The rate at which President Trump makes false or misleading statements continues to rise — especially when he gets on the phone with Sean Hannity.
Trump has now made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims during his presidency, The Washington Post's fact checker said on Monday. This unfortunate milestone comes after a particularly prolific week for Trump: During a 45-minute interview with Hannity on April 25, he racked up 45 false or misleading claims. This was the conversation during which Trump said, among other things, that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation was "an attempted overthrow of the United States government."
In fact, in just three days last week, from April 25 to April 27, Trump totaled 171 mistruths, the Post says. This fast pace seems to even be surprising the fact checkers, who note that Trump in the first 100 days of his presidency was making fewer than five false or misleading claims per day. By September 2018, he was at eight claims per day. But since September, his average has been 23 a day. Trump took 601 days to hit 5,000 claims, but in the seven months since then, he's already doubled that.
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The fact that the 2018 midterm elections came during that stretch of time is certainly a factor, as is the release of Mueller's report. The Post's Glenn Kessler noted on CNN that Trump continues to insist, for instance, that Mueller cleared him of obstruction when actually the report outlined instances of potential obstruction and did not exonerate him.
With the 2020 presidential election fast approaching, don't be surprised if even these numbers seem downright quaint in a year's time.
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