Trump made 8,158 false or misleading claims in two years

Two years after taking the oath of office, US President Donald Trump has made 8,158 false or misleading claims, according to The Washington Post's database.

The daily's Fact Checker's database analyses, categorises and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the President, it said in the report on Monday.

In 2018, he made an "astonishing" 6,000-plus such claims.

The President averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office, but he hit nearly 16.5 a day in his second year, almost triple the pace.

The Washington Post started the Fact Checker online project as part of its 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 project's interactive graphic displays a running list of every false or misleading statement made by Trump. A reader can also search for specific claims or obtain monthly or daily totals.

According to Fact Checker, the President in his first 100 days made 492 unsupported claims.

He managed to top that number just in the first three weeks of 2019.

Before the midterm elections in October, he made more than 1,200 false or misleading claims.

The biggest source of misleading claims is immigration, with a tally that has grown with the addition of 300 immigration claims in the past three weeks, for a total of 1,433, the Fact Checker said.

In the President's immigration address on January 19, the last day of his second year in office, there were 12 false or misleading claims.

According to Fact Checker, there were only 82 days or about 11 per cent of the time that there were recorded no claims.

"These were often days when the President golfed," it added.

--IANS

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