Trump’s Lies Are Toxic | The Nation

3. He lied about the end of seven or eight wars (the number varies), for which he claimed to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

4. He lied that Renée Good “violently, intentionally and maliciously ran over the ICE officer, who appears to have shot him in self-defense.” Vice President JD Vance doubled down on his own lie, that Good “pointed his car at a law enforcement officer and stepped on the gas. No one disputes that.”

5. He lied about Alex Pretti, calling the 37-year-old ICU nurse who was fatally shot by Border Patrol agents an “agitator, and possibly an insurrectionist” and “out of control.” Stephen Miller lied when he described Pretti as a “potential assassin.” Miller and HHS Secretary Kristi Noem called Pretti a “domestic terrorist.” His agency lied that Pretti was obstructing an operation and “brandishing” a weapon.

6. Trump lied when he said the United States now had “the best economy ever!” ” and called the affordability crisis a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats. He said food prices were “falling”, although they had increased. In January, Trump lied that gasoline was “$1.99 in many states” when the lowest average price in all states was $2.34 and the national average was $2.78. He has pledged to reduce the price of prescription drugs by 500 to 3,000 percent, which is mathematically impossible.

7. Trump lied that “the Canadian people love” his proposal to make Canada the 51st state, but polls show that 90% of Canadians oppose the idea.

8. Trump lied about white South Africans being targeted for genocide, his excuse for allowing 59 Afrikaners to resettle here as refugees.

9. Trump repeatedly lied about the “stolen” or “rigged” 2020 election, a lie that led to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. On his first day back in office last year, he pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of the more than 1,500 people charged with these crimes. Trump lied that “the people who went there didn’t have guns.” In reality, many rioters were armed. He lied about his role in the January 6 mutiny and his unsuccessful efforts to overturn the election. He is trying to lay the groundwork to invoke the Insurrection Act to send federal troops to disrupt the upcoming election.

Trump’s lies come up so often every day that it’s hard to keep up with them. It is not enough for the media to publish articles that allow Trump to spew lies and then note that some of his statements are “without evidence” or to cite an expert to contradict him. These are scattered anecdotes, making it difficult to see the whole picture.

During his first term, The Washington Post compiled a daily list of his lies throughout his first term. THE Job identified 30,573 lies during this period, an average of 21 lies per day during his tenure. THE Job no longer has the mission of holding Trump accountable.

THE Times (which kept track of Trump’s lies during the first term for just one year) could usefully provide a daily dashboard of his lies (and those of his top aides) in coordination with the Associated Press, Politiact, Reuters and ProPublica. He could count the number of lies every day, every week and cumulatively for the rest of his term, categorize them into different topics and highlight egregious examples of major lies. It could distribute the dashboard to all subscribing media and make it public on its website.

A daily scorecard would drive Trump crazy. He would certainly threaten news organizations with legal action or other forms of intimidation. But if there was ever a time when we needed the media to challenge the daily, deliberate, and escalating dishonesty of the nation’s president, it’s now, when our democracy is in danger.