"PolitiFact didn’t like the idea that I said dancing on rooftops, dancing on streets, but that’s been confirmed by hundreds of people," Trump said during a phone interview on Fox News's "Fox and Friends." | AP Photo Trump to PolitiFact: 'I've been proven right'

Donald Trump fired back at PolitiFact on Tuesday — a day after the fact-checking outlet operated by the Tampa Bay Times deemed 76 percent of 77 statements in 2015 as “mostly false,” “false" or “pants on fire” — dismissing the website as a “totally left-wing group.”

Phoning into “Fox & Friends,” Trump pointed to reporting from Breitbart that appeared to vindicate one of his questionable claims — that thousands of people celebrated the collapse of the World Trade Center in New Jersey on 9/11.


“Well PolitiFact is an example — I’ve been proven right,” the Republican presidential candidate said. “You look at Breitbart, they talk about when I said they were dancing on the rooftops, dancing in the streets, I’m right about that. There are many articles that say in New Jersey, there are many articles that say that’s true.”

Trump then bashed the group, which awarded him the dubious distinction of its annual “Lie of the Year.”

“And PolitiFact — which is by the way a totally left-wing group — they are bad news, I mean as far as checking. You could tell something 100 percent and they will make it out to a lie if you’re a certain person,” he claimed. “So PolitiFact didn’t like the idea that I said dancing on rooftops, dancing on streets, but that’s been confirmed by hundreds of people.”

Co-host Steve Doocy pointed to a story from NJ Advance Media published Monday that interviewed police and residents who confirmed, according to the article, that “they witnessed small pockets of people celebrating before the groups dispersed or were broken up by authorities.” The story could not corroborate Trump's repeated insistence that there were “thousands and thousands.”

“Well, you know there were a lot of people, and I’ve had it from a lot of people. We’ve had hundreds of phone calls. We’ve had tweets at @RealDonaldTrump, we’ve had proof, but we’ve also had articles in The Washington Post, at the time it took place, we’ve had articles elsewhere," Trump said, appearing to reference articles from 2001, but the pieces in question did not cite specific numbers.

For Trump, the numbers don’t seem to matter as much as the message, however, even after being asked whether he would change his line about how many people were celebrating in New Jersey in light of recent articles that don’t confirm it.

“Well I don’t want to adjust because I don’t know what the number is. I know that a lot of people saw it, and I bet if you added it all up, it would be a hell of a big number and all over the world, they were dancing and they were celebrating,” he said. “I mean, they were celebra — which, look, the only purpose in saying that is that there’s something wrong when you have people celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center and throughout the world they were celebrating and nobody disputes that.”

Trump continued to defend one of his other claims: that Mexico is sending criminals and rapists into the United States.

“Well you know the Mexican government absolutely, in my opinion, pushes people over the border because we take anybody because we’re run by stupid people. And Mexico sends bad people over, there’s no question about it,” he said, while adding, “Nobody does better with Mexico than I have, I’ve employed thousands of people and over the years I’ve employed thousands and thousands of Mexicans and Hispanics … they’re great people.”