How mamy lies has Donald Trump told
Executive summary
The short answer: public fact‑checking projects have documented tens of thousands of false or misleading statements by Donald Trump, with one high‑profile count of 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term alone [1], while other trackers and fact‑check outlets continue to log hundreds to thousands more as his public statements persist [2] [3].
1. The headline numbers — documented totals and examples
The Washington Post’s fact‑checking project recorded 30,573 false or misleading claims by Trump during his first presidential term, a figure often cited as emblematic of the scale of his misinformation [1], and congressional testimony noted 492 suspect claims in the first 100 days of his presidency when that Post database was first compiled [2]; independent outlets such as PolitiFact, PBS, CNN, ABC and The New York Times continue to publish individual rulings and compilations showing hundreds of additional falsehoods across campaign, first‑term and second‑term statements [3] [4] [5] [6] [7].
2. Why different tallies don’t agree — methodology, scope and updates
Counts diverge because each project sets different rules about what to log: some count every repetition of an identical false claim as a new entry, others catalogue only distinct false propositions, some include social‑media posts and graphics while others restrict to speeches or official statements, and fact‑checkers update continuously so totals grow over time — Wikipedia summarizes these disparate tallies as “tens of thousands” of false or misleading claims, reflecting that methodological variance [1].
3. The recent record — second term and 2025–2026 fact‑checks
Reporting from early 2026 shows fact‑checkers are still routinely flagging major falsehoods across policy areas — The New York Times documented an arsenal of falsehoods used in the first year of his second term to justify policy shifts [7], and outlets including CNN, ABC and regional papers catalogued repeated false claims about NATO spending, gas prices and other topics during a January 2026 White House briefing [6] [8] [9], while a dedicated second‑term Wikipedia page notes continued false or unsubstantiated claims about Venezuela, crime and health topics [10].
4. The practical problem of labeling: lie, falsehood, or political spin
Newsrooms initially hesitated to call some statements “lies,” but by mid‑2019 many began using that term, with analysts arguing repeated, knowingly false statements constituted disinformation; critics such as The Washington Post and other commentators concluded the pattern amounted to a campaign strategy rather than occasional error, a framing that informed how trackers counted and labeled claims [1]. At the same time, fact‑checking outlets differ on intent—some limit themselves to verifiability while others infer intent—and the public record does not always allow definitive proof of intent, a distinction that affects whether a statement is catalogued as a “lie.”
5. Verdict and limits — a quantified answer plus caveats
Therefore, the most defensible, sourced answer is that documented fact‑checking projects have recorded tens of thousands of false or misleading statements by Donald Trump — specifically the 30,573 figure for his first term is the best‑known, and ongoing counting by outlets and projects continues to add hundreds or thousands more in subsequent years [1] [2] [3]. This is not a final, immutable total because different fact‑checkers use different inclusion rules and because new statements are produced and recorded continuously [1] [3].