WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump makes a large number of false claims at his campaign rallies, when he is speaking to voters who may not know the ins and outs of government policy.

But he also makes a large number of false claims in basically every other context. That includes his meetings with people as knowledgeable as U.S. governors.

Trump held a televised White House meeting with governors last Monday. He made 23 false claims over the course of one hour.

About gun violence. About motorcycle imports from India. About car exports to Japan. About his tariffs on washing machines. About the court system. About a bunch of other things. It was, all in all, a wide-ranging display of dishonesty.

Trump made 13 more false claims over the rest of the week, for a total of 36. He is now up to 1,254 false claims for the first 409 days of his presidency, an average of 3.1 per day.

If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of “false claims,” not lies? The answer is that we can’t be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not telling the truth.

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