Election denial remained front and centre. Trump spent much of 2022 endorsing midterm candidates who parroted his baseless fraud claims, and he consistently told supporters the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen” (a falsehood repeated so often it became GOP orthodoxy in some circles). These claims were still false in 2022, as exhaustive audits and recounts in swing states had long confirmed the results. Yet Trump never conceded his lie – a Snopes review of his statements found he persistently pushed debunked theories about voting machines and ballot “dumps,” none supported by evidence.
Trump also sought to rewrite the narrative of investigations targeting him. When the House Jan. 6 committee revealed damning evidence of his attempts to cling to power, Trump responded with familiar false attacks – dismissing the bipartisan committee’s findings as “a hoax” and claiming the committee doctored videos (they did not, as multiple fact-checks showed). In August 2022, after the FBI lawfully searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and found troves of government documents (some classified) that he improperly kept, Trump misleadingly claimed President Obama had done the same or worse, allegedly storing “33 million pages” of records in his own home. This was quickly debunked: Obama had turned over his papers to the National Archives, which are stored in a NARA facility (not his personal possession) . The National Archives itself publicly refuted Trump’s claim, yet Trump repeated it as a diversion. He also floated the false idea that as president he had a blanket declassification order, or that the FBI “planted” evidence – again, zero proof, and contradicted by his own lawyers in court.
Pattern: In 2022, Trump’s approach was to entrench and expand existing false narratives. Rather than introduce many new lies, he doubled down on the big ones – chiefly election fraud and persecution complexes (“witch hunt” claims). We also see Trump applying his misinformation playbook to new legal troubles: counter-accuse and mislead. When faced with incriminating facts, he either denied them flat-out or created a false equivalence (as with the Obama records). Even out of office, Trump commanded a loyal audience ready to accept his claims. Fact-checkers like Snopes and AP Fact Check remained on alert, catching falsehoods in Trump’s rally speeches (for example, debunking fabricated crime statistics or exaggerations about immigrant crime that Trump revived on the stump). The year concluded with Trump announcing a 2024 White House bid – and thus a prelude to yet another wave of familiar false claims in the coming year.
2023: Repeating Lies on the Campaign Trail
False claims: In 2023, Donald Trump transitioned fully back into campaign mode, holding rallies and media appearances as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination. In these forums, he recycled many of his favourite falsehoods and introduced a few new ones. Unsurprisingly, he still proclaimed that “we won in 2020 by a landslide” – an assertion as false in 2023 as it was on Election Night, and continually debunked by every recount and court ruling. He bragged about his presidential record with grandiose untruths, claiming his administration had achieved “the greatest” success in various arenas (from the economy to foreign policy) where the facts say otherwise. For instance, Trump took credit for things that never happened (at one rally, he again said he finished building the border wall – in reality, only 80% of the planned mileage was completed by 2021, much of it replacement fencing). He also levelled distorted attacks at opponents: suggesting President Biden caused inflation “on purpose,” or that Biden was weak on world affairs in ways belied by actual U.S. policy. When news broke about Trump’s legal entanglements – including multiple criminal indictments in 2023 – he responded with a torrent of familiar false claims (calling prosecutors “radical” liars, falsely claiming “everyone knows I did nothing wrong” despite substantial evidence outlined in court documents).
A notable moment came during a May 2023 CNN town hall. With a live audience cheering him on, Trump paraded a series of false statements – from Jan. 6 revisionism (he defended the rioters and again falsely claimed the election was stolen) to personal attacks filled with untruths. CNN’s moderator repeatedly interjected to fact-check him in real-time, but Trump ploughed ahead. He even denied knowing the woman whom a civil jury had just found him liable of sexually abusing (E. Jean Carroll) – despite a photograph showing them together, and other evidence. This pattern, refusing to acknowledge any fact that doesn’t suit him, persisted through 2023. Fact-checkers continued to catalogue Trump’s misstatements at every turn. By now, the public and press had a well-honed expectation that Trump’s speeches would be rife with falsehoods – and he delivered on that expectation.
Pattern: In 2023, Trump proved that old habits die hard. The core false narratives he’s pressed for years (a “stolen” last election, hyperbolic claims of personal greatness, and portrayals of his opponents as disastrous or illegitimate) remained front and centre. If anything, his time out of power emboldened his falsehoods – he faced even fewer filters on his words, often speaking to friendly outlets or crowds that did not challenge him. The result was a campaign message grounded in grievance and false reality. For fact-checkers, this year was about contextualizing repetition: many of Trump’s 2023 false claims were repeats of lies that had long since been debunked, from crowd size to voter fraud. The challenge was to keep informing an audience that may have heard these claims dozens of times before without accepting them as normal. As Trump eyes a return to the White House, the patterns of the past decade – constant, unabashed lying as a political tool – show little sign of abating.
Over the span of 2012 to 2023, Donald Trump’s relationship with the truth has been consistently fraught, yet ever-evolving in scale and impact. What began with conspiracy-tinged barbs as a reality TV host grew into a full-fledged barrage of misinformation as a president and beyond. Reputable fact-checking organizations have kept score: from a few notorious falsehoods in the early 2010s to tens of thousands of lies during Trump’s presidency. The subject matter of Trump’s false statements has ranged widely – birtherism, crowd sizes, immigration, health policy, foreign affairs, election integrity – but some common threads stand out. Trump’s falsehoods often serve to inflate his achievements, deflect criticism, stoke fear of “others,” or undermine accountability. They also became more extreme when Trump was under pressure, whether facing an election loss or a national crisis
Equally important is the effect: Trump’s repeated lies have profoundly influenced political discourse. Millions still believe the false claim that the 2020 election was illegitimate, a testament to the power of the “Big Lie” repeated often enough. Trump’s style has also forced news organizations to rethink how to cover a leader who inundates the public with misinformation. His presidency gave rise to an almost cottage industry of real-time fact-checking and viral debunking, with outlets like The Washington Post expanding their tracking efforts at readers’ insistence.
In sum, the year-by-year tally of Trump’s false statements is not just a statistic, but a story: a story of how one politician’s steady stream of untruths tested the guardrails of democracy and civic discourse. From 2012 through today, Trump’s false claims have grown in number and audacity, and fact-checkers have dutifully chronicled each step. As Trump continues to occupy a central role in American politics, this catalogue of his misstatements stands as both a record and a warning – a reminder that in our information age, the truth can become a casualty when falsehoods are wielded without restraint.
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