Trump passes 12,000 false or misleading claims in The Washington Post's Fact Checker

Donald Trump
(Image credit: Saul Loeb / Getty Images)

President Trump continues to rack up false or misleading claims in The Washington Post's Fact Checker, and he has now passed yet another unfortunate milestone.

The Post on Monday reported that Trump has now made more than 12,000 false or misleading claims since the beginning of his presidency — 12,019 as of Aug. 5, to be exact — with this coming after he previously passed 10,000 claims in April. This works out to an average of 20 false or misleading claims every single day since April and an average of 13 every day since he became president.

The most often repeated false claim, according to this report, is that Trump's promised border wall is currently being built; the outlet previously described this claim as "Orwellian," but the president has still uttered it 190 times. Another frequently repeated claim is that the U.S. economy is currently the best in history, a false statement that the president has made 186 times, according to the Fact Checker.

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Nearly 20 percent of these false and misleading claims, according to the report, come from Trump's Twitter account. If the president keeps up his current pace, he looks set to soar past 15,000 false or misleading well before the 2020 presidential election. Read the full check-in from the Fact Checker at The Washington Post.

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.