The President's False & Misleading Claim Count: 13,435

The Washington Post fact checker keeps track of the president’s false and misleading claims. As of October 9, day 993 in office, the president has made 13,435 false and misleading claims to the public. Some are lies (intentional deceit) and some are BS (complete non-concern for truth), but all are false or misleading. WaPo comments:

“As of Oct. 9, his 993rd day in office, he had made 13,435 false or misleading claims, according to the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered. That’s an average of almost 22 claims a day since our last update 65 days ago. 

One big reason for the uptick: The uproar over Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president on July 25 — in which he urged an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden, a potential 2020 election rival — and the ensuing House impeachment inquiry. We’ve added a new category of claims, Ukraine probe, and in just a few weeks it has topped 250 entries.”

Normalized sleaze

At least for people who support the president, lies and BS are now fully normalized and acceptable when it comes from their own side. So is blatant double standard hypocrisy. Lies and false statements by political opponents are usually exaggerated and then ferociously attacked as evidence of the opponent’s untrustworthiness and immoral or corrupt character. None of that moral indignation and concern for pristine truth applies to the president’s lies and BS.

Most of the president’s supporters dismiss fact checkers as not believable, so information like this is ignored. On occasional instances when a supporter is exposed to this unpleasant sort of truth it is rejected as lies. For the few who do understand that the president lies chronically and considers truth to be irrelevant, they try but fail to justify the president's immorality by arguing that it’s no big deal and/or Obama lied, HRC lied, etc.