Conspiracy Theories

Lies About Immigration

Lies About Crime

32) Hillary Clinton Will Release Violent Criminals In May, Trump blasted criminal justice reform proposals, warning that Clinton’s agenda is “to release the violent criminals from jail. She wants them all released.” “She wants people released that you wouldn’t want to walk on the street with, you wouldn’t want to look at,” he said. In fact, Clinton’s criminal justice reform, one expert told PolitiFact, is “not focused on early release,” and the fact-checking group notes that her plan mainly focuses on addressing the sentences of “nonviolent” offenders. 33) The ‘Most Dangerous’ Cities In The World According to Trump, “there are places in America that are among the most dangerous in the world.” “You go to places like Oakland. Or Ferguson. The crime numbers are worse,” he said. “Seriously.” Despite his contention, neither city ranks among the world’s most dangerous. 34) White People Are Mostly Killed By Black People Last year, Trump retweeted a racist meme claiming that 81 percent of white homicide victims are killed by black people. The meme originated with a neo-Nazi outlet and cited a nonexistent “Crime Statistics Bureau — San Francisco.” In reality, 82 percent of white murder victims are killed by other white people. Trump stood by the tweet, saying that he is not going to “check every statistic” and that it came “from sources that are very credible.” 35) Crime Is Hitting Record Levels While Trump claims that “inner-city crime is reaching record levels,” the crime rate in cities, the Wall Street Journal points out, “remains near historic lows.” 36) The Murder Rate Increased After Stop-And-Frisk Ended In the first presidential debate, Trump alleged that New York City’s murder rate went up after the city ended its “stop-and-frisk” policy, which was roundly criticized as ineffective, racially biased and unconstitutional. “Murders are up” in the city, he said. Trump was wrong: The homicide rate in the city has fallen to record lows.



Lies About The Election And Media Coverage



37) Voter Fraud Is Rampant Trump believes that voter fraud, including voter impersonation and voting by undocumented immigrants, is “very, very common” and part of a larger conspiracy to rig the election against him. He even made the false claim that it was “possible that non-citizen voters were responsible for Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina” and wrongly alleged that voting machines are switching Trump votes to Clinton. Trump also thinks that Obama won re-election thanks to votes from “dead people.” Despite Trump’s claims, voter fraud, whether by impersonation or ineligible voters, is extremely rare. 38) Republicans Received ‘Zero Votes’ In Philadelphia In a desperate attempt to justify his voter fraud scare, Trump said that Mitt Romney and John McCain each “got zero votes” in the city of Philadelphia when they ran for president. The two each received thousands of votes in the city, although both received no votes in a few heavily black voting divisions where barely any Republicans lived. 39) MSNBC Edited Abortion Answer Trump faced an outcry after telling MSNBC host Chris Matthews that ideally “there has to be some of punishment” for women who have abortions. He eventually walked back the statement, but not before taking a series of shifting and contradictory positions on abortion rights. Trump characteristically claimed both that his comments had been misinterpreted and that they were accurate, boasting that “there were a lot of people who thought that was a very good answer.” Trump blasted the media for the controversy, alleging that MSNBC “just cut” the “long discussion” he had with Matthews. He said people at the network “don’t want” the full exchange “on television ’cause it was too long.” However, MSNBC aired Trump’s response and the conversation “in its entirety” and “absolutely no part” was “edited out.” 40) ‘They Won’t Move The Camera’ At many of his campaign rallies, Trump directs rally-goers to jeer at members of the press, claiming that they “won’t move the camera” to show his massive crowds as part of an attempt to suppress the news of his vast support. Trump often directs his rage at the pool camera that, as the Washington Post explained, does not move because it is required to “maintain a tight focus on the person at the podium, so as to not miss anything that person says or does.” A BuzzFeed report also notes that Trump’s own campaign makes it impossible to show crowd sizes: According to two sources familiar with the call, which took place in November, the Trump campaign, citing security concerns from Secret Service, dictated to the networks that their camera crews could only shoot Trump head-on from a fenced-in press pen. Under the Trump campaign’s conditions, camera crews would not be able to leave the press pen during Trump’s rallies to capture video of audience reactions, known in the industry as “cutaway shots” or “cuts.” Networks would also not be able to use a separate riser set up to get cutaway shots. … When Trump complains that the media does not “turn the cameras” to show the size of his crowds, it’s because, unless they turn or zoom out the head on camera, there is no separate angle to show the crowd. NBC reporter Katy Tur says Trump “does know this to be incorrect” and has “joked in private with reporters about how he understands how the pool camera works,” acknowledging that it is “a shtick that he does to rile up his base.” 41) The Press Skews The Polls According to Trump, “phony polls put out by phony media” are being used “to suppress the vote” and make sure “people don’t go out and vote.” As proof, he cited an email released by WikiLeaks from 2008 in which “a prominent Democratic strategy firm recommended ‘oversampling’ certain voters when running polls, including blacks, Hispanics and young people.” Oversampling is a standard polling technique used to get a better read on certain demographic subgroups, and the final results are rebalanced to make sure the groups don’t have a disproportionate impact on the poll’s overall result. 42) Fire Marshals Suppress Rally Sizes Along with attacking the media, Trump has accused fire marshals of wrongly turning away people from his rallies for political reasons, wondering if they are Democrats. As it turns out, the Trump campaign agreed on attendance caps for safety reasons with the very local fire departments that he criticized. 43) Google Suppresses Negative Clinton Stories In a campaign rant, Trump insisted that Google has been “suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton,” an allegation promoted by the Russian propaganda site Sputnik. The claim has been roundly debunked. He has also promoted the myth that Facebook and Twitter are similarly burying negative Clinton stories.



Lies About Hillary Clinton

Lies About His Business And Charity

56) My Employees Have Child Care Access In August, Trump claimed that his employees have access to on-site child care programs, bragging that “it’s not an expensive thing, and I do it all over.” “They call ’em Trump Kids. Another one calls it Trumpeteers, if you can believe it. I have ’em. I actually have ’em, because I have a lot of different businesses,” he said. However, the AP found that the two programs he mentioned “are programs catering to patrons of Trump’s hotels and golf club. They are not for Trump’s employees, according to staff at Trump’s hotels and clubs across the country.” The wire service found no evidence that Trump provides child care services to his employees. 57) ‘Trump Steaks’ Are Still Being Sold After Mitt Romney mocked Trump’s many failed businesses, including Trump Steaks, Trump held a press conference at which he boasted that Trump Steaks are still available. He even brought a few steaks to the event. However, Trump Steaks are no longer available for purchase, and the steaks at his press conference were labeled as Bush Brothers steaks. 58) My Buildings Are So Tall, Like You Wouldn’t Believe Trump has lied about the sizes of his own buildings, routinely exaggerating and fudging the numbers to make his buildings seem taller, fitting a narcissistic pattern. 59) I Am So Wealthy It Will Make Your Head Spin Trump has been known to wildly inflate his worth, which he pegs at around $10 billion, and once sued an author who said his worth was in the millions, not the billions. In a deposition in his unsuccessful suit, Trump said he estimates his value based on his feelings and mood. 60) Most Charitable Person You’ve Ever Met, Believe Me While Trump has claimed to have donated north of $102 million to charity, a Washington Post reporter was only “able to identify $7.8 million in charitable giving from Trump’s own pocket since the early 1980s,” noting that the “charity that Trump has given the most money to over his lifetime appears to be his own: the Donald J. Trump Foundation.” Since 2008, the Post found, Trump has not donated anything to his foundation. It is now primarily funded by money from other people and is often used to pay Trump’s own expenses, including business and personal expenditures and settlements in legal disputes. Trump, who identifies himself as an “ardent philanthropist,” didn’t even donate the $1 million he promised to give to veterans’ causes this year until he was contacted by the Post about the nonexistent donation. 61) Promised $10,000 Donation To 9/11 Charity While Trump promised in 2001 to donate $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund, a report by the New York City’s comptroller office “found no evidence of a donation by Mr. Trump in the year following the attacks.” 62) Pledges To Contribute $100 Million To Campaign Trump has said that he plans to contribute $100 million from his own pocket to his campaign, while his son Eric said in October that the candidate had already gave his campaign $100 million. However, campaign finance records show that as of the end of October Trump has only contributed around $66 million to his own campaign. In addition, his campaign has spent millions of dollars reimbursing Trump’s family members’ expenses and his own companies. In one case, Trump significantly raised the rent Trump Tower charged his campaign for office space after he started taking outside donations. 63) Can’t Release Tax Returns Due To Audit Defying decades of tradition, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, insisting that he will not do so because they are under audit. But as Bloomberg News reported, “Trump’s income tax returns for the years 2002 through 2008 are no longer under federal audit.” Before entering the race, Trump repeatedly pledged to release his tax returns if he became a candidate for president, and the IRS has made clear that an audit does not bar a candidate from releasing their returns. 64) ‘My Father Gave Me A Small Loan Of A Million Dollars’ While Trump insists that he only received “a small loan of a million dollars” from his father, real estate mogul Fred Trump, at the start of his career, in reality, Politico notes, “Trump’s father lent him $14 million—a value of $31 million in today’s dollars.” Trump frequently received credit from his wealthy father, and in one instance, Fred Trump bought $3.5 million worth of chips to bail out one of his son’s failing casinos, which gaming commissioners considered an illegal loan. 65) Trump U Receive An A From The Better Business Bureau Trump responded to the outcry over his Trump University scam by insisting that the Better Business Bureau gave it an “A” rating, even claiming that the bureau sent him a document during a presidential debate confirming the “university’s” “A” status. The BBB never sent such a document; instead, it noted that Trump U received a “D-” rating in its final year. After the so-called university closed in 2010, its score rose on the BBB’s website because complaints from the time it was functioning expired. “As the company appeared to be winding down, after 2013, no new complaints were reported” and older complaints were “automatically rolled off.,” the BBB said in a statement. 66) Authored Best Selling Business Book Of All Time According to Trump, his ghost-written book “The Art of the Deal” is “the No. 1 selling business book of all time.” While the book was a commercial success, PolitiFact found other books in the same genre that “easily outpace” its sales.

I Never Said It

Other Lies