Even as Trump's fact-free statements proliferate, there is growing evidence that his approach is failing. Fewer than three in 10 Americans believe many of his most common false statements, according to a Fact Checker poll from earlier this month. Only among a pool of strong Trump approvers – about one in six adults in the survey – did large majorities accept several, though not all, of his falsehoods as true. Donald and Melania Trump. Credit:Bloomberg Similarly, a November poll found 58 per cent of voters saying Trump wasn't honest, compared to just 36 per cent who said he was honest. The same poll found 50 percent saying he is "less honest" than most previous presidents, tying his own record for the highest share of registered voters saying so in Quinnipiac polling. "When before have we seen a president so indifferent to the distinction between truth and falsehood, or so eager to blur that distinction?" presidential historian Michael R. Beschloss said of Trump in 2018.

Beschloss noted that the constitution set very few guidelines in this regard because the expectation was that the first president would be George Washington and he would set the tone for the office. "What is it that school children are taught about George Washington? That he never told a lie," he said. "That is a bedrock expectation of a president by Americans." Trump began 2018 on a similar pace as last year. Through May, he generally averaged about 200 to 250 false claims a month. But his rate suddenly exploded in June, when he topped 500 falsehoods, as he appeared to shift to campaign mode. He made almost 500 more in both July and August, almost 600 in September, more than 1200 in October and almost 900 in November. In December, Trump drifted back to the mid-200s. Almost as many false claims came during remarks at press events, and about 17 per cent were the result of Trump's itchy Twitter finger. Trump's mid-summer acceleration came as the White House stopped having regular press briefings and the primary voice in the administration was Trump, who met repeatedly with reporters, held events, staged rallies and tweeted constantly. Trump is among the more loquacious of recent presidents, according to Martha Kumar, professor at Towson University, who keeps track of every presidential interaction with the media, dating to Ronald Reagan. To December 20, Trump held 323 short question-and-answer sessions with reporters, second only to Bill Clinton in his first 23 months, and granted 196 interviews, second to Barack Obama.

More than a quarter of Trump's claims came during campaign rallies. On November 5, the day before the midterm elections, for instance, Trump held three rallies, yielding a total of 139 false or misleading claims. A review of every statement made by Trump at two of his earlier 2018 rallies found that he exaggerated or made up at least 70 per cent of his assertions. Loading Almost as many false claims came during remarks at press events, and about 17 per cent were the result of the president's itchy Twitter finger. The president misled Americans about issues big and small. He told a series of lies about payments his now-convicted lawyer says Trump authorised to silence women alleging affairs with him. He routinely exaggerates his accomplishments, such as claiming he passed the biggest tax cut ever, presided over the best economy in history, scored massive deals for jobs with Saudi Arabia and all but solved the North Korean nuclear crisis. He attacks his perceived enemies with abandon, falsely accusing Clinton of colluding with the Russians, former FBI Director James Comey of leaking classified information and Democrats of seeking to let undocumented immigrants swamp the US borders.

The president often makes statements that are disconnected from his policies. He said his administration did not have a family separation policy on the border, when it did. Then he said the policy was required because of existing laws, when it was not. The president also simply invents faux facts. He repeatedly said US Steel is building six to eight new steel plants, but that's not true. He said that as president, Barack Obama gave citizenship to 2500 Iranians during the nuclear-deal negotiations, but that's false. Over and over, Trump claimed that the Uzbek-born man who in 2017 was accused of killing eight people with a pickup truck in New York brought two dozen relatives to the United States through "chain migration." The real number is zero. Trump reacts to laughter from delegates to his United Nations speech. Credit:AP In one of his more preposterous statements of 2018, Trump labelled the Palm Beach Post as "fake news" for blaming him for traffic jams across the nation, when an article about the impact of low petrol prices on driving habits never mentioned his name.

Sometimes, Trump simply attempts to create his own reality. Loading When leaders attending the United Nations General Assembly burst into laughter when Trump uttered a favourite false claim – that his administration had accomplished more in less than two years than "almost any administration in the history of our country" – the president was visibly startled and remarked he "didn't expect that reaction." But then he later falsely insisted to reporters the boast "was meant to get some laughter". In an October interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump emphatically denied he had imposed many tariffs. "I mean, other than some tariffs on steel, which is actually small, what do we have? ... Where do we have tariffs? We don't have tariffs anywhere," he insisted. The newspaper responded by printing a list of $US305 billion ($433 billion) worth of tariffs on many types of imports. Trump exaggerates when the facts are on his side.