Donald Trump is known for being a bit over the top. He has come under fire consistently for going back on his word, including coming out and saying that he may run as an independent, even though he signed papers that he wouldn’t. What else has Trump been untruthful about?
- Tax the rich more: He promised to lower taxes for the rich, but now he has come out and said that taxes may go up for the wealthy. He has changed his view multiple times.
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- Said that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy
- Claimed that Hillary Clinton does not do well with female voters: In fact, she leads historically high with female voters. In prediction polls, Hillary leads among women by an average of 19 points.
- Attacked Cruz for saying that Trump supported the effort in Libya. He said he never discussed the subject: He has written about in in his personal blog and on twitter.
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Here is Trump talking about Libya on his blog in 2011:
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- Believes that unemployment is between 20-42 percent:
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In reality, the official rate is less than 5%, but this number can be calculated in numerous different ways. Trump has appeared to count everyone in the adult population that is not “employed” to be part of the unemployment rate. Makes sense, right? Well, this would include all retirees and college students, so this is not a truly accurate number.
- Claimed that black people killed 81% of white homicide victims. The FBI data would contradict these claims, showing that in 2014, of 3,021 homicides of white people, only 446 were committed by black offenders, making this 81% closer to 15%.
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The picture has since been deleted, but below is a screenshot.
- Said the Federal government is sending refugees only to states with republican governors. On the Laura Ingraham radio show, Trump said that “they send them to the republicans, not the democrats”. In reality, the refugee statistics are shockingly different. Trump also said the interview that there were over 200,000 refugees coming, but the State Department shows that the US took in only 69,933 refugees in 2015. Additionally, the State Department showed that refugees resettled mainly in New York, California, Texas and Florida. Since New York and California are run by Democrats, this claim is completely false as well.
Source: US Dept of State
- Denied saying that Rubio was “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator”. From Trump’s own website:
- Says Bernie Sanders will tax people 90%
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According to Bernie Sanders’ actual tax plan, he wants to:
- Make corporations pay the 35% that they are supposed to, eliminating tax avoidance.
- Reform the estate tax (between 45-55% on estates worth more than 3.5 million dollars, with a 10% additional “billionaire surtax”
- Tax Wall Street speculation
- Raise taxes on the wealthy to 37-52%, while limiting deduction for these people
- Says there are 34 million illegal immigrants. He said this on Morning Joe on MSNBC June 24,2015. The Department of Homeland Security as well as Pew Research estimate this number of just below 11.5 million.
- He has said that the Mexican government is sending “rapists” and “criminals” to the United States. Research shows that first-generation immigrants have a lower crime rate than the national average.
- Trump claimed that he never said some of the misogynistic things claimed by Megyn Kelly.
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- Trump attacked Kasich for his role in the financial crisis. During the financial crisis, Kasich was a managing director at Lehman Brothers, which sounds significant until you find out that there were about 700 of them. Kasich mainly used his experience in government and his contacts to help facilitate business.
- Trump claimed that he can eliminate 19 trillion dollars in debt in eight years. This is mathematically impossible. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the current federal budget is 3.7 trillion dollars, so Trump would have to completely shut down the federal government while still collect the same taxes (3.2 trillion), and that would take 6 years, so running a federal government, cutting taxes, and eliminating the deficit in 8 years is a complete fever dream.
- He claimed that there have been no attack ads against John Kasich. Trump said this on the Today Show on April 21st, 2016. Then what is this that Trump tweeted one month before?
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To be fair, some of the claims that were disputed turned out to be true. Trump had come under fire for claiming that thousands cheered when the World Trade Center went down. When confronted, he claimed that he saw it on television. After numerous media outlets denying this, a video surfaced of CBS news anchor Pablo Guzman claiming this just after the attacks.
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Trump is certainly an interesting candidate, and he seems to inspire a significant portion of the United States. But the rest of the United States, Republican party officials in particular, are nervous and for good reason. Trump is a candidate that is beholden to none, and no one is clear what policies Trump would actually pursue if elected. This is what scared the opponents of Trump most. Will Trump support or oppose gay marriage? War in the Middle East? Only time will tell.
