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This Is Trump’s Favorite Lie (And 8 Others He Says A LOT)

by Lani Seelinger
Sean Gallup/Getty Images News/Getty Images

It's not news that President Donald J. Trump has a habit of lying in public statements. However, it's still a shock when you look at the sheer number of untrue or misleading statements that the president has apparently made during his time in office. Since he became president, Trump has made false or misleading claims more than 3,000 times, according to a project that the Washington Post has been carrying out throughout his presidency. And there's an important fact that stands out: many of those false or misleading questions are actually repeated.

In the worst case, Trump repeated the same false claim almost 100 times.

The Post first released an exhaustive list of all of the president's false of misleading claims on his 100th day in office, at which point he had made 492. They've now continued that same fact-checking project, and as of May 1, Trump had spent 466 days in office and made 3,001 false of misleading claims.

Just on April 30, Trump made 10 false or misleading claims. That's a higher number than the overall average of 6.5 claims a day across his entire time in office, but the Post reported that he's actually increasing the amount and has averaged nine claims a day over the past two months. Several of the April 30 claims were repeated ones that related to, for example, the current rate of human trafficking and slavery, American immigration laws, and the southern border with Mexico.

These aren't even the false or misleading claims that he repeats most frequently, though. Here are the claims that hold that dubious honor.

1

The Strength Of The Stock Market

According to the Washington Post, Trump has flip-flopped on the strength of the stock market and repeatedly overemphasized the market's increases. The stock market is still on the same upswing that began during Obama's tenure, and at that time Trump called it "artificial" and "a bubble."

Now, however, he's claiming credit for it. This is a misleading claim that he's made 97 times so far, on Twitter, in interviews, and elsewhere.

2

One Particular American Investment

Trump has claimed credit 78 times for the fact that a company called FoxConn decided to build a new plant in Wisconsin, which he claims has already brought jobs back into the country. According to the Chicago Tribune's fact checking, though, the terms of the deal still haven't been completed, so it hasn't created any jobs yet.

Furthermore, any investment from FoxConn would come with $3 billion in subsidies from the state of Wisconsin — which means that even if it did create the promised 13,000 jobs, it wouldn't actually be profitable for the state until 2042. There are also other issues that have thrown wrenches into the plans — the potential environmental ramifications of the plant, for example — and there's no guarantee that it will ever even get built at all.

3

"The Biggest Tax Cut In History"

Trump has falsely claimed 72 times that the Republican tax cut that he signed into law in December was the biggest in history, which is flatly untrue.

According to the Post, it's the eighth biggest in history — and two of the bigger ones were signed into law by President Obama.

4

Obamacare — Basically Dead, Or Not?

Trump has claimed 62 times that by repealing the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act — which required individuals to sign up for health insurance — the Republican tax cut essentially repealed the entire law.

However, the Post noted that while that repeal was a blow for supporters of Obamacare, it has not yet led to lower enrollment and the Congressional Budget Office does not expect it to destabilize the health care markets quickly, if at all.

5

Various Unemployment Rate Claims

On April 16, 2018, Trump claimed for the 62nd time that the Hispanic unemployment rate was at its lowest ever, and that women's unemployment was at an 18-year low.

The claim was false when he tweeted it, but it was also a flip-flop for the president, because he was using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which the Post reported that he had previously said was "nonsense."

6

Why Comey Was Fired

Here's another instance of two misleading claims in one. With the tweet above, Trump said — for what the Post reported is the 53rd time — that he did not fire former FBI director James Comey because of the Russia investigation, even though he told Lester Holt in an interview on NBC that he had fired Comey because of the Russia investigation.

The same tweet also claimed that the Democrats colluded with Russia, which the Post said is also false.

7

The Democrats Killed DACA

The Post wrote that Trump has claimed 41 times that the Democrats somehow should bear the blame for the end of the DACA program, which provided a path to legal residence for people who were brought into the U.S. undocumented as children.

In fact, Trump himself ended DACA, and he has since rejected the bipartisan plans that Congress has crafted to fix it.

8

The Highest Taxed Country In The World?

Trump has said that before the tax cut that he signed into law, the U.S. was the highest-taxed nation in the world. In fact, he's repeated this claim 34 times, according to the Washington Post's work.

According to OECD data as reported by Business Insider, however, the U.S. was actually in the bottom third of all OECD countries in terms of the tax rate as as a percentage of the GDP — even before the tax cut.

9

The Wall's Purpose

Trump makes a lot of false or misleading claims about his proposed border wall with Mexico, but there's no false claim about the wall that he's repeated more often than the claim that it is necessary in order to stop drugs from crossing the border. The Post writes that he's repeated this one 34 times, which ties it for eighth place on the list of most repeated false claims.

According to the Post, the Drug Enforcement Administration does not believe that a physical wall would have any effect on the drug trade, because smugglers generally get the drugs in either through tunnels that would be unaffected by a wall or disguised and through legal channels.

Because of the frequency with which they come up, these could be Trump's greatest hits when it comes false or misleading claims. Since there are over 3,000 overall, though, they really don't even make up a significant percentage of all of the lies. Keep paying attention, and see what he says next.