HEMPSTEAD, NY—Saying he would probably introduce the falsehood in his opening statement or perhaps during his response to the night’s first question, Republican nominee Donald Trump reported Monday he was planning to throw out a blatant lie about the level of crime committed by immigrants early in the first presidential debate to gauge how much he’d be allowed to get away with. “It’d be nice to know how far I can stretch the truth during this thing, so I figure I’ll toss out a complete fabrication right off the bat by saying that most crime in the U.S. is committed by illegal immigrants, and then just see what kind of pushback I get,” said Trump, adding that the moderator’s response to the patently false statement would give him a good idea of how many claims he could make up right on the spot throughout the remainder of the evening. “If they call me out on it, it’s no big deal; I’ll just know that I mostly have to stick to smaller distortions, like exaggerating unemployment and terrorism statistics or fudging my past positions on tax increases and the Iraq War. But if they let it slide, that means I can really go to town out there and say whatever I think voters will respond to.” Trump added that even if he was corrected on his initial lie, he would probably still be able to stick with it by simply repeating it over and over until it wore the moderator down.

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