Trump's Favorite Lies

President Trump visited the U.K. this past week, and in a joint press conference with PM Keir Starmer he regurgitated a litany of the lies he has been spouting in recent years. It is impossible to know whether he is intentionally lying or is just hopelessly delusional. In the end, I suppose it doesn't really matter which it is. Here is a rundown of these lies.

1. He repeated his usual lie that he won the 2020 election. Of course, he lost fair and square.

2. He said we have already solved inflation, when inflation is actually rising. It was up to 2.9 percent in August, up from 2.7 percent in July. It’s the highest since January. He said, as he has repeatedly, that he inherited the worst inflation in U.S. history. He didn’t. He inherited 3 percent inflation, just above what it is now, and way lower than in the late 1970s. It was about a 41-year high in June 2022 under President Biden, but it then plummeted toward the end of the Biden administration.

3. He repeated his favorite imaginary figure on U.S. aid to Ukraine, saying that we’re into that war for $350 billion. That figure is not even close to correct. A think tank that closely tracks the issue puts U.S. aid at less than half of the president’s figure.

4. He said again that China is paying a whole bunch of tariffs to the U.S. It is actually U.S. importers who pay those tariffs, often passing on the cost to U.S. consumers.

5. He also repeated some of his favorite old January 6 nonsense. He said it’s now clear that Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, rejected his offer of 10,000 National Guard troops on that day. In fact, there’s still no evidence that actually happened. He said, again, the January 6 House Select Committee deleted all its evidence, deleted all the records. In fact, in addition to a public report, it preserved a huge volume of evidence.

6. On immigration, he said he thinks 25 million migrants entered under President Biden. Even his 21 million figure from months ago wasn’t even close to true, more than double the truth, even if you don’t count the people who were quickly expelled from the country.

7. He repeated his claim that prisons in the Congo and Venezuela were emptied to release prisoners as migrants into the U.S. Neither he nor his campaign could ever provide any corroboration for that claim.

8. He again said that he had a role in resolving a conflict between the countries of Azerbaijan and Albania. Of course, he means Armenia, not Albania.