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Business and personal
45th and 47th President of the United States Tenure
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During and between his terms asPresident of the United States,Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims.Fact-checkers atThe Washington Post documented 30,573false or misleading claims during his first presidential term, an average of 21 per day.[1][5][6][7] TheToronto Star tallied 5,276 false claims from January 2017 to June 2019, an average of six per day.[2] Commentators and fact-checkers have described Trump'slying as unprecedented in American politics,[13] and the consistency of falsehoods as a distinctive part ofhis business andpolitical identities.[14] Scholarly analysis ofTrump's tweets found significant evidence of an intent to deceive.[15]
Many news organizations initially resisted describing Trump's falsehoods as lies, but began to do so by June 2019.[16]The Washington Post said his frequent repetition of claims he knew to be false amounted to a campaign based ondisinformation.[17]Steve Bannon, Trump's2016 presidential campaign CEO and chief strategist during the first seven months of Trump's first presidency, said that the press, rather thanDemocrats, was Trump's primary adversary and "the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."[18][19] In February 2025, a public relations CEO stated that the "flood the zone" tactic (also known as thefirehose of falsehood) was designed to make sure no single action or event stands out above the rest by having them occur at a rapid pace, thus preventing the public from keeping up and preventing controversy or outrage over a specific action or event.[20]
As part of theirattempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Trump and his allies repeatedlyfalsely claimed there had been massive election fraud and that Trump had won the election.[7] Their effort was characterized by some as an implementation ofHitler's "big lie" propaganda technique.[21] In June 2023, a criminalgrand jury indicted Trump on one count of making "false statements and representations", specifically by hiding subpoenaed classified documents from his own attorney who was trying to find and return them to the government.[22] In August 2023, 21 of Trump's falsehoods about the 2020 election were listed inhis Washington, D.C. criminal indictment,[23] and 27 were listed inhis Georgia criminal indictment.[24] It has been suggested that Trump's false statements amount tobullshit rather than lies.[25][26][27]
Many academics and observers who study the American political scene have called Trump unique or highly unusual in his lying and its effect on political discourse. "It has long been atruism that politicians lie", wrote Carole McGranahan for theAmerican Ethnologist in 2017, but "Donald Trump is different". He is the most "accomplished and effective liar" to have ever participated in American politics; moreover, his lying has reshaped public discourse so that "the frequency, degree, and impact of lying in politics are now unprecedented".[9]
HistorianDouglas Brinkley stated that U.S. presidents have occasionally "lied or misled the country", but none were a "serial liar" like Trump.[28] Donnel Stern, writing inPsychoanalytic Dialogues in 2019, declared: "We expect politicians to stretch the truth. But Trump is a whole different animal", because Trump "lies as a policy", and "will say anything" to satisfy his supporters or himself.[29]
Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth, writing for theReuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in 2017, described how lies have "always been an integral part of politics". However, Trump was "delivering untruths on an unprecedented scale", during his campaign and presidency. Skjeseth commented that no one in French politics was comparable to Trump in his provision of falsehoods.[10]
Jeremy Adam Smith wrote that "lying is a feature, not a bug, of Trump's campaign and presidency."[30]Thomas B. Edsall wrote "Donald Trump can lay claim to the title of most prodigious liar in the history of the presidency."[30]George C. Edwards III wrote: "Donald Trump tells more untruths than any previous president. There is no one that is a close second."[30]
Trump is conscious of the value of repetition to get his lies believed. He demonstrated this knowledge when he instructedStephanie Grisham, his White House press secretary, to use his method of lying: "As long as you keep repeating something, it doesn't matter what you say."[31]
Trump effectively uses thebig lie technique's method of repetition to exploit theillusory truth effect, a tendency to believefalse information to be correct after repeated exposure.[32] Research has studied Trump's use of the effect.
New research published in Public Opinion Quarterly reveals a correlation between the number of times President Donald Trump repeated falsehoods during his presidency and misperceptions among Republicans, and that the repetition effect was stronger on the beliefs of people who consume information primarily from right-leaning news outlets.[33]
The Washington Post fact-checker created a new category of falsehoods in 2018, the "Bottomless Pinocchio", for falsehoods repeated at least twenty times (so often "that there can be no question the politician is aware his or her facts are wrong"). Trump was the only politician who met the standard of the category, with 14 statements that immediately qualified. According to thePost Trump repeated some falsehoods so many times he had effectively engaged indisinformation.[17]CNN fact-checkerDaniel Dale notes that news outlets may initially check a false claim by Trump, but are unlikely to continue pointing out that it's false, "especially because he is constantly mixing in dozens of new lies that require time and resources to address. And so, by virtue of shameless perseverance, Trump often manages to outlast most of the media's willingness to correct any particular falsehood".[34]
It has been suggested that Trump's apparent "avalanche of lies" consists ofbullshit rather than oflying as strictly defined.[26][27] According toHarry Frankfurt's influential 2005 bookOn Bullshit, the liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it, while the bullshitter does not care whether what they say is true or false.[25] Eduardo Porter writes inThe Washington Post that Frankfurt's bullshitter definition fits Trump: "To subvert the truth, you must first know it, or at least think you do. That’s not Trump’s game."[27] For example, Trump does not, in Porter's argument, have to check US unemployment or inflation statistics to assert that "we inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare", because for bullshit, the facts do not matter. On the contrary, by ignoring the facts, bullshit has the power to guide group beliefs in a politically desirable direction and thereby to shape group identities.[27] As early as 2015,Jeet Heer wrote that Trump’s propensity to bullshit is not an aberration in his party: "Over the last two decades, the GOP as a party has increasingly adopted positions that are not just politically extreme but also in defiance of facts and science".[26]
Within years of expandinghis father's property development business intoManhattan in the early 1970s, Trump attracted the attention ofThe New York Times for his brash and controversial style, with one real-estate financier observing in 1976, "His deals are dramatic, but they haven't come into being. So far, the chief beneficiary of his creativity has been his public image."Der Scutt, the prominent architect who designedTrump Tower, said in 1976, "He's extremely aggressive when he sells, maybe to the point of overselling. Like, he'll say the convention center is the biggest in the world, when it really isn't. He'll exaggerate for the purpose of making a sale."[35] A 1984GQ profile of Trump quoted him stating he owned the whole block onCentral Park South andAvenue of the Americas.GQ noted that the two buildings Trump owned were likely less than a sixth of the block.[36]
The New York state attorney general,Letitia James, opened a civil investigation into Trump's business practices, especially regarding inflated property values.[37] She joined theManhattan district attorney's office in acriminal investigation into possible property tax fraud by theTrump Organization.[38]
In 1984, Trumpposed as his own spokesman John Barron and made false assertions of his wealth to secure a higher ranking on theForbes 400 list of wealthy Americans, including by claiming he owned over 90% of his family's business. Audio recordings of these claims were released in 2018 by journalist Jonathan Greenberg.[39]
Following theOctober 1987 stock market crash, Trump claimed to the press that he had taken no losses and sold all his stock a month before. Per SEC filings he owned large stakes in some companies during the crash.Forbes calculated that Trump had lost at least $19 million related to Resorts International stock,[40][better source needed][41] while journalistGwenda Blair noted $22 million from stock in theAlexander's department store chain.[42]
Challenging estimates of his net worth he considered too low, in 1989 Trump said he had very little debt.[43] Reuters reported Trump owed $4 billion (~$8.46 billion in 2024) to more than 70 banks at the beginning of 1990.[44] In 1997, Ben Berzin Jr., who had been tasked with recovering some of the $100 million (~$181 million in 2024) his bank had lent Trump, said "During the time that I dealt with Mr. Trump, I was continually surprised by his mastery of situational ethics. He does not seem to be able to differentiate between fact and fiction."[45]
A 1998New York Observer article reported thatJerry Nadler "flatly calls Mr. Trump a 'liar'", quoting Nadler stating, "Trump got $6 million [in federal money] in the dead of night when no one knew anything about it" by slipping a provision into a $200 billion federal transportation bill.[46] During a 2005 deposition in a defamation lawsuit he initiated about his worth, Trump said: "My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings ... and that can change rapidly from day to day".[47]
David Fahrenthold investigated Trump's claims about hischaritable giving and found little evidence the claims are true.[48][49] Following Fahrenthold's reporting, theAttorney General of New York opened an inquiry into theDonald J. Trump Foundation's fundraising practices, and issued a "notice of violation" ordering the Foundation to stop raising money in New York.[50] The Foundation had to admit it engaged inself-dealing practices to benefit Trump, his family, and businesses.[51]
In 1983, when Trump was forming a business relationship with theNew Jersey Generals football team, he spoke about the team at a public forum. "He promised the signing of superstar players he would never sign. He announced the hiring of immortal coaches he would never hire. He scheduled a news conference the next day to confirm all of it, and the next day never came", CNN reporterKeith Olbermann recalled in 2021. Following the forum, Trump approached Olbermann and, rather than waiting for questions, began speaking into Olbermann's microphone about "an entirelydifferent set of coaches and players than he had from the podium."[52]
In 1987, during testimony regarding an antitrust case between theUnited States Football League (USFL) and theNational Football League (NFL), Trump stated that he had had a meeting withNFL commissionerPete Rozelle years earlier where Rozelle offered him an NFL franchise in exchange for keeping the USFL a spring-time league and not initiating a lawsuit with the NFL.[53][54] Rozelle denied having made this offer and stated he was opposed to Trump becoming an NFL team owner, with a person present at the meeting between the two stating that Rozelle told Trump, "As long as I or my heirs are involved in the NFL, you will never be a franchise owner in the league".[55][56]
In 1996, Trump claimed he wagered $1 million (~$1.84 million in 2024) on 20-to-1 odds boxing match betweenEvander Holyfield andMike Tyson. TheLas Vegas Sun reported that "while everyone is careful not to call Trump a liar", no one in a position to know about such a sizable wager was aware of it.[57]
In a 2004 book,The Games Do Count: America's Best and Brightest on the Power of Sports, Trump claimed to have hit "the winning home run" when his school played Cornwall High School in 1964, garnering a headline "Trump Homers to Win the Game" in a local newspaper. Years later, a journalist discovered that Trump's high school did not play Cornwall that year, nor did any such local headline surface. A classmate recalled a separate incident in high school in which Trump had hit "a blooper the fielders misplayed", sending the ball "just over the third baseman's head", yet Trump insisted to him: "I want you to remember this: I hit the ball out of the ballpark!"[58]
After purchasing theTrump National Golf Club in 2009, Trump erectedThe River of Blood monument between the 14th hole and 15th tee with a plaque describing the blood ofCivil War casualties that turned the river red. No such event ever took place at this site.[59] One local historian, Craig Swain, cited the killing of two soldiers by citizens in 1861 as the only Civil War event that occurred on the island.[60]
Two years later, on June 27–28, 1863, GeneralJ. E. B. Stuart led 4,500 Confederate soldiers north across the Potomac at Rowser's Ford from the Lowes Island area, on the ride toGettysburg, but no fatalities were recorded.[61]
According to the president of theVirginia Piedmont Heritage Area Association, the only Civil War battle in the area was theBattle of Ball's Bluff, 11 miles (18 km) upriver.[citation needed] Other historians consulted byThe New York Times for a story in 2015 agreed; one of them had written to the Trump Organization about the falsehood. Trump himself disputed the historians' statements:
That was a prime site for river crossings. So, if people are crossing the river, and you happen to be in a civil war, I would say that people were shot – a lot of them. "How would they know that?" Mr. Trump asked when told that local historians had called his plaque a fiction. "Were they there?"[62]
Trump said that "numerous historians" had told him the story of the River of Blood, though he later changed that to say the historians had spoken to "my people". Finally he said, "Write your story the way you want to write it. You don't have to talk to anybody. It doesn't make any difference. But many people were shot. It makes sense."[63]
The story broke whileDonald Trump's presidential campaign was in full swing, and journalistRob Crilly noted that at that time he "has had more weighty facts to clarify, such as his claim that Muslims in New Jersey cheered on the day of the9/11 attacks – an old rumour that has long been discredited[64][65] – and his latest boast, that he watched people jumping to their deaths from the Twin Towers from his Manhattan flat, four miles [6 km] away".[66] According to Jack Holmes ofEsquire magazine, the ahistorical marker is symptomatic of the Trump administration; Jack Holmes points at other historical blunders made by members of the Trump administration, includingKellyanne Conway's reference to the non-existentBowling Green massacre andSean Spicer'sclaim that even Hitler had not used chemical weapons in conventional warfare, althoughZyklon-B was used to exterminate prisoners inthe Holocaust.[67]
Trump has repeatedly claimed he is an 18-time club championship winner at several clubs, none of which can be positively confirmed, and 16 of which were not official or all-member club championships. All these wins have been recorded at golf clubs owned or managed byThe Trump Organization. Professional and amateur golfers, such asBuddy Marucci, have claimed that Trump would threaten to revoke the membership of anyone who won against him, thus allowing him to win club championships with little competition. Trump has claimed to have won theTrump International Golf Club West Palm Beach Club Championship in 1999, before the club was officially opened to membership,[68] and the 2023 Senior Club Championship at the same course, despite not being present for the first day.[69]
In 1973,The New York Times ran its first profile of Trump, stating he had "graduated first in his class from the Wharton School of Finance" five years earlier.[70] However, in 1984,The New York Times Magazine noted that "the commencement program from 1968 does not list him as graduating with honors of any kind."[71]
After three Trump casino executives died in a 1989 helicopter crash, Trump claimed that he, too, had nearly boarded the helicopter. The claim was denied 30 years later by a former vice president of the Trump Organization.[72]
Promoting hisTrump University after its formation in 2004, Trump asserted he would handpick all its instructors. Michael Sexton, former president of the venture, stated in a 2012 deposition that Trump selected none.[73]
During a 2018 interview, television personalityBilly Bush recounted a conversation he had had with Trump, in which he refuted Trump's repeated false claims thatThe Apprentice was the top-rated television program in America. Bush recalled Trump responding, "Billy, look, you just tell them and they believe it. That's it: you just tell them and they believe. They just do."[74]
Alair Townsend, a former budget director and deputy mayor of New York during the 1980s, and a former publisher ofCrain's New York Business, said "I wouldn't believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized."[40][better source needed]Leona Helmsley later used this line as her own when she spoke about Trump in her 1990 interview inPlayboy magazine.[75]
Trump often appeared in New York tabloid newspapers. Recalling her career withNew York Post'sPage Six column, Susan Mulcahy toldVanity Fair in 2004, "I wrote about him a certain amount, but I actually would sit back and be amazed at how often people would write about him in a completely gullible way. He was a great character, but he was full of crap 90 percent of the time." (Trump told the magazine, "I agree with her 100 percent.")[76][77] Barbara Res, a former Trump Organization vice president who worked for Trump from 1978 until 1998, said "he would tell the staff his ridiculous lies, and after a while, no one believed a single word he would say".[78]
Tony Schwartz is a journalist whoghostwroteTrump: The Art of the Deal.[79] In July 2016, Schwartz was interviewed byJane Mayer for articles inThe New Yorker.[80][79] He described Trump highly unfavorably, and described how he came to regret writingThe Art of the Deal.[80][79][81] When Schwartz wrote it, he created the phrase "truthful hyperbole", as an "artful euphemism" to describe Trump's "loose relationship with the truth".[79] This passage provides context, written in Trump's voice: "I play to people's fantasies ... People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration—and it's a very effective form of promotion".[82] He said Trump "loved the phrase".[79][83]
Schwartz said "deceit" is never "innocent". He also said, "'Truthful hyperbole' is a contradiction in terms. It's a way of saying, 'It's a lie, but who cares?'"[79] Schwartz repeated his criticism onGood Morning America andReal Time with Bill Maher, saying he "put lipstick on a pig".[84]
Schwartz described Trump's lying:[79]
'Lying is second nature to him,' Schwartz said. 'More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.'
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Fearing thatanti-German sentiments during and after World War II would negatively affect his business, Trump's father,Fred Trump, began claiming Swedish descent.[85][86][87] Both parents of Fred Trump were born and raised inKallstadt,Kingdom of Bavaria, now part of Germany. The falsehood was repeated by Donald to the press[35][88] and inThe Art of the Deal,[89][90][87] where he claimed his grandfather,Friedrich Trump, "came here from Sweden as a child".[91] In the same book, Donald said his father was born in New Jersey.[79][92] When asked during his presidency why he upheld the false narrative about his father being Swedish, Trump said, "My father spent a lot of time [in Sweden]. But it was never really something really discussed very much."[93] As president, Trump on at least three occasions claimed his father was born in Germany.[94] Trump's father is of German descent but was born inthe Bronx.[87] In one case Trump said his father was "born in a very wonderful place in Germany",[95] and another time stated, "I was raised by the biggestkraut of them all",[96] invoking an ethnic slur for a German.[97]The Guardian pointed out the irony of Trump supporting the "birtherism" conspiracy theory assertingBarack Obama was born in Africa.[98]
Biographers, associates and fact-checkers have cast doubt on the book's version of events. To those with detailed knowledge of the projects, the singular hero of the book appeared instead as a fictional composite of the many power-brokers, doers and domain experts who actually made things happen. This omniscient persona faced exaggerated odds and won overstated profits. As biographer Gwenda Blair wrote in 2000, "InThe Art of the Deal, [Trump] claims that business deals are what distinguish him ... but his most original creation is the continuous self-inflation."[99] Still, those tracing out Trump's life could not discern the more limited reality all at once. Speaking 20 years later, Blair bemoaned her failure, as a biographer, to have "understood how fabricated [the book] was ... how that founding myth was so riddled with at best exaggeration."[100]
Chapter four, "The Cincinnati Kid", tells the story of Trump's "first big deal".[101] According to the book, Trump came up with the idea of buying Swifton Village, a struggling apartment complex in Cincinnati. He partnered with his fatherFred to turn Swifton around; then, just as the neighborhood headed irretrievably downhill, tricked a buyer into overpaying: "The price was $12 million—or approximately a $6 million profit for us. It was a huge return on a short-term investment."[102] Roy Knight, part of the Village's maintenance crew, told reporters that the project was actually Fred Trump's "baby";[103] biographers generally agree. Donald was cloistered atNew York Military Academy when his father boarded a plane to Ohio and won the property at auction. He attended college while Fred turned things around.[104] The younger Trump did visit on occasion, but only to do "yardwork and cleaning".[105] Finally, the sale price was $6.75 million, $1 million more than the purchase price, representing little if any profit after eight years of expenses (estimated at $500,000) and interest.[106][107]
Chapter six, "Grand Hyatt", tells the story of Trump's true first big deal. Without it, the book opined, "I'd probably be back in Brooklyn today, collecting rents."[108] In his 1992 biography of Trump, journalistWayne Barrett, who had covered the project in detail, took issue with many of the book's claims. In particular, he noted the absence of nearly all the key players—from New York governorHugh Carey, a longtimeTrump family associate, to city planners betting their careers on the novel private-public partnership, toLouise Sunshine, Carey's former chief fundraiser. "InThe Art of the Deal," Barrett wrote, "it was as if Donald walked out onstage alone."[109]
Chapter seven, "Trump Tower," opens with a fully hatched plan. "In order to put up the building I had in mind, I was going to have to assemble several ... adjacent pieces—and then seek numerous zoning variances."[110]George Ross, one of Trump's lawyers on the project and later his lieutenant onThe Apprentice, seasons 1–5, recalled the process differently. Where Trump depicted himself expertly poring over his "air-rights contract" and "discover[ing] an unexpected bonus,"[111] Ross wrote: "I enlightened Donald about the zoning laws that permitted one owner to sell and transfer unused building rights (commonly called air rights)."[112] One key step involved the adjacentTiffany's store. "Unfortunately, I didn't know anyone at Tiffany," Trump wrote, "and the owner, Walter Hoving, was known not only as a legendary retailer but also as a difficult, demanding, mercurial guy."[113] Trump claimed that hecold-called Hoving and tricked him into a one-sided deal. Per Ross, however, the transaction was aboveboard and owed entirely to Fred Trump's business connections: "Donald's father and Walter Hoving had done some business together and Donald's father suggested to Donald that he could work out a fair deal with Hoving in a short period of time."[114]
Based onTrump's tax returns between 1985 and 1994 which showed a loss greater than "nearly any other individual American taxpayer" during that period,[115] co-author Schwartz suggested that the book might be "recategorized as fiction".[116]
On September 11, after at least one of the World Trade Center towers was destroyed, Trump said in an interview withWWOR-TV in New York: "40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest—and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest, and now it's the tallest."[117] Oncethe Twin Towers had collapsed, the 71-story Trump Building at 40 Wall Street became the second-tallest building in Lower Manhattan, 25 feet (7.6 m) shorter than the building at70 Pine Street.[118] Two days after the attack, Trump stood nearGround Zero and told a television station he was paying two hundred of his employees to come "find and identify victims". No record of such work has ever been found. In 2023, he reposted the claim onTruth Social.[119]
At a rally inColumbus, Ohio, in 2015, Trump said "I have a view—a view in my apartment that was specifically aimed at the World Trade Center." He added "and I watched those people jump and I watched the second plane hit ... I saw the second plane hit the building and I said, 'Wow that's unbelievable.'" At the time of the attack, Trump lived in Trump Tower more than four miles (6 km) away from the World Trade Center towers. His campaign did not respond to inquiries about how it was possible for him to see people jumping from that far away.[120]
In another rally in 2015, Trump claimed seeing "thousands and thousands" ofArab Americans inNew Jersey cheering during thecollapse of the World Trade Center. News organizations like theAssociated Press (AP),The Washington Post, andThe Star-Ledger reported rumors of 9/11 celebrations in New Jersey, but they were found to be unfounded, unsourced, or finding that people were memorializing the event. Nobody else was known to remember seeing masses of thousands of people celebrating after 9/11. Furthermore, Trump would not have been able to clearly see people cheering in New Jersey from his residence.[121]
History will never forget that it was theSEALs who stormed thecompound at [sic]Osama bin Laden and put a bullet in his head. Remember that. And please remember I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago, one year before he blew up theWorld Trade Center. And I said, ‘You got to watch Osama bin Laden.’ I said one year before toPete Hegseth. I said one year before. Where’s Pete? In the book Iwrote—whatever the hell the title, I can’t tell you. But I can tell you there’s a page in there devoted to the fact that I saw somebody named Osama bin Laden, and I didn’t like it, and you got to take care of him. They didn’t do it. A year later, he blew up the World Trade Center.
During his 2016 campaign, Trump falsely claimed to have predicted the attacks in his 2000 bookThe America We Deserve (ghostwritten by Dave Shiflett), thatOsama bin Laden was not well known when the book was published, and that it called for the U.S. to "take him out".[124] The book does contain two separate passages that mention bin Laden (who had been on theFBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since June 7, 1999)[125][126] and suggest an incident worse than the1993 World Trade Center bombing may occur, but it does not call for the preemptive killing of bin Laden nor suggest he would be the one to orchestrate such an event if not killed.[123] The ghostwriter, Shiflett, has calledThe America We Deserve "[his] first work offiction".[127]
During his second presidency on October 5, 2025, Trump reiterated the falsehood at an event inNorfolk, Virginia celebrating the upcoming 250th anniversary of theUS Navy's founding (October 13). Bringing up the 2011killing of Osama bin Laden under theObama administration, Trump subsequently claimed to have warned his incumbent Secretary of DefensePete Hegseth of bin Laden's activity before theSeptember 11th attacks in 2000 (or erroneously in 2024).[122][128] In 2000, 19-year-old Hegseth enrolled atPrinceton University,[129] most likely never meeting Trump during his enrollment. Hegseth would not become theUnited States Secretary of Defense until January 25, 2025 at age 44,[130] over two decades after the attack and less than ten months before Trump made this version of the false claim.[123]
Trump promoted conspiracy theories that have lacked empirical support. These have included "birther" theories that Barack Obama was not born in the US.[131][132][133] In 2011, Trump took credit for the release of Obama's "long-form" birth certificate, while raising doubt about its legitimacy,[134] and in 2016 admitted that Obama was anatural-born citizen from Hawaii.[135] He then falsely stated thatHillary Clinton started the conspiracy theories.[135][136][137]
In 2015,Boing Boing reproduced newspaper articles from 1927 reporting that Trump's father had been arrested at aKu Klux Klan march and been discharged.[138] Multiple articles on the incident list Fred Trump's address inJamaica, Queens,[139] as do the1930 census[140] and a 1936 wedding announcement.[141] Trump admitted toThe New York Times that the address was "where my grandmother lived and my father, early on." When asked about the 1927 story, he denied his father had ever lived at that address and said the arrest "never happened", and "There was nobody charged."[142]
Within six months of Trump's announcement ofhis presidential campaign,FactCheck.org declared Trump the "King of Whoppers", stating, "In the 12 years of FactCheck.org's existence, we've never seen his match. He stands out not only for the sheer number of his factually false claims, but also for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong."[143] In 2016, Trump suggested thatTed Cruz's father was involved in theassassination of John F. Kennedy.[144] He also accused Cruz of stealing theIowa caucuses during the2016 Republican Party presidential primaries.[145]
Trump claimed that his father had given him "a small loan of a million dollars", which he used to build "a company that's worth more than $10 billion",[146] denyingMarco Rubio's allegation that he had inherited $200 million.[147] A 2018New York Times exposé on Fred and Donald Trump's finances concludes that Donald "was a millionaire by age 8", and that he had received $413 million (adjusted for inflation) from his father's business empire over his lifetime, including over $60 million ($140 million in 2018 currency) in loans, which were largely unreimbursed.[148]
Trump claimed repeatedly on the campaign trail in 2015 that the actual unemployment rate of around 5% "isn't reflective [of reality] ... I've seen numbers of 24%, I actually saw a number of 42% unemployment".PolitiFact rated this claim "Pants on Fire", its rating for the most egregious falsehoods.[149] Jeremy Adam Smith, writing for theGreater Good Magazine, said Trump's falsehoods may be "blue lies", which are "told on behalf of a group, that can actually strengthen the bonds among the members of that group". As a result, he posited, Trump's dishonesty does not lose the support of his political base, even while it "infuriates and confuses almost everyone else".[150][151]
In 2015,BuzzFeed News's Andrew Kaczynski reported that Trump, despite having claimed to have the best memory in the world, had a history of "conveniently forgetting" people or organizations in ways that benefit him. In July 2016, PolitiFact's Linda Qiu pointed out that Trump "seems to suffer bouts ofamnesia when it comes to his own statements". Kaczynski and Qiu cited examples of Trump's stating he did not know anything about former Ku Klux Klan leaderDavid Duke, despite statements showing he clearly knew who Duke was.[152][153] Over three months before the2016 presidential election, Trump claimed it was going to be "rigged".[154]
In 2016, Trump said repeatedly that he would jail Hillary Clinton. In an interview withWill Cain on Fox & Friends Weekend in June 2024, he denied ever having said so. He blamed his supporters for chanting that message: "I didn't say 'lock her up,' but the people said 'lock her up, lock her up'." He suggested he "could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing."[155][156] On June 4, he called intoNewsmax, claiming he always believed it would have been "terrible to throw the president's wife and the former secretary of state ... into jail", yet this time adding the threat: "It's very possible that it's going to have to happen to them."[157]
Throughout his campaign and into his presidency, Trump repeatedly claimed the US would "build the wall and make Mexico pay for it".President of MexicoEnrique Peña Nieto said his country would not pay, and never did.[158][159] While not unusual for acampaign promise to not pan out, Trump's insistence Mexico would pay was a central element of his campaign and continued for years. At the 2020Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump reiterated saying, "Mexico is paying for it and it's every bit—it's better than the wall that was projected."[160]
During the 2024 presidential campaign, the unlikelihood of some of Trump's falsehoods—for example, thatimages of Harris's campaign crowds were generated by AI; that in Springfield, Ohio,illegal immigrants were eating neighbors' pets; or thatschoolchildren were receiving surgery to change their gender—and the incoherence of his answers and unscripted addresses[161] drew attention from experts and the media, who questioned Trump's mental state and fitness to serve.[162]
On September 5, 2024, Trump addressed theEconomic Club of New York, where he was asked, "If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation would you advance?" A commentator fromThe Independent characterized Trump's two-minute, 362-word tariff-centered response as "word salad",[163] and a CNN commentator remarked that it "could accurately be described as a ramble without an answer".[164] Several news media reports about the event did not mention or comment on that answer,[165][166][167] includingThe New York Times.[168]
That kind of characterization (or lack thereof), plus previous occasions in which the media interpreted Trump's answers instead of transcribing (and fact-checking) them, has been denounced as "sanewashing."[169]
On September 12, 2024, thePoynter Institute defined "sanewashing" as "the act of packaging radical and outrageous statements in a way that makes them seem normal", and proposed ways to avoid doing it.[170] On October 6, 2024,The New York Times published an article reviewing Trump's public statements. A computer analysis found out that Trump's speeches last longer, and include more all-or-nothing, negative, and curse terms, all of which point at cognitive changes since 2015. The analysis found that the complexity of Trump's speeches remained relatively steady in recent years, at a fourth-grade level (equivalent to a nine- or ten-year-old child). The article presents testimonies of former collaborators and acquaintances, plus comparisons of his present addresses with recordings from years earlier, "clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor." The article notes that the Trump campaign has refused to release his medical records, and ends with a quote of his from a rally: "Trump is never wrong. I am never, ever wrong."[171][172] On October 15,The Washington Post noted that recent polls showed that Trump's age and mental acuity were of increasing concern for voters, though it is not clear whether the same applies to swing voters.[173]
After theelection,mainstream media continued to be criticized and accused of sanewashing Trump's most controversial statements.[174]
Analysts have noted Trump's frequent use of a time limit of "two weeks" for taking action, a deadline which does usually not come to fruition.[175] He has used such a time period in statements aboutUkraine and Russia,[176][177] Iran,[178] andtariffs.[179] The habit has been observed since Trump's first term,[180][181] and has originated video compilations of the phrase, pronounced in multiple circumstances.[182][183][184]
Jen Psaki criticised "a number of the nation's largest newspapers" for having taken "the words of the Trump administration at face value and spit them right back out to the American public without context, without much of anything", because "'I'll get to it in two weeks' is one of Donald Trump's absolute favorite tactics. He literally uses it all the time (...) And honestly, it's a bit maddening that this tactic can still spark headlines."[185][186]Sam Stein ofThe Bulwark noted that the "two weeks" time frame is also incorporated in some of Trump's executive orders, in which he gave states and agencies 14 days to "get things done."[187]
This tendency of Trump to set "two weeks" deadlines and not fulfill them led the media to link the phrase to theTACO acronym.[188]
Trump's use of "two weeks" in the days leading up to thestrikes on Iran was characterized by retired Brigadier GeneralJohn Teichert as the President being "very intentional about being ambiguous".[189]The Atlantic called it a "smoke screen",[190] andJonathan Lemire characterized it as a "deliberatefeint."[191]
TheHindustan Times noted that in 2002 Trump had appeared in a movie calledTwo Weeks Notice.[192]
A June 2019Gallup poll found that 34% of American adults think Trump "is honest and trustworthy".[194]
A March 2020Kaiser Family Foundation poll estimated that 19% of Democrats and 88% of Republicans trusted Trump to provide reliable information on COVID-19.[195]
A May 2020 SRSS poll forCNN concluded that 36% of people in the U.S. trusted Trump on information about the COVID-19 outbreak: 4% of Democrats compared to 84% of Republicans.[196]
In April 2022, Trump stated at a rally inSelma, North Carolina: "I think I'm the most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created", prompting laughter from the crowd.[197]
In two 2023 polls, Trump was thought to be "honest" by 29% of respondents (March 2023; a low since Quinnipiac University first asked this question of registered voters in November 2016)[198] and 36% of respondents (November 2023; George Washington University Politics Poll).[199]
In a September 2024 Associated Press/NORC at the University of Chicago survey, a majority (57%) of Americans believed that claims from Trump and his campaign are "rarely" or "never" based on facts.[200][201]
It has long been a truism that politicians lie, but with the entry of Donald Trump into the U.S. political domain, the frequency, degree, and impact of lying in politics are now unprecedented [...] Donald Trump is different. By all metrics and counting schemes, his lies are off the charts. We simply have not seen such an accomplished and effective liar before in U.S. politics.
... a president who is delivering untruths on an unprecedented scale. Mr Trump did this both while running for president, and he has continued to do so in office. There is no precedent for this amount of untruths in the US
Analyzing Trump's tweets with a regression function designed to predict true and false claims based on their language and composition, it finds significant evidence of intent underlying most of Trump's false claims, and makes the case for calling them lies when that outcome agrees with the results of traditional fact-checking procedures.
Its leaders shamelessly propagated former President Donald Trump's 'Big Lie'
'We've had presidents that have lied or misled the country, but we've never had a serial liar before. And that's what we're dealing with here,' saidDouglas Brinkley, the prominent Rice University presidential historian.
Donald Trump lies so often that some have wondered whether he haspoisoned the well [...] We expect politicians to stretch the truth. But Trump is a whole different animal. He lies as a policy.
A hallmark of the Trump presidency was a stream of false statements, many of which were repeated dozens or even hundreds of times. But whether (and to what extent) this repetition translates into public misperceptions remains an open question. We address this question by leveraging the most comprehensive data on Trump's repetition of misleading claims during his presidency. In a national survey asking Americans to evaluate the truth of claims from this database, we find a clear partisan asymmetry. An increase in the number of repetitions of a falsehood corresponded with increased belief among Republicans but decreased belief among Democrats. We also find an important moderating role of media consumption. The effects of repetition were larger when people consumed more right-leaning cable news and when falsehoods were mostly repeated on Twitter. We discuss implications of these findings for misinformation research.
How would they know that? Were they there?
'40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest—and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest,' Trump said in the WWOR interview. 'And now it's the tallest.'
In actuality, once the Twin Towers were decimated, the 71-story Trump Building at 40 Wall Street was the second-tallest building still standing in Lower Manhattan, according to the Washington Post. It was 25 feet shorter than the building at 70 Pine Street.
I used to think it was my first work of fiction," Shiflett said of the book he ghostwrote for Trump back in 2000. "Who knows where he stands on anything.
Fred Trump of 175-24 Devonshire Road, Jamaica, was discharged.
But so now they like to say, "All right, so he's building the wall, but Mexico is not paying for it." Yes, they are, actually. You know what I mean, right? They are paying for it. They're paying for it. Oh, they're going to die when I put in this—what we're going to do. But, no, they're paying for it. And they're okay with it because they understand that's fair. But, no, Mexico is paying for it and it's every bit—it's better than the wall that was projected. We're doing it at a higher level. We have so many gadgets on that wall, you wouldn't even believe it. Sensors. We have things.
Excerpts from his speeches do not do justice to Trump's smorgasbord of vendettas, non sequiturs and comparisons to famous people
Donald Trump gave a particularly incoherent speech during a recent rally, as he rattled through a lengthy list of odd grievances that didn't quite ring true, devoid of some very necessary segues. [Includes video]
For too long, Trump has gotten away with pretending that his emotional issues are just part of some offbeat New York charm or an expression of his enthusiasm for public performance. But Trump is obviously unfit—and something is profoundly wrong with a political environment in which he can now say almost anything, no matter how weird, and his comments will get a couple of days of coverage and then a shrug, as if to say: Another day, another Trump rant about sharks.
Why it matters: Trump's bombastic speeches have always mixed anger, falsehoods, conspiracy theories and vague, sweeping plans. But recently he's gone deeper into bizarre tales and vulgarities.
The town hall, moderated by South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), began with questions from preselected attendees for the former president. Donald Trump offered meandering answers on how he would address housing affordability and help small businesses. But it took a sudden turn after two attendees required medical attention. (...) For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.
He played nine tracks. He danced. He shook hands with people onstage. He pointed to the crowd. Noem stood beside him, nodding with her hands clasped. Trump stayed in place onstage, slowly moving back and forth. He was done answering questions for the night.
"Total lovefest at the PA townhall! Everyone was so excited they were fainting so @realDonaldTrump turned to music," campaign spokesman Steven Cheung wrote on X. "Nobody wanted to leave and wanted to hear more songs from the famous DJT Spotify playlist!" [Includes video]
(...) This shifting from topic to topic, with few connections—a pattern of speech called tangentiality—is one of several disjointed and occasionally incoherent verbal habits that seem to have increased in Trump's speech in recent years, according to interviews with experts in memory, psychology, and linguistics.
Former President Donald Trump's speaking style may reveal signs of cognitive decline, according to psychological experts.
An analysis by STAT—a media organization focusing on health —found that Trump's common pattern of speech called tangentiality—jumping from topic to topic with few if any connections in between—is just one of a number of incoherent speaking habits that appears to have worsened in the last few years.
The process of removing Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate can't exactly be said to have worked well, but it worked. And now it's time for Americans to turn the same self-regulatory instincts to Biden's 78-year-old former rival. Trump's campaign is already falling apart—most recently with the shameful attempt to use a ceremony at Arlington Cemetery as an electioneering platform. But there are deeper reasons to inspect Trump's political credibility now. Because cognitively speaking, Trump is beginning to make Biden look like Oscar Wilde.
Linguist John McWhorter speaks with Steve Inskeep about Donald Trump's "weaving" style of speech. [Interview with transcription] (...) MCWHORTER: (Laughter) No. I mean, what he's describing does sound rather deft, as if he's just juggling a whole bunch of things because perhaps he's such a fertile mind. But really, what happens is he thinks of a second, and that makes him think of a third. Then he has to make some off-handed remark. And then usually, he then jumps rather parenthetically back to the first thing. That's not weaving. That's rambling, the verbal equivalent of somebody being extremely drunk.
Just to be clear: Although I am a psychiatrist, I am not offering any specific medical diagnoses for any public figure. I have never met or examined either candidate. But I watched the debate with particular attention to the candidates' vocabulary, verbal and logical coherence, and ability to adapt to new topics—all signs of a healthy brain. Although Kamala Harris certainly exhibited some rigidity and repetition, her speech remained within the normal realm for politicians, who have a reputation for harping on their favorite talking points. By contrast, Donald Trump's expressions of those tendencies were alarming. He displayed some striking, if familiar, patterns that are commonly seen among people in cognitive decline.
The Republican nominee gave a two-minute, 362-word response [Includes video]
His response to the child care question, the subject of some ribbing by his political opponents, could accurately be described as a ramble without an answer. It's worth looking closer at an issue that affects so many Americans.
Former President Trump on Thursday outlined his economic agenda if he is elected in November, doubling down on many of the policies that he leaned on during his first four years in office and vowing to undo numerous Biden administration moves.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump laid out his economic vision for the country on Thursday during a speech at the New York Economic Club.
Trump was asked at his appearance before the Economic Club of New York about his plans to drive down child care costs to help more women join the workforce.
"Child care is child care, it's something you have to have in this country. You have to have it," he said. Then, he said his plans to tax imports from foreign nations at higher levels would "take care" of such problems.
"We're going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it's—relatively speaking—not very expensive, compared to the kind of numbers we'll be taking in," he said.
His solution for the deficit? Tariffs. The crisis for middle-class families struggling with child care? The economic growth he said would be spurred by things like tariffs. A complicated international supply chain that has the wings of military aircraft manufactured in one country and the tail in another? Tariffs.
(...) This "sanewashing" of Trump's statements isn't just poor journalism; it's a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump's incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
There's a hot new term doing the rounds among media critics: "sanewashing." The term itself actually isn't new, and it wasn't born in media-criticism circles, per se; according to Urban Dictionary, it was coined in 2020 on a Reddit page for neoliberals (which Linda Kinstler wrote about recently for CJR), and meant "attempting to downplay a person or idea's radicality to make it more palatable to the general public." (It was deployed in discussions around, for example, "defunding the police.") Recently, though, various observers have applied the term to media coverage of Donald Trump.Aaron Rupar, a journalist who is very active on X, has been credited with coining "sanewashing" in this specific context, but the term appeared to really blow up last week, after Parker Molloy wrote a column about it in The New Republic. (She expanded on the idea as a guest on the podcast Some More News.) The word has since been picked up by media bigwigs includingPaul Krugman andRachel Maddow, and appeared in outlets from Ireland to India.
Backstory on how "sanewashing" became 2024′s word of the year.
Maybe it was when the New York Times wrote a straight-faced story about housing policy in the presidential race that treated Donald Trump's authoritarian scheme for the mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants as a plan to lower rents. Or when multiple outlets failed to make any kind of big deal about the GOP nominee's utterly bat-guano crazy assertion that kids are going to school and getting gender-reassignment operations there, without their parents knowing about it. It probably peaked with Trump's lengthy and totally incoherent answer to a question about his child-care policy—"Child care is child care!" he blurted out at one point—which was initially characterized by the Times as, "Trump Praises Tariffs, and William McKinley, to Power Brokers."
There's a word for this. "Sanewashing."
After economists explained Trump's tariff ideas would raise inflation and cost families thousands annually, Trump's allies began claiming it has always been a bluff.
(...) Trump, naturally, has a different take: He calls his rhetorical style "the weave," Margaret Hartmann said at New York magazine. "I'll talk about like nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together," he said last month at a Pennsylvania rally, "and it's like, friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, 'It's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.'" (...) Trump's campaign insists his speaking style is proof of rhetorical mastery. "Unlike Kamala Harris," a campaign spokesperson told The New York Times, "President Trump speaks for hours, telling multiple impressive stories at the same time." But the former president has gotten defensive about how his remarks are reported. "The fake news, you know what they say? 'He rambled.'" Trump said this month. "That's not rambling." The skeptics remain. "He is trying to pretend there is a strategy or logic behind it," said one biographer, "when there isn't."
There's been a lot of chatter about how the press—maybe deliberately and maybe inadvertently—makes Trump sound more coherent and normal. The clever word to describe this: sanewashing. Like greenwashing (taking superficial actions in the name of helping the environment), or sportswashing (using sporting events to burnish one's reputation and gloss over corruption or human rights abuses), sanewashing is the act of packaging radical and outrageous statements in a way that makes them seem normal.
Critics accuse many in journalism of doing just that.
With the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president's speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years. [Includes short videos]
[Interview with Peter Baker about his article]
How concerned are Americans about Trump's mental faculties?
The answer appears to be: increasingly concerned, and large numbers of people have long doubted his stability. But it's not clear that swing voters are overly concerned, and Trump's numbers in that realm are nowhere close to Biden's.
Let's take that first part. Few polls have regularly tested views of Trump's age and mental faculties. But the ones that do have shown a modest but steady erosion for Trump on those measures. [Pollers: Reuters/Ipsos, Pew Research Center, Marquette University Law School (Wisconsin), Marquette's national polling.] (...) That gets at the potential danger for Trump. He benefits in some respects because people have come to expect the bizarre from him. But we've also seen how his chaotic style — including after the 2020 election — can give people real pause. He's more popular today than he was during his presidency, but casual voters are starting to see more of him and consuming more of his strange behavior.
That has not generally been a recipe for his success; it's why Harris's campaign has repeatedly urged people to watch Trump's rallies and is now playing his remarks on big screens at her rallies. (...)
The bubble of conservative-oriented media has distorted what many people even believe is fair news coverage and increased the amount of misinformation and disinformation in the public space. But I think one of the biggest problems facing mainstream news outlets now is the belief among nonconservative consumers that coverage of this election cycle let them down by "sanewashing" and normalizing Trump's excesses. Traditional journalists who have already lost the confidence of conservative consumers are now facing diminishing trust from the news consumers who are left, which is not a great combination.
As I wrote earlier this year, the debate as to how the press ought to handle such rhetoric has gone back and forth for so long because, in part, there isn't a satisfying answer: filter audiences' exposure to Trump, and they don't see what he's really like (enter sanewashing); do the opposite, and you hand him a free platform to mislead and antagonize.
It wasn't just Morning Edition sanewashing Trump's picks atNPR. In a piece (NPR.org, 11/15/24) about Trump's selection of RFK Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, NPR's headline and opening framed the anti-science conspiracy theorist as just a guy who "Wants to 'Make America Healthy Again,'" but who "Could Face a Lot of Pushback."
(...) it's starting again: Major media figures insisting Trump's not going to do what he claims, letting him off from being a madman who's capable of almost anything. (I don't know why I added "almost.") Some analyses of the 2024 election posit that Americans just didn't believe he is that crazy, or dangerous, because of this media "sanewashing." Many such voters chose Trump, or decided to stay home on Election Day.
How can 'Trump the populist' present himself as the people's president with so little to his credit? He lacks the military accolades of Caesar, magnanimity of F.D.R or youthfulness of Kennedy. The crux of this is found in the dreaded, so-called 'mainstream media', that we hear so much about. Centre-left media has been accused of 'sanewashing' Trump; they arguably present his claims as more credible than they really are, or at least cherry-pick the most coherent content within them.
By now, most observers are probably familiar with how the game is played: The Republican is asked for his position on an issue; he dodges the question by saying he'll make an announcement "in two weeks"; and then he waits for everyone to forget about his self-imposed deadline.
(...) But critics said that in the five months since returning to office, Trump has issued a range of deadlines - including to warring Russia and Ukraine and to other countries in trade tariff negotiations - only to suspend those deadlines or allow them to slide.
"I think going to war with Iran is a terrible idea, but no one believes this 'two weeks' bit," Democratic SenatorChris Murphy said on the social media platform X. "He's used it a million times before to pretend he might be doing something he's not. It just makes America look weak and silly."
(...) It is a slippery thing, this two weeks — not a measurement of time so much as a placeholder. Two weeks for Mr. Trump can mean something, or nothing at all. It is both a yes and a no. It is delaying while at the same time scheduling. It is not an objective unit of time, it is a subjective unit of time. It is completely divorced from any sense of chronology. It simply means later. But later can also mean never. Sometimes.
(...) For now, it is impossible to say which of these two possibilities is more likely – or if the "two weeks" mentioned by Trump is even a deadline at all.
"I don't even know if President Trump knows what he wants," Iranian American analyst Negar Mortazavi told Al Jazeera. (...) In the past, Trump has assigned similar timelines relating to Iran's nuclear programme, the Russia-Ukraine war and global trade tariffs. But he does not always stick to them.
Trump's use of the timing prediction has accelerated in recent weeks — and he's used it on items ranging from trade deals and tariffs to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Much of what he's predicted hasn't come to pass, with questions he's said he'd answer remaining unanswered.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Over the years, Trump has promised action on policy issues from tax legislation to minimum wage increases to health care within two weeks. He's hinted at conspiracy theories to be resolved and policy decisions to be revealed within a fortnight — only for his announcements to materialize months later or not at all.
Since at least the end of April, President Donald Trump has been telling reporters he will decide what to do in Ukraine in two weeks, using the timeframe over and over to suggest he is close to a final assessment on how to proceed.
It is not a new tactic. Trump has been setting two-week deadlines since at least the start of his first term in 2017 — for policy plans, long-awaited decisions or unspecified major announcements. Many never arrived.
President Donald Trump has a plan. It'll be ready in two weeks.
From overhauling the tax code to releasing an infrastructure package to making decisions on Nafta and the Paris climate agreement, Trump has a common refrain: A big announcement is coming in just "two weeks." It rarely does.
Why this matters: Many of these things arrived much later than 2 weeks after Trump mentioned them (the Paris decision took more than a month), while other policy announcements have yet to happen. [The note links to related articles: Trump's missing infrastructure plan (November 26, 2017), The mystery of Trump's tariff bomb (March 24, 2025), Trump: U.S. will set tariff rates in 2-3 weeks, walking back negotiations (May 16, 2025)]
[Includes several recent clips of Trump setting "two weeks" deadlines, and others from his first term.]
[Continuation of the commentary, discussing Trump's foreign policy.]
After months of public assurances about Vladimir Putin's alleged interest in "peace," Donald Trump was asked in late May about whether he still believed this about his Russian counterpart. The Republican pointed to a deadline of sorts.
"I can't tell you that, but I'll let you know in about two weeks," the American president said. "Within two weeks, we're going to find out very soon." (...) To be sure, the White House's agenda is filled with reversals, and this posture might yet change. But at least for now, those looking for evidence in support of the "TACO" thesis — "Trump Always Chickens Out" — should look no further than his truly pitiful approach to Russian sanctions.
A supercut of his two-week pledges aired last month when host Kasie Hunt had already identified the president's troubling habit of letting his deadlines lapse with no action.
Donald Trump has done it again. When faced with making a difficult decision or actually doing something, he postpones, TACOs, and kicks it two weeks down the road.
(...) Trump's decision to delay making any decision on the Iran-Israel conflict for two weeks points at his signature approach to deal making -- to make a hard decision and then dilute it or reverse it altogether. He has imposed and then reversed or brought down tariffs on numerous occasions. His style has led to coining of an acronym, TACO, meaning "Trump always chickens out," which was used to describe an investment approach in response to Trump's volatile tariff policies.
Democrats, former GOP Rep.Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and late-night hosts criticized President Trump on Thursday over his two-week deadline for deciding whether to strike nuclear facilities in Iran. (...) Kinzinger said Thursday the delay on a potential Iran strike was the latest example of "TACO," or "Trump Always Chickens Out," a term that originated with his waffling on tariffs.
"Just a reminder that Trump was going to announce his sanctions on Russia for not negotiating 'in two weeks' about 3.5 weeks ago," he wrote Thursday on social platform X.
"Taco," he added.
"A reporter points out to Leavitt that Trump says something will happen in 'two weeks' all the time and then it doesn't happen," journalist Aaron Rupar said, sharing the recent clip from the White House press briefing.
Meanwhile, the hashtag "twoweaks" has been circulating, and a third person edited the film poster for "28 Years Later" to "2 Weeks Later."
"Two week taco" has also been a catchphrase making the rounds, in reference to the unfavourable nickname "TACO" previously given to Trump, meaning "Trump Always Chickens Out" for flip-flopping on his controversial tariff plans.
(...) Putting aside the morality of the US attacking Iran and potentially triggering a wider regional war, some are having fun over the idea this is another example of a so-called Taco – namely Trump Always Chickens Out. (...) While plenty of people get pleasure from poking fun at a President who takes himself very seriously, and responds best to people who treat him with fawning praise, in this case a two-week pause could well be to everyone's benefit. (...) Many people will be hoping Trump can persuade Iran and Israel to end this conflict with diplomacy and not war. If he can do that, Trump could be forgiven for asking for another two weeks.
(...) Trump's announcement of U.S. strikes on Saturday evening came about 90 minutes after the White House told reporters following the president that there would be no more news for the night and that they could go home. European leaders were meeting with an Iranian delegation as recently as Friday, in an effort to further negotiations. It was not clear whether the United States had told even its closest allies that, all the while, Trump had already made up his mind to strike. (...) In a statement after the U.S. strikes, SenatorMark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, argued that Trump had made his decision "without regard to the consistent conclusions of the intelligence community."
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{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Notably, 88 percent of Republicans told Kaiser that they thought Trump was a reliable source of information on the virus, versus 19 percent of Democrats.
