Untruth Social

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Dishonesty is the defining characteristics of Trump and his administration, and lies are a daily occurrence. While there are far too many lies to track, I thought a thread dedicated to the worst and most notable lies would be useful. There’s a lot of material to choose from.

(I could have tapped into a rich vein of lies simply by linking to Trump’s Truth Social account — hence the OP title.) 

631 thoughts on “Untruth Social”

  1. keiths:

    He’s a failure as a person and as president.

    But to Congress, all these attributes aren’t particularly important. What is important is, he has the power to primary them.

  2. Trump:

    I am, by the way, the least racist president you’ve had in a long time, as far as I’m concerned.

    Totally believable. I don’t know what’s up with all these “projecting patricians” who think Trump is dishonest.

    ETA: Which reminds me — I need to add “patrician” to Bill’s homework list.

  4. The FBI interviewed Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter in 2019, and here’s what the report says about Trump, who called the Palm Beach Police Department in July of 2006 when he heard that Epstein was being investigated:

    DONALD TRUMP told Reiter that he threw EPSTEIN out of his club. TRUMP called the PBPD to tell him “thank goodness you’ re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this”. TRUMP told him people in New York knew EPSTEIN was disgusting. TRUMP said MAXWELL was EPSTEIN’s operative, “she is evil and to focus on her”. TRUMP told Reiter that he was around EPSTEIN once when teenagers were present and TRUMP “got the hell out of there”. TRUMP was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating EPSTEIN.

    Yet Trump has repeatedly claimed that he had no idea of what Epstein was up to. From Time magazine:

    In July 2019, when asked by reporters in the Oval Office if he had any suspicions about Epstein “molesting … underaged women”, Trump responded: “No, I had no idea. I had no idea. I haven’t spoken to him in many, many years.”

    He also lied about kicking Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago. Newsweek has reported what Jamie Raskin said after viewing the unredacted files:

    Speaking to reporters on Monday, the Maryland Democrat said one of the documents he reviewed at the Justice Department’s new satellite office in Washington, D.C., was an email from Jeffrey Epstein to his co‑conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. He said the email included details relayed by Epstein’s lawyers about a conversation with Trump’s attorneys around 2009.

    Raskin, who is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said Trump was quoted as saying that while Epstein was never a member of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, he had nevertheless been a guest and had “never been asked to leave.”

    Then there’s the following Trump interview with Jonathan Swan. As you watch it, keep in mind what Trump told the police chief about Maxwell:

    TRUMP said MAXWELL was EPSTEIN’s operative, “she is evil and to focus on her”.

    Yet in the interview, he pretends that he doesn’t already know that she’s guilty and wishes her well. Notice how agitated he gets:

    Jonathan Swan presses Trump about Ghislaine Maxwell

    Three lies:
    — He lied about not knowing of Epstein’s crimes.
    — He lied about kicking Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago.
    — He lied about Ghislaine Maxwell.

    Wake up, Bill. Your Dear Leader is a dishonest creep.

  5. Trump, today:

    You know, we’re the only country in the world that does a system like we do. We’re the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots.

    He’s lying. According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, there are 34 countries which allow mail-in voting.

    The way we do this is unbelievable. It guarantees cheating.

    He’s lying about that, too. I asked Claude to gather some statistics for me:

    Specific Fraud Rates:

    Brookings Institute (2024): Found an average of 0.000043% fraud rate across 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections – about 4 cases per 10 million mail votes

    Heritage Foundation database: Found only 0.00006% of votes were fraudulent mail votes over 20 years

    Oregon (pioneer state, 100% mail voting since 2000): About a dozen proven fraud cases out of over 100 million ballots sent = 0.00001%

    Washington Post analysis (2020): 372 possible fraud cases out of 14.6 million mail votes in five elections = 0.0025%

    Of course, Trump isn’t actually worried about mail-in voting fraud. He’s lying about it now because he wants to set the stage for lying about it later, after the Republicans lose the midterms.

  7. keiths,

    Not too long ago Trump also said that USA is the only country in the world to have birthright citizenship. In reality, about half of the countries on the American coontinent(s) have it.

    That Trump is wrong and clueless is the baseline fact. It’s not (or no longer) a question worth exploring or being puzzled over. There are other questions more worth exploring. For example, Why make an obvious vicious liar with no redeeming qualities the President *for a second time*? The psychology of a nation is more interesting than the psychology of a silly-ass clown individual criminal.

    By the way, House voted to stop tariffs with Canada. This is (some) Republicans finally starting to “disagree” with Trump on one of his signature policies. I put it in scare quotes because there was nothing to agree with about this policy in the first place. As usual when it comes to Trump, it was well known to be all wrong to begin with.

    ETA: Another topic – voting machines. Dems complained about them first, but they did not try to overturn the election results the way the Trump gang is lyingly and anti-constitutionally doing.

  8. Trump in 2024:

    I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.

    The Black population begs to differ. The latest Economist/YouGov poll has Trump at a paltry 14% approval rating, with 77% disapproving.

    And of course no one who knows anything about American history would agree with Trump’s statement.

  9. From last week’s Economist/YouGov poll:

    How often do you think Trump tells lies?

    Often 50%
    Sometimes 20%
    Rarely 13%
    Never 7%
    Not sure 11%

    Imagine how delusional you would have to be to respond “rarely” or “never”. (Hi, Bill!)

  10. keiths:
    From last week’s Economist/YouGov poll:

    Imagine how delusional you would have to be to respond “rarely” or “never”. (Hi, Bill!)

    How often do you think Trump tells the truth? I suspect this only happens when Trump is too ignorant to know what’s true, and the truth just coincidentally matches his delusions.

  11. Flint:

    How often do you think Trump tells the truth?

    The most interesting cases are the ones where the truth is actually on his side, but Trump can’t resist lying anyway because the truth isn’t dramatic enough for him. The neediness of a narcissist.

  12. keiths:
    Flint:

    The most interesting cases are the ones where the truth is actually on his side, but Trump can’t resist lying anyway because the truth isn’t dramatic enough for him. The neediness of a narcissist.

    His niece also tells us that Trump lies for fun, even if it hurts his case. If he’s not lying, he’s not putting one over on someone, which is what winners do.

  13. Perhaps a more accurate description of what Trump is doing is ‘bullshitting’ in the sense of Harry Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit.

    Now, since I haven’t actually read that book, I’ll post this from the linked article:

    Frankfurt’s book focuses heavily on defining and discussing the difference between lying and bullshit. The main difference between the two is intent and deception. Both people who are lying and people who are telling the truth are focused on the truth. The liar wants to steer people away from discovering the truth, and the person telling the truth wants to present the truth. Bullshitters differ from both liars and people presenting the truth with their disregard of the truth. Frankfurt explains how bullshitters or people who are bullshitting are distinct from liars, as they are not focused on the truth. Persons who communicate bullshit are not interested in whether what they say is true or false, only in its suitability for their purpose.

    I think this describes Trump to a tee.

    ETA: I found this link where Frankfurt’s original published article can be downloaded as a pdf.

  14. An excerpt from Frankfurt’s article:

    The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.

    This is the crux, of the distinction between him and the liar. Both he and the liar represent themselves falsely as endeavoring to communicate the truth. The success of each depends upon deceiving us about that. But the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.

  15. faded_Glory: Perhaps a more accurate description of what Trump is doing is ‘bullshitting’ in the sense of Harry Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit.

    […]

    I think this describes Trump to a tee.

    Sure, but there’s more. Trump has a malignant narcissistic personality disorder, in addition to a complete set of characteristics of sociopathic syndrome. And there’s even more – despite (or perhaps because of) these traits, Trump has been elected the president – for a second time. It’s not just the disease of an individual, but of at least half of the people of the nation.

    And with Trump’s deepening dementia, things do not seem to be improving, but worsening. The cult is becoming stronger.

  16. C-Span deny that the “John Barron” who called in sounding very like Trump, using a pseudonym he has used in the past, was in fact Trump. But… in the weird world we live in, it seems more plausible it was Trump. As an impression, it avoids the caricature that most go for (they are doing it for laughs), while including several distinctive tics. It’s quite subtle. Why would someone call in in the hope people think it’s really him, would recognise the pseudonym, yet try not to over-telegraph it? Why go to the trouble when it could just as likely cause no ripples as blow up? An odd world where there’s any grounds for belief that a President would do this…

  17. Allan:

    An odd world where there’s any grounds for belief that a President would do this…

    Yeah. With an intelligent president, the automatic conclusion would be “having already been caught, he’s not stupid enough to use the same pseudonym again.” With Trump, it’s quite plausible that he’s stupid enough to do that.

    For the record, I don’t actually think it was him. It was a damn good impression, but it didn’t sound quite right to me. I’m going to listen again.

  19. faded_Glory:

    Perhaps a more accurate description of what Trump is doing is ‘bullshitting’ in the sense of Harry Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit.

    I mentioned Frankfurt earlier in the thread:

    I read Harry Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit years ago. He draws a similar distinction between lies and bullshit, but I think that’s a mistake. While indifference to the truth is what distinguishes bullshit from non-bullshit, it isn’t what distinguishes bullshit from lies. That’s because lies and bullshit aren’t mutually exclusive. A lie is still a lie even if the speaker doesn’t care whether it’s true or false.

    Let’s say you’re trying to persuade your friend Miranda to go to a party with you. You know she adores Francisco, so you tell her “You really should come to the party. Francisco’s going to be there.” You know perfectly well that Francisco won’t be there because he’s visiting family in Barcelona. But the fact that what you’re saying is false doesn’t matter to you. You just want Miranda to come to the party. If Francisco were actually going to be there, you’d say the same thing in order to get her to come.

    You’re clearly bullshitting, because you’re indifferent to the truth or falsity of your statement. But you’re also clearly lying, because you’re knowingly saying something false in order to deceive Miranda and get her to attend. To argue that you’re not lying in this scenario seems absurd to me. It’s both a lie and bullshit.

  20. Anyone for State of the Union bingo?

    Crooked Joe Biden
    Stolen election
    Nobody’s ever seen anything like this
    Terrible
    Horrible
    Nasty
    Crooked Joe Biden
    Barack Hussein Obama
    Loser
    Ripping us off
    Crooked Joe Biden
    Repetition

    Don’t make it a drinking game…

  21. Allan Miller,

    I’m interested if he is able to not mention Epstein. In his first term, when he was meeting the heads of the Baltic countries, he received a note not to mention Putin and he immediately mentioned Putin.

  22. Erik:

    I’m interested if he is able to not mention Epstein. In his first term, when he was meeting the heads of the Baltic countries, he received a note not to mention Putin and he immediately mentioned Putin.

    Yeah, especially since he’s been lying lately about having been exonerated by the release of the files.

  24. Allan:

    Anyone for State of the Union bingo?

    Crooked Joe Biden
    Stolen election
    Nobody’s ever seen anything like this
    Terrible
    Horrible
    Nasty
    Crooked Joe Biden
    Barack Hussein Obama
    Loser
    Ripping us off
    Crooked Joe Biden
    Repetition

    Don’t make it a drinking game…

    A lot of people are saying [something that not a lot of people are saying]
    Everyone knows [something that everyone doesn’t know]
    Democrat hoax
    Russia, Russia, Russia
    landslide
    I inherited the worst [something that wasn’t the worst]
    a disgrace to our country
    the worst of the worst
    America is respected again
    the hottest country

  25. Also
    Left-wing extremist
    fraud
    rigged
    greatest ever (referring to himself)
    stopped wars
    least racist president ever

    And from the commentary afterwards:
    none of that was true

  27. Just had a brief segment on our morning news. I missed “Donald J. Trump” on the old bingo card.

    The jack-in-the-box leaping to feet by Republicans was just embarrassing.

  28. Allan:

    The jack-in-the-box leaping to feet by Republicans was just embarrassing.

    I kept saying “sit down, idiots” to my TV.

  29. One thing I liked about his speech was his tone deafness. This bit especially:

    Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, “Please, please, please, Mr. president, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore. We’re not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we’re just always losing. But now we’re winning too much. And I say, “No, no, no. You’re going to win again. You’re going to win big. You’re going to win bigger than ever.”

    Imagine how well that played with people who are struggling right now.

    Meanwhile, Trump’s approval is at 36% overall and 26% among independents, according to a CNN/SSRS poll released two days ago.

  31. Worth a repost:

    Donald Trump Pledges To Halve Energy & Electricity Prices In First 12 Months Of Office

    I will cut the price of energy and electricity in half. Ready? 12 months from January 20th — I take office on January 20th — your electric bill including cars, air conditioners, heating, everything — your total electric bill will be 50 — five-oh — 50% less. We’re going to cut it in half and we have it — we have the power to do it because we have it — we don’t need ships, we don’t need long train, we have everything. We’re going to have to build some pipelines because we can’t transport it but that’s easy to do and that’s safer than trains. But we’re going to get this done and you’re going to have within one year — think of it — within one year you’re going to have electric bills and energy bills and your gasoline for your car is going to be five-oh, 50% cheaper than it is right now. That’s a big thing, that’s a big thing. but we will seriously expedite our environmental approvals. I will expedite them. If I have to I’ll just approve them and approve them because they use that, you know, they use the environmental approvals to stop progress. And quickly double our electricity capacity, and we’re going to have it doubled and tripled. This will drive down inflation and make America and Michigan the best place on Earth.

    He’s a month overdue, and household energy costs are up 5.4%.

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