Political Irony

Politico has always been a right-leaning news organization, but even they have had enough of Donald Trump:

After he lied on Sept. 16 that he was not the person responsible for the birtherism campaign to delegitimize Barack Obama’s presidency, POLITICO chose to spend a week fact-checking Trump. We fact-checked Hillary Clinton over the same time. We subjected every statement made by both the Republican and Democratic candidates — in speeches, in interviews and on Twitter — to our magazine’s rigorous fact-checking process.

The result?

The conclusion is inescapable: Trump’s mishandling of facts and propensity for exaggeration so greatly exceed Clinton’s as to make the comparison almost ludicrous.

Over five days, Trump lied 87 times. During the same time, Clinton lied 8 times — more than an order of magnitude less. According to Politico, Clinton’s lies were mainly about herself (for example, her handling of emails), while Trump lies about almost everything (himself, Clinton, even easily verifiable facts like the political party of debate moderator Lester Holt). Trump even contradicts himself with impunity. On average, Trump lied every 3 minutes and 15 seconds when his mouth (or Twitter account) was open in public.

Here’s just Trump’s Top Ten lies from the five days:

Clinton plans a $1.3 trillion tax hike
Clinton’s war on energy will cost our economy $5 trillion
[ISIL is] very strong…They were started by Hillary Clinton
Right now, the world has no respect for our country
I was against going into the war in Iraq
Our local police are afraid of going after terrorists for fear of being accused of profiling
Clinton would bring in 650,000 refugees
We’re going to build the wall. Mexico’s going to pay for the wall.
Hillary Clinton is taking the day off again, she needs the rest
I won 42 states in the primaries
My foundation gives money to vets
Lester Holt is a Democrat