Domain 08
Documented Falsehoods on Matters of Public Consequence
Significant, documented false statements on matters affecting public policy and governance.
25 entries
The 'Big Lie': Sustained False Claims That the 2020 Election Was Stolen
2020 - 2024
After losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden by 306 to 232 electoral votes and approximately 7 million popular votes, Donald Trump launched a sustained campaign of false claims asserting t...
False Claims About Voting by Mail: Trump Alleged Massive Fraud Despite His Own Administration's Findings and His Own Use of Mail-In Ballots
2020 - 2026
Beginning in the spring of 2020 and continuing through his second presidential term, Donald Trump made repeated false claims that voting by mail leads to massive fraud. These claims were contradicted ...
COVID-19 Misinformation: Private Admission of Danger While Publicly Downplaying the Virus
2020 - 2020
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump made a series of documented public statements minimizing the severity of the virus that directly contradicted statements he made privatel...
Hurricane Dorian and Sharpiegate: Altered NOAA Forecast Map and Political Pressure on Weather Scientists
2019 - 2020
On September 1, 2019, as Hurricane Dorian approached the southeastern United States, President Donald Trump posted on Twitter that "South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most like...
Trump's Claim That Wind Turbine Noise Causes Cancer and a Pattern of Anti-Science Public Statements
2019 - 2019
On April 2, 2019, during a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump stated that noise from wind turbines causes cancer. His exact wo...
False Claims About Presidential Accomplishments: The Border Wall, the Economy, and the Defeat of ISIS
2019 - 2021
Throughout his presidency and subsequent campaigns, Donald Trump made repeated claims about three signature accomplishments that are contradicted by the documented record. Each claim was stated in abs...
Claiming Credit for the Veterans Choice Act: Trump Repeatedly Said He Signed a Law That Obama Signed in 2014
2018 - 2020
The Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014, commonly known as the Veterans Choice Act, was signed into law by President Barack Obama on August 7, 2014. T...
False Claims Regarding Natural Disaster Response: Puerto Rico Death Toll Denial, Inadequate Hurricane Maria Relief, and Diversion of FEMA Funds
2017 - 2019
Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, causing catastrophic damage to the island's infrastructure. The Trump administration's response to the disaster generated multiple documented ...
The 'Nobody Knew' Pattern: Trump Repeatedly Claimed Ignorance on Behalf of the Entire Country to Excuse His Own Lack of Preparation
2017 - 2020
Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump employed a recurring rhetorical formula in which he projected his own lack of knowledge onto the entire nation, using the phrase "nobody knew" or its variants t...
Inaugural Crowd Size and the Pattern of Inflating Metrics: False Claims About Audience Numbers and Ratings
2017 - 2021
On January 21, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held his first official briefing and declared that Donald Trump's inauguration had drawn "the largest audience to ever witness an inaugurat...
30,573 False or Misleading Claims: Washington Post Fact Checker Database (2017 to 2021)
2017 - 2021
The Washington Post Fact Checker team, led by Glenn Kessler, tracked and catalogued every public false or misleading claim made by Donald Trump during his first presidential term from January 20, 2017...
False Claims About the Inherited Economy: Trump Took Credit for Trends That Began Under Obama
2017 - 2020
Donald Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed that he inherited a failing economy from President Barack Obama and that his policies produced an economic turnaround of historic proportions. Federal data ...
The Nonexistent Michigan 'Man of the Year' Award: A Fabricated Honor Trump Repeated More Than Twenty Times Despite No Evidence It Existed
2016 - 2024
Donald Trump claimed on more than twenty occasions that he was named "Man of the Year" in Michigan. He made the claim at rallies, in interviews, and in public remarks spanning from at least 2016 throu...
The Phantom Infrastructure Plan: Four Years of Promised Investment That Never Materialized
2016 - 2021
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised a massive infrastructure investment plan. In an October 2016 speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he outlined a plan to "launch a...
False Claims About Crime and Immigration: Overstated Crime Rates, Fabricated Statistics, and Contradicted Assertions About Immigrant Criminality
2015 - 2026
From the launch of his first presidential campaign in June 2015 through his second term, Donald Trump has made repeated false claims about crime rates in the United States and about the relationship b...
False Claims About Trade Deals: NAFTA as 'the Worst Deal Ever,' USMCA Similarities, Tariff Misrepresentations, and the Growing Trade Deficit with China
2015 - 2026
Throughout his political career, Donald Trump has made a series of demonstrably false or misleading claims about trade policy, including characterizations of NAFTA, the nature of his replacement trade...
The Perpetual Healthcare Plan: Years of Promising a Replacement for the Affordable Care Act That Never Existed
2015 - 2025
From the launch of his 2016 presidential campaign through his second term in office, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed to have, or to be on the verge of producing, a comprehensive plan to replace the Af...
Birther Conspiracy: Five Years of False Claims That Obama Was Not Born in the United States
2011 - 2016
From at least 2011 through September 2016, Donald Trump was the most prominent and persistent promoter of the "birther" conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed that President Barack Obama was not bor...
False Claims About Self-Made Wealth: The 'Small Loan of a Million Dollars' Myth and the Documented $413 Million Inheritance
1999 - 2018
For decades, Donald Trump publicly claimed that he built his real estate empire from a modest start, telling audiences that he received only "a small loan of a million dollars" from his father, Fred C...
Phantom Philanthropy: Trump's Pattern of Appearing at Charity Events He Did Not Support, Claiming Credit for Donations He Did Not Make, and the 1996 AIDS Nursery Incident
1996 - 2016
Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold documented a pattern in which Donald Trump appeared at charitable events to which he had contributed nothing, positioned himself among genuine donors for pho...
False Wealth Claims: Exposed by Tax Records Showing Billion-Dollar Losses and $413 Million in Paternal Transfers
1985 - 2019
For decades, Donald Trump publicly claimed to be a self-made billionaire who built his fortune from "a small loan of a million dollars" from his father, Fred Trump. This claim was a central element of...
Lies About His Net Worth: Trump's Decades-Long Pattern of Inflating His Wealth, the 'John Barron' Forbes Deception, and the Financial Statements That Became the Basis of Civil Fraud Charges
1982 - 2025
Over a period spanning more than four decades, Donald Trump systematically misrepresented his net worth to journalists, lenders, insurers, and the public. The pattern has been documented through audio...
The John Barron and John Miller Aliases: Trump Posed as His Own Publicist to Plant Stories, Inflate His Wealth, and Fabricate His Personal Life
1980 - 2016
For more than a decade, Donald Trump routinely contacted journalists while posing as a publicist or spokesman using the aliases "John Barron" and "John Miller." Under these false identities, Trump pla...
Inflated Claims About Education and Intelligence: Wharton Transfer Misrepresented, Suppressed Transcripts, and Self-Declared Genius
1968 - 2026
Donald Trump has made numerous public claims about his academic record and intelligence that are contradicted by available evidence or that cannot be verified because he has taken active steps to prev...
False Military Claims: The Bone Spurs Diagnosis, the Purple Heart, and Claims of Superior Military Knowledge
1968 - 2020
Donald Trump has made a series of false or misleading claims about his relationship to military service that span from the Vietnam War era to his presidency. These claims concern his avoidance of the ...