Which Trump statements have received 'Pants on Fire' or equivalent ratings from major fact‑checkers since 2024?
Executive summary
Since 2024, multiple statements by Donald Trump have been rated the fact-checkers’ most severe verdicts — PolitiFact’s “Pants on Fire” and equivalent labels from other organizations — for claims ranging from election fraud to employment statistics and immigration enforcement; the public record compiled by PolitiFact and reporting by FactCheck.org, Poynter and news outlets documents several high-profile examples but does not provide a single exhaustive list within the supplied sources [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. The headline offenders PolitiFact flagged as “Pants on Fire” in 2024–25
PolitiFact’s database shows a string of “Pants on Fire” ratings applied to Trump statements after 2024, including his claim that Bureau of Labor Statistics employment numbers were “rigged” when the agency revised them downward by “almost 900,000 jobs” after the 2024 election — a charge PolitiFact identified as baseless and placed in its worst category [1]; the same PolitiFact listing also records other explicit “Pants on Fire” rulings in the same period such as the assertion that “No American citizens have been arrested or detained” under Trump’s immigration crackdowns [2].
2. Wild claims that earned the label and the contexts behind them
Fact patterns turned into “Pants on Fire” verdicts when a claim was not just false but extreme or demonstrably absurd, according to PolitiFact’s usage reflected in the sources — examples from 2024 cited by PolitiFact include hyperbolic election and crime-related allegations like the “they’re eating the pets” line tied to Springfield, Ohio, which PolitiFact explicitly counted among its milestone 200th “Pants on Fire” rulings [5]; Poynter’s review of PolitiFact’s 1,000 checks also notes that assertions such as Democrats “used the COVID-19 pandemic to ‘cheat’ in 2020” were given the “Pants on Fire” treatment in early 2024 [4].
3. FactCheck.org and mainstream outlets: many misleading claims, fewer “Pants on Fire” labels
Other major fact-checkers like FactCheck.org and outlets such as The New York Times documented numerous inaccurate or misleading Trump claims — for example, FactCheck.org catalogued multiple inaccuracies in a December prime-time address about immigration, crime and the economy, and the NYT flagged misleading statistics about price trends — but the supplied reporting does not show these organizations using the exact PolitiFact “Pants on Fire” label even as they concluded statements were false or misleading [3] [6].
4. What “Pants on Fire” means here and how selection matters
PolitiFact’s “Pants on Fire” is reserved for claims that are not just false but “ridiculous and absurd,” and PolitiFact’s own reporting and outside commentary acknowledge both the frequency with which Trump has been rated in its worst categories and debates about selection bias in fact‑checking; Poynter and PolitiFact documents note the volume of Trump checks and that many of his statements over time landed in “Mostly False,” “False” or “Pants on Fire” categories [7] [4], while critics have argued the label’s application can be subjective [8].
5. Limits of the available reporting and what’s not proven here
The supplied sources document specific “Pants on Fire” cases and patterns but do not provide a single, complete inventory of every Trump statement rated “Pants on Fire” or its exact equivalents across all major fact‑checkers since 2024; therefore this account highlights documented examples from PolitiFact and notes corroborating fact‑checks by FactCheck.org and major newsrooms, while acknowledging that a comprehensive, cross‑checker list would require querying each fact‑checker’s database beyond the sources provided [1] [2] [3] [6].