Fact-checker: Trump made more false, misleading claims in 2019 than in 2018 and 2017 combined

The Washington Post fact-checker found that President Trump has made more false or misleading claims this year than in all of 2017 and 2018 combined.

As of Dec. 10, Trump has made 7,725 false or misleading claims in 2019, according to the fact-checker. In 2017 that number was 1,999 and in 2018 it was 5,689, for a two-year total of 7,688.

The Washington Post fact-checker compiles a database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every claim Trump has made and it has found that the president has made on average of 32 false or misleading claims per day in 2019.

The two most recent full months of this year rank as Trump’s second- and third-largest for false or misleading claims, according to the Post.

The only month that topped the previous two was October 2018 as Trump campaigned heavily ahead of the midterm elections in which Democrats rode a blue wave to take control of the House.

Many of Trump’s latest false or misleading claims, according to the fact-checker, center around his July phone call with Ukraine’s president that is now at the center of the articles of impeachment against Trump.

In the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump pressed him to announce investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Trump has said he did nothing wrong on the call and has claimed more than 60 times that the whistleblower complaint about the call was inaccurate, according to the Post’s fact-checker database.

Trump has alleged his phone call with Zelensky was “perfect,” a claim the Post found he has made 80 times and the news outlet considers false or misleading.

Three claims made by Trump about the Ukraine investigation have made it on the Post’s list of “Bottomless Pinocchios,” which takes 20 repeats of a claim that initially earned three or four Pinocchios.

Trump eclipsed the 10,000 lie mark for his tenure back in April, according to the Post’s database.

The news outlet plans to publish its next update of the database on Jan. 20 to mark the third anniversary of Trump’s inauguration.