Donald Trump is often in the news for the statements he makes, many of which go on to stoke quite some controversies. And now it is being said that the president of the United States has made about 8,158 false or misleading claims since he assumed office in January 2017.
Trump's lies were calculated by the Washington Post's Fact Checker, which also found out that about 6,000 of the 8,158 claims were made in 2018. Trump, on an average, reportedly made about 5.9 false statements per day in 2017, and the number spiked to about 16.5 such claims each day last year.
"We started this project as part of our coverage of the president's first 100 days, largely because we could not possibly keep up with the pace and volume of the president's misstatements," the paper said speaking of its probe.
So what did Trump lie about?
The president, who is known to frequently lash out at the media for "fake news," apparently himself made false claims on a series of issues. The list is topped by falsehoods and misleading statement on immigration, followed by Chinese foreign policy, trade deficit, condition of the economy and jobs, according to the Press Trust of India, which cited the Fact Checker report.
Trump didn't stop at that and is also known to have lied about his tac cuts and special counsel Robert Mueller's Russian probe.
Will the lies have no implications?
While Trump is unlikely to take these numbers as a warning, the New York Times' Astead Herndon believes that these could have serious effects when it comes to Trump's campaign and results in the 2020 elections.
"We know when this president comes under pressure, he usually lashes out and every time he leans into kind of his own messaging or off-the-cuff messaging, we get more and more falsehoods," Herndon told CNN.
However, the president's supporters are unlikely to believe this data and could go on favouring Trump. After all the president himself asks his supporters not to believe what they see and read. "Stick with us. Don't believe the c**p you see from these people, the fake news," he had told the veterans in Kansas last year. "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."
CNN's Chris Cillizza too has said that Trump's lies will not affect his backers and they will still support the president. "It's not close to what objective fact is, but we know from now years of experience that that doesn't really matter to at least a significant chunk of people who support Donald Trump," Cillizza said.
Explaining that Trump makes statement just to garner support and does not bother to check for facts, the political analyst added: "He tells himself a story of his life. Whether or not that story comports with facts is not his main concern. The main concern is that he looks tough, strong and that he's winning."
