NBC News compiled a list of the biggest lies President Donald Trump told in 2018. The list, as they say, is a doozy.
The biggest lie the president told, NBC says, is telling his Twitter followers that portions of his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border are being built even though construction on a new portion of the wall has not yet begun and won't this year.
The others are no less troubling. NBC compiled:
- Trump's claim that his administration has accomplished more than any prior administration. (NBC notes that Trump has "struggled to sign the kind of major legislation he promised on the campaign trail.")
- Trump's claim that "Big steel is opening and renovating plants all over the country" and that "Auto companies are pouring into the U.S." (Industry experts say otherwise.)
- Trump's claim that tariffs are enriching the country. (Experts say the tariffs are having the opposite effect.)
- Trump's claim that his administration has passed "the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history." ("The GOP tax bill, passed in December, does not amount to the "biggest" in U.S. history, according to the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and others," NBC notes.)
- Trump's claim that Democrats are "radical socialists." (No, Democrats are not trying to turn the United States into Venezuela.)
- Trump's claim that his administration has "accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions." (The "economic turnaround" to which the president refers is actually credited to former President Barack Obama, who preceded him.)
- Trump's claim that Obama separated children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. (The Obama administration did not have such a policy on record; NBC points out that it opted to "detain families together.")
- Trump's claim that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 presidential election is little more than a "witch hunt." (33 people have been charged with crimes; three senior Trump associates have been convicted in connection with the probe.)
- Trump's claim that Republicans "support people with pre-existing conditions." ("The Trump administration backed Republican-led states in a lawsuit that claims Obamacare's protections for pre-existing conditions are illegal, and a federal court ruled the law unconstitutional in December," NBC says.)
People have other lies to add to the list.
Raw Story ran a story about two women who said their podiatrist father helped Trump craft his infamous "bone spurs" ailment to get out of Vietnam war service.
One individual pointed out that as recently as last week, the president dismissed a climate change report from scientists within his own administration.
This same individual cited a report which debunked more claims the president made about the proposed border wall...
...as well as comments the president made about the Iran nuclear deal. (In May, Trump announced the U.S. would exit the landmark deal. He had long campaigned against the nuclear deal and made exiting the agreement one of the signature pledges of his candidacy during the 2016 presidential election. At the time, he noted that any nation that helps Iran obtain nuclear weapons would also be “strongly sanctioned.”)
He also claimed that his administration was "looking at" a "very major tax cut for middle-income people." (No other word on that.)
But back to the wall, which we will continue to hear about while the government is shut down: Trump claimed that federal employees want to go without their paychecks until the border wall gets funding. (Second Nexus has its own story about that.)
The border wall––or lack thereof––remains Trump's signature campaign pledge, but it's not, contrary to what he may believe, a popular one.
According to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 69 percent of Americans believe that the wall should not be a priority for Congress. 74 percent of Democrats say that the wall shouldn’t be a legislative priority at all. By contrast, 63 percent of Republicans described the wall as a “top priority.” 51 percent of independent voters said they don’t believe the wall should be a priority.
“With Democrats and Independents not connected with President Trump’s desire to build a border wall, it’s not surprising that they want him to compromise to avoid a government shutdown,” Lee M. Miringoff, Marist Institute for Public Opinion director, said in a press release. “On this issue, President Trump and the Republicans are on one side of the fence and Democrats and Independents are on the other.”
Among the poll’s other findings:
- 53 percent of Americans approve of the way President Trump’s administration has handled border protection, with 92 percent of Republicans and 26 percent of Americans expressing their support; independents, by contrast, are split (49 percent approve whereas 47 percent disapprove).
- 55 percent disapprove of the way the president is handling “irregular immigration on U.S. soil.”
- 54 percent disapprove of the way the president is handling efforts to reunite families separated by his administration’s “zero tolerance” family separations policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.
