How many false or misleading claims has Trump made in each year from 2016 to 2025 broken down by topic?
Executive summary
Multiple independent tallies show that Donald Trump accumulated 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first four-year presidency (2017–2020), a rate the Washington Post summarized as roughly 21 untruths per day on average [1] and that nearly half of those came in his final year [2]. Available sources do not provide a single public dataset that gives an annual, topic-by-topic breakdown for every year from 2016 through 2025; reporting instead offers total counts for the first term and numerous fact-checks and compilations for 2024–2025 that document many repeated topics [1] [2] [3].
1. The headline number and its limits: one four‑year total, not an annual topic table
The clearest comprehensive figure in the reporting is the Washington Post Fact Checker’s database total of 30,573 false or misleading claims made by Trump during his four years in office, a tally the Post described and analyzed at length [1] [2]. That project tracked repeated statements, counted one inaccurate claim per topic per venue, and provided pacing data (for example, claims per day by year) — but the publicly cited coverage does not publish a neatly packaged annual-by-topic spreadsheet for 2016–2025 that reporters can simply quote [1] [2]. Available sources do not mention a complete year-by-year, topic-by-topic public table covering 2016–2025.
2. What the Washington Post count tells us about yearly patterns
The Post’s reporting shows the volume accelerated over time: the Fact Checker reported a rising daily rate across Trump’s presidency (about six per day in year one, 16 per day in year two, 22 per day in year three and about 39 per day in the final year), and it noted that almost half of the 30,573 falsehoods appeared in his last presidential year [4] [2]. That gives journalists a clear pattern — dramatic growth over the term — but it is not the same as a topic breakdown for each calendar year from 2016 through 2025 [2].
3. Topic themes that reappear across years
Coverage and fact‑checks from major outlets and databases repeatedly flag a core set of topics in which Trump made many false or misleading statements: the economy and inflation, trade and tariffs, immigration and the southern border, election integrity and the 2020 result, COVID‑19 and public‑health claims, and claims about his own achievements (e.g., “greatest economy”) [5] [6] [7] [8]. The Washington Post database holds individual entries across these themes, and contemporary fact‑checks in 2025 similarly document the same topic clusters [1] [6] [3]. Available sources do not provide an exact count per topic for every year 2016–2025.
4. Post‑presidential and second‑term fact‑checking: resumed patterns in 2025
When Trump returned to office in 2025, outlets including the New York Times, CNN and AP began cataloguing fresh false or misleading statements in his speeches and actions; reporting emphasizes the same recurring topics (economy/inflation, immigration, international affairs, elections) and notes that many 2025 statements were repeats of earlier false claims [9] [10] [11]. The New York Times and CNN cited the earlier 30,573 figure as context while documenting new 2025 fabrications and repetitions [3] [12]. Those pieces illustrate continuity in subject matter, but they do not present a full numeric breakdown by topic across each year [9] [12].
5. Multiple viewpoints and methodological caveats
Fact‑checking projects vary in method: the Washington Post counted one inaccurate claim per topic per venue and tracked repetition;PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, CNN and Reuters use their own thresholds and rulings when labeling individual statements false or misleading [1] [13] [14] [15]. That means totals are contingent on methodology and on editorial choices about when repeated statements count anew; reporting calls attention to those differences rather than claiming a single infallible ledger [1] [2]. Some outlets emphasize patterns and political consequences of the falsehoods, noting they were used to justify policy or shape public opinion [3].
6. Bottom line for your request and next steps
If you need a year-by-year, topic-by-topic table from 2016 to 2025, available sources do not include that exact packaged dataset; the best-available public resource is the Washington Post Fact Checker database that produced the 30,573 total and pacing analysis for the first term [1] [2]. For a custom breakdown you can ask me to extract year and topic tallies from the Post database and supplement with PolitiFact/CNN/FactCheck.org entries for 2024–2025; that would reconstruct an approximate year-by-year, topic-by-topic picture using the cited sources [1] [13] [14] [12].