WaPo Creates New Fact-Check Category for Trump

Newspaper introduces the 'Bottomless Pinocchio'
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 10, 2018 9:08 AM CST
WaPo Creates New Fact-Check Category for Trump
President Trump points at a member of the audience while speaking the 2018 Project Safe Neighborhoods National Conference at the Westin Kansas City at Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo., Friday, Dec. 7, 2018.   (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The Fact Checker blog of the Washington Post has just added a brand-new category to rank what it sees as the more egregious of lies, and only one person in the world has managed to qualify so far: President Trump. What's more, he's done so 14 times, according to the blog. In a new post, Glenn Kessler introduces the "Bottomless Pinocchio" feature and explains the criteria. The false claim must have been repeated at least 20 times—"a sufficiently robust number that there can be no question the politician is aware that his or her facts are wrong." Trump, in the view of Kessler, isn't just misstating things. "He is purposely injecting false information into the national conversation." The 14 statements on the list can be seen here. Here are the top five:

  • The Trump tax cut was the biggest in history, repeated in some version 123 times
  • Overstating the size of US trade deficits, 117
  • The US economy has never been stronger, 99
  • Inflating our NATO spending, 87
  • The US has started building the border wall, 86
Click here for details on the site's explanation of why the above are false, as well as the full list of 14. (More President Trump stories.)

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