--- title: Donald Trump Lies: President's Falsehoods Catching Up to Him description: By one count, President Donald Trump made 1,950 false claims over 347 days, while polls show 62% of voters view him as dishonest. canonical: https://time.com/5084420/donald-trump-lies-claims-fact-checks/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-01-02T17:43:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T08:43:58.308Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Made 1,950 Untrue Claims in 2017 og:description: Polls show voters are catching on. og:url: https://time.com/5084420/donald-trump-lies-claims-fact-checks/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7406776cb13c865/6988f6d3e76ad27d126307aa/president-trump-lies-untruths.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3696 og:image:height: 2079 og:image:alt: President Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Made 1,950 Untrue Claims in 2017 twitter:description: Polls show voters are catching on. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7406776cb13c865/6988f6d3e76ad27d126307aa/president-trump-lies-untruths.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Made 1,950 Untrue Claims in 2017\. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ba856739-eb8e-4ef0-8d5d-6363a77d76c7&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: President Trump Continues to Push Conspiracy Theories [Watch (HLS stream): President Trump Continues to Push Conspiracy Theories](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wXkEaMac.m3u8) (3:53)  _Published 2017-12-05. Donald Trump built his political career on a conspiracy theory: The false claim that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States._ by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Jan 2, 2018 5:43 PM UTC Donald Trump built his political career on a conspiracy theory: The false claim that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Jan 2, 2018 5:43 PM UTC When President Trump sat down with the [New York _Times_ for an interview](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/politics/trump-interview-excerpts.html?%5Fr=0) recently, he said something [untrue about every 75 seconds](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/factcheck/ct-trump-interview-fact-check-20171229-story.html). That’s not just the usual political boasting and grandstanding. Those were actual, verifiable claims which professional fact checkers investigated and found to be untrue. For example, Trump said in the interview that “virtually every Democrat” has said that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Russians during the 2016 election, while there was “tremendous collusion” between Democrats and the Russians. > [](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/925006418989715456) That’s not just false but [“breathtakingly false,”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/12/29/in-a-30-minute-interview-president-trump-made-24-false-or-misleading-claims/) as one fact-checker put it. Democrats have not exonerated Trump, though some have been circumspect about what we know and don’t know about Russian meddling, and there is little evidence that Democrats were colluding with Russia. In fact, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency [found in January of 2017](https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA%5F2017%5F01.pdf) that Russia aimed to discredit Hillary Clinton and help Trump’s chances in the election, so the claim doesn’t make much sense. The interview was not an outlier, either. A [year-end review of untrue claims](https://www.factcheck.org/2017/12/the-whoppers-of-2017/) from FactCheck.org found Trump dominating the list with remarks on everything from his inauguration to the Russia investigation to his own tax bill. Of PolitiFact’s [483 fact checks on Trump](http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/) so far, 69% were rated “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire,” and his claims on Russian meddling were the [“Lie of the Year.”](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/dec/12/2017-lie-year-russian-election-interference-made-s/) The Washington _Post_ found [1,950 false or misleading claims](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/02/president-trump-has-made-1949-false-or-misleading-claims-over-347-days/?hpid=hp%5Fhp-more-top-stories%5Ffact-check-trump-505am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm%5Fterm=.21fefbc16c5b) made over 347 days. It’s easy to dismiss the scale of this problem. After all, [public trust in government](http://www.people-press.org/2017/05/03/public-trust-in-government-1958-2017/) is near historic lows. Most Americans think politicians lie on a regular basis (though, by and large, they [typically don’t](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465036279/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465036279&linkId=966a67752316860b00ec610743d7bfc3)), and professional fact-checkers have been around for years and not made a substantive difference in U.S. politics. Critics will point to these stories as evidence that “Donald Trump lies” and compile “lists of Trump lies,” Trump will call the media “fake news” and “dishonest” and nothing will change, right? But there’s substantial evidence that [Trump’s approach to the truth](http://time.com/4710456/donald-trump-time-interview-truth-falsehood/) is having an effect. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that [62% of voters don’t think Trump is honest,](https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2509) while only 34% believe he is. While Republicans remain trusting, with 75% believing he’s honest, more than two-thirds of independents don’t agree and a sky-high 93% of Democrats think he’s dishonest. By comparison [52% of voters](https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2491) thought Trump was not honest just after the November election — a full 10-point drop over his first year. Trump’s trustworthiness has made it harder for him to sell his policies. While the White House [boasted](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-donald-trump-vice-president-mike-pence-members-congress-bill-passage-event/) that the Republican tax plan would give American families a tax break, a Monmouth poll [showed](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll%5FUS%5F121817/) that half of the public believed their own taxes would go up. The various “repeal and replace” bills on Obamacare also [polled poorly](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-graham-cassidy-republican-health-care-bill-repeal-replace-obamacare-aca/), despite Trump’s [claims](http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/28/politics/trump-health-care/index.html) about them, some of which were clearly untrue. During the campaign, Trump’s pitch depended a lot on salesmanship. He avoided detailed plans in favor of making grand claims about how [“I alone can fix it.”](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/trump-rnc-speech-alone-fix-it/492557/) As the first president [without a track record in politics or the military](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/11/13587532/donald-trump-no-experience), he essentially asked voters to take his word for it. But his reputation for dishonesty is making it harder for him to do that job. ## Transcript [00:01] " Donald Trump built his political career on a [00:03] conspiracy theory: the idea that President Obama was [00:07] not born in the United States ." [ MUSIC ] [00:16] " Trump repeatedly pushed the idea in interviews and [00:18] on social media, long after it was disproved ." Why [00:21] doesn't he show his birth certificate. And I have my [00:23] own theory on Obama. It's one of the greatest scams in [00:26] the history of politics. But it's not the only conspiracy [00:28] theory he's indulged, on a campaign trail and in the [00:31] White House he's toyed with some outlandish ideas. [00:33] That Ted Cruz's father might be involved in the [00:36] Kennedy assassination. His father ws with Lee Harvey [00:39] Oslwald what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oslwald [00:42] Right. Shortly, before the deaths, before the shooting. [00:45] Did anybody ever deny that it was the father? They're [00:48] not saying," that wasn't really my father ." It's a little [00:50] hard to do, cuz it looks like him. That Marco Rubio [00:52] may not be elligible to run for president, an argument [00:55] no contstitutional scholar supported. You're really not [00:58] sure that Marco Rubio is elligible Eligible to run for [01:00] president. I don't know. I really, I've never looked at it [01:03] George. Honestly, I've never looked at it. Somebody [01:05] said he's not and I retweeted it. That routine vaccation [01:09] cause autism a theory scientests have long debunked. [01:11] The child, a beautiful child, went to have the vaccine [01:15] and came back, and, a week a later got a tremendous [01:18] fever, got very very sick, now is autisic. We have [01:22] extremely. [ MUSIC ] Well documented proof that [01:26] there's no autism associated with vaccinations. That [01:29] supreme court justice Anton and Scalia might have [01:31] been murdered. Scalia was he murdered? I know it's [01:33] pretty brutal to say that. It's a horrible topic but they [01:37] say they found the pillow on his face, which is a pretty [01:40] unual place to find a pillow. I can't tell you what, I [01:44] can't give you an answer. That Muslims in New Jersey [01:47] cheered after 9 / 11. A claim no one has ever [01:49] substantiated. And I watched in Jersey City, New [01:52] Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people [01:57] were cheering. And the other side of New Jersey where [01:59] you have large Arab populations, they were cheering [02:02] as the World Trade Center came down. That millions of [02:04] Americans voted illegally in 2016. Sixteen, a claim with [02:08] no factual support. Does the president believe that [02:10] millions voted illegally in this election? He continues to [02:13] maintain that belief based on studies and evidence [02:15] that people have presented to him. What evidence do [02:17] you have? I, I, as I said, I think the president has [02:20] believed that for a while based on studies and [02:22] information he has. That Climate Change is a hoax. All [02:23] of this with the global warming and the that a [02:27] lot of it's a hoax. It's a hoax. I mean it's a money [02:29] making industry okay? A Sussian meddling in the 2016 [02:32] election is a hoax. [ MUSIC ] And [02:44] according to a recent New York Times report that the [02:46] Acess hollywood viideo of him admitting to grabbing [02:48] women's genital Is a hoax even though he apologized [02:52] for it when it came out. I said it, I was wrong, and I [02:56] apologize. It's not clear how much Trump really [02:58] believes these ideas. He's backed down from some in [03:01] the past. Barack Obama was born in [03:05] the United States. Period. Only to indulge them again [03:08] later. [ MUSIC ] Some of the theories have helped [03:11] Trump politically by tearing down rivals or creating [03:13] doubt about policies he opposes. Others have hurt [03:16] him, as polls show voters increasingly question his [03:19] judgment. But one thing is clear, Donald Trump [03:23] is not going to stop talking about conspiracy theories. [03:24] [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5084420/donald-trump-lies-claims-fact-checks/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5084420/donald-trump-lies-claims-fact-checks/"},"headline":"President Trump Made 1,950 Untrue Claims in 2017. 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