Between his terms as President of the United States, Donald Trump made several false or misleading claims.
Refusal to accept 2020 election loss
At 2 am on Wednesday, November 4, 2020, with the election results still unclear, Trump held a press conference at the White House in which he stated: "This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election." The statement was condemned almost immediately. The statement was also described as having been months in the making. At 9 am on Thursday, November 5, 2020, Trump tweeted "STOP THE COUNT!" However, at that time Biden was already leading in enough states such that stopping the count would have resulted in a Biden victory. After all major news organizations declared Biden the President-elect on November 7, Trump refused to accept his loss, declaring "this election is far from over" and alleging election fraud without providing evidence. Privately, according to reporting by Maggie Haberman, he told one aide "I'm just not going to leave", and he told another aide, "We're never leaving. How can you leave when you won an election?" 2021 California gubernatorial recall election Before the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, Trump claimed without evidence that the election was "probably rigged" and said, "Does anybody really believe the California recall election isn't rigged?" After polls closed, he said there was "rigged voting".
COVID-19 healthcare discrimination against white people In reference to a New York policy that allows race to be a consideration when dispensing oral antiviral treatments, Trump lied at a rally that white people don't get the vaccine and "have to go to the back of the line" for COVID-19 care.
Spygate conspiracy theory In a new iteration of the Spygate conspiracy theory, in February 2022, Trump falsely claimed Hillary Clinton spied on him during the Russia investigation.
Drop boxes in the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin Following a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling declaring ballot drop boxes illegal, Trump claimed this ruling retroactively applies to the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin. He also suggested he was the legitimate winner of that election.
Federal prosecution (government documents case)
Following the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Trump made false, misleading, unsubstantiated, and contradictory claims about the investigation into his handling of classified material. Among these, he suggested, without evidence, that President Biden played a role in the search, the FBI planted evidence, the search was unnecessary, and the classified documents in his possession were already declassified. He stated that as a US president, he was not required to follow the prescribed legal process, but could simply declassify them just "by thinking about it", and "because you're sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever you're sending it. There doesn't have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn't have to be."
On June 8, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump. The 37th count was for "False statements and representations", specifically alleging that Trump hid documents from his own attorney, Evan Corcoran. The government had subpoenaed Trump for any classified documents he might have, so Corcoran searched the boxes for documents with classified markings. Because Trump deliberately misled him, Corcoran drafted a "sworn certification" that all subpoenaed documents had been returned, and another attorney, Christina Bobb, provided it to "the grand jury and the FBI". On June 27, 2023, responding to the revelation that in 2021 he showed off a classified document and told the writers in the room to "look" at it, Trump described his own audiotaped words as "bravado, if you want to know the truth... I was talking and just holding up papers... but I had no documents."
Federal prosecution (2020 election case)
The August 1, 2023 indictment listed 21 election-related lies Trump told.
Claim of intervening in 2018 Florida vote count On November 10, 2022, Trump alleged that Democrats had perpetrated "ballot theft" four years earlier in the Florida gubernatorial election. He claimed that, as president, he had intervened to support Republican candidate Ron DeSantis over his Democratic rival Andrew Gillum. "I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys", Trump claimed, when it seemed that DeSantis had been "running out of the votes necessary to win." Trump said he had thereby "fixed" the DeSantis campaign. Gillum filed in court to demand further information from Trump, as it sounded like an admission of wrongdoing; meanwhile, Florida's Broward County elections office denied that any such thing had happened during the 2018 election. The FBI said in March 2023 that it had no records to support Trump's claim.
2022 announcement speech On November 15, 2022, almost two years in advance of the 2024 election, Trump announced his candidacy for a second term as president. His announcement speech at Mar-a-Lago was "full of exaggerated and false talking points" and at least "20 false and misleading claims", uttering the first inaccurate claim "about two minutes in and a few minutes later, tick(ing) off at least four hyperbolic claims about his own accomplishments". The New York Times Fact Check stated that "Mr. Trump repeated many familiar exaggerations about his own achievements, reiterated misleading attacks on political opponents and made dire assessments that were at odds with reality."
Trump's first inaccurate claim, about two minutes in, was that his administration "built the greatest economy in the history of the world", a claim that was inaccurate even for recent American history. Trump wrongly claimed Americans surrendered $85 billion worth of military equipment to the Taliban in the Afghanistan withdrawal; the Defense Department estimate was $7.1 billion, some which was rendered inoperable before the withdrawal. Trump claimed that his administration "filled up" the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but that under Biden it has been "virtually drained"; in fact, the reserve was not "virtually drained" under Biden, and it actually contained less when Trump left office than when he took office. He falsely claimed that climate scientists "say the ocean will rise 1/8 of an inch over the next 200 to 300 years"; NOAA estimated average sea level rise along the U.S. coastline will be 10–12 inches in the next 30 years.
Speaking of border crossings by undocumented aliens, he said "I believe it's 10 million people coming in, not three or four million people", a claim for which there is no empirical basis. Likewise, his claim that the U.S.-Mexico border had been "erased" since Biden was sworn in, was also baseless. Trump falsely heralded completion of his border wall; in fact, the vast majority of the "new" barriers reinforced or replaced existing structures, and only about 47 miles were new primary barriers along the 1,900-mile border.
Trump said "I've gone decades, decades without a war, the first president to do it for that long a period"; however, he presided over U.S. involvement in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and was commander-in-chief for dozens of U.S. airstrikes. He claimed that when he began his term the U.S. had jet fighters that were 48 years old (and) bombers that were 60 years old—but not anymore"; in fact, the military continues to use B-52 bombers that are being outfitted with new Rolls-Royce engines to prolong their life even further. Trump was wrong in claiming that the U.S. takes longer than "any" country to count votes, belied by longer times in Indonesia (more than a month in 2019), Afghanistan (five months after a September 2019 vote), and Bosnia (weeks in fall 2022).
2023 CNN town hall During the May 10, 2023 CNN Republican Town Hall, Trump repeated his false claims about the 2020 presidential election, the January 6 Capitol attack and his handling of classified documents. He also falsely claimed he had never met E. Jean Carroll and that the jury in her lawsuit against him had ruled that "he didn't rape her". Trump also falsely claimed that Brazil had seen a significant decline in gun-related violence after loosening its gun laws; criminologists consulted by The Washington Post cited an aging population, investment in policing and recessions in drug cartel conflicts as more likely explanations for the decline. He also promoted false claims about aid given to Ukraine for Russia's invasion, abortion and the economy during his presidency.
2024 presidential campaign
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has made numerous false and misleading statements. The large amount of lies and false statements have been attributed to Trump's rhetorical style described as using the big lie and firehose of falsehood propaganda technique.Multiple sources:
During a 64 minute news conference on August 8, 2024, NPR counted Trump making over 162 "misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies" averaging more than two per minute. They described the amount of Trump's lies as "stunning" and "beyond the bounds of what most politicians would do". CNN has called Trump's claims a "bombardment of dishonesty" and a "campaign of relentless lying". The Washington Post has described Trump's speeches as a "bacchanalia of lies and mistruths".
False and misleading statements by topic
2024 presidential election Trump has made a variety of false claims aimed at sowing doubt in the election's integrity and setting up an election challenge should he lose the 2024 presidential election. He has repeatedly said that he can only lose the election through cheating, that it was "unconstitutional" for the Democratic party to make Kamala Harris the nominee, that all of the legal cases against him constitute election interference organized by Biden and Harris, and that extensive voter fraud is occurring, including through non-citizen voting, mail-in ballots, and early voting.
Immigration and crime In March and April 2023, on several occasions, Trump claimed that all the psychiatric patients in an unnamed "South American country" had been sent to the United States; he said he had "read a story" in which an unnamed "psychologist or psychiatrist" in that country said all his patients had disappeared. When CNN asked the Trump campaign to substantiate this, a spokesperson responded by providing unrelated information. Trump has repeated this assertion throughout his campaign, falsely stating that foreign leaders are deliberately emptying insane asylums to send "prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mental patients, terrorists" across America's southern border as migrants.
Trump has made false claims of a "migrant crime wave" that are not supported by national data. He claimed that "13,000 convicted murderers" had entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris administration and "freely and openly roam" the country, when that number is for immigrants who'd committed a variety of crimes and entered the country during several administrations, many of whom are jailed. Trump has falsely claimed that crime in several South American countries has decreased because their leaders are sending criminals into the United States. Trump has painted America as violent and crime-ridden on the campaign trail. Trump has falsely stated that FBI statistics showing that homicides have dropped by 6% in 2022 and 13% in 2023 are "a lie". Trump has repeatedly claimed that crime in America is only going up. In reality, crime is going down. Trump falsely alleged that immigrants commit crimes because they have "bad genes", invoking what science writer Daniel Vergano describes as "the deeply dishonest scientism" of eugenics.