The best and most dogged of all Trump fact-checkers is Daniel Dale, a reporter for the Toronto Star. Click here for his post on Twitter titled "I started fact-checking Trump 10 years ago. Here are 15 things I've learned."
He starts out:
Ten years ago this month, in my old job as Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, I started what I believed would be a quick little side project: fact-checking underdog presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was telling a remarkable number of lies but was rarely being corrected. Like a lot of people, I thought Trump would lose the 2016 election.
I was very wrong. And Trump continued to be very wrong, about a dizzying variety of subjects, for the next decade.
His relentless dishonesty has become a central feature of US and world politics. Voters and members of Congress, allies and adversaries, CEOs and investors alike have had to try to figure out how to read a man whose words are so frequently not true.
After discussing Trump's lies during his first term, and the fact that Biden had "his own accuracy problems but nowhere near the volume or variety of Trump’s falsehoods," Dale says "I counted more than 20 false or misleading claims in his 2022 speech launching his third presidential campaign. He has not gotten any more factual since."
1. There is no Washington liar like Trump.
2. The bigger the crisis, the more Trump lies.
3. The smallest lies are the most distinguishing lies.
4. Many Trump lies never go away.
5. Trump has tells.
6. All of Trump's numbers are suspect.
7. Trump is not only a supplier of bad information but a consumer of it.
8. Trump is aware of some fact checks. He just doesn't care.
9. Trump is now surrounded by people comfortable with his lies.
10. The mainstream media doesn't handle Trump's lying well enough.
11. A lot of people care about Trump's lying.
12. ... but a lot of people don't mind the lying, or even like it.
13. Speaking without a filter helps political liars be viewed as honest.
14. Trump's most self-damaging lies are about prices.
15. The lies cause real harm. This last item says "Some of Trump’s lies are so bizarre or trivial that I can’t help but laugh. On the whole, though, his lies have been deeply harmful to the country. People died because of the Capitol riot prompted by his lies about the 2020 election. His lies downplaying Covid-19 almost certainly led to deaths, too. Specific people targeted by his lies, including journalists, judges and election workers, have faced threats and harassment. His lies have worsened innumerable public debates around critical policy issues. And American democracy itself is worse off for all the lying, too."
Click the article for fuller information.
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