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Trump’s history of making false claims with no evidence

Trump’s latest lie, claiming that Obama wire-tapped Trump Towers before the election, is just the latest in a long history of lies – making wild claims with no basis in fact.

Here are some highlights from the Trump alternative facts universe.

Birtherism

In March 2011, Trump began promoting the idea that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, a claim previously confined to fringe right-wing conspiracy theorists. It was a suspicion presented without evidence, and Obama ridiculed Trump for it during the 2011 White House Correspondents Association dinner. Last September, without explaining why, Trump abandoned the claim with a statement: “Mr. Trump believes President Obama was born in the United States.”

Voter fraud that made him lose the popular vote

On Nov. 27, Trump tweeted: “In addition to winning the Electoral College, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” He cited no evidence. He also tweeted that voters from Massachusetts illegally voted in New Hampshire, which caused Trump to lose that state last November. No evidence was found to support that claim either.

His Electoral College win the biggest since 1984

During his Feb. 16 news conference, Trump claimed that his Electoral College win was the biggest since President Ronald Reagan’s in 1984, when he carried every state except Minnesota and the District of Columbia. However, election records showed that Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton (two times) and Obama (twice) won higher percentages of the electoral vote than Trump — in five of the seven elections since Reagan won his last.

There was major terrorist attack on Feb. 17 in Sweden

“Look at what happened last night in Sweden,” Trump told a crowd in Melbourne, Fla., on Feb. 18.

But no major incident had “happened” in Sweden. Trump had seen a Fox News show making claims about immigrants and crime in Sweden. In response, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt took to Twitter: “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking?”

And on and on it goes…

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Donald Trump and his non-stop, pathological, serial lying is destroying U.S. credibility

It’s honestly getting difficult to keep track of all of Donald Trump’s lies. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, every word out of his mouth is a lie, including “a” and “the.”

So let’s sum up.

For the record, here are a few standouts. This man is president of the United States, but gets his security briefings from Fox News and has the thin skin of a junior high school playground bully. And he apparently doesn’t read either.

Trump felt he had to lie about the size of his inaugural crowd.

Trump lied about getting a “standing ovation” he received at CIA headquarters.

Trump lies about “millions” of “illegal” votes cast in the November election. Nobody – even his former campaign manager – agrees with him. The only reason he made it up is because he can’t stand the thought that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton – bigly.

More recently, Trump has focused on New Hampshire, claiming that busloads of Massachusetts residents were taken to the state to vote for Clinton. There is no evidence that any of this occurred. Trump has not offered any, and even New Hampshire Republicans have ridiculed the idea of widespread voter fraud in their state.

Trump lies about the murder rate. This is a fascist warning signal – make things look really bad so he can step in with extra powers to fix it.

Trump lies about the news coverage given to terror attacks. A lie so blatantly ridiculous that all the media pounced on him showing incident for incident how he’s just making things up.

Trump even antagonized Sweden, of all places, to lie in about non-existent terror attacks there to make the point that accepting refugees is somehow bad. He got his information from a Fox News report he watched while tweeting. The Swedish government is noticeably upset. Who would imagine we would have a president of the United States who would antagonize Sweden?

Remember, Donald Trump is the one who, during the campaign suggested Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father had been involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy ― and cited a National Enquirer story as his proof.

And, of course, for years Trump promoted the conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama had not been born in the United States, despite clear evidence that he had.

It’s endless. Donald Trump is a serial liar. That’s not in dispute. How long will it go on is the question.