Trump's ’13 Biggest Lies’ Of First Month

No caption can capture what this image conveys.

 

Great condom giveaway lie and blaming Ukraine top the list

 

Story by Tommy Christopher

• 3h • 4 min read

Mediaite 

CNN anchors John Berman and Sara Sidner roasted President Donald Trump as fact-checker Daniel Dale went over some of the “13 biggest lies” of his first month in office.

Dale marked Trump’s first month-iversary of the second term with a list of just the top 13 “lies”:

1. The tale of the $50 million – no, make it $100 million – in condoms for Hamas
2. Blaming Ukraine for starting the war on Ukraine
3. The (non-)uniqueness of birthright citizenship
4. More up-is-down reversing of the reality of January 6
5. A gusher of deceit about California water policy
6. The election lie he refused to let die
7. That fable about Olympic boxers, again
8. The president’s fictionalized northern neighbor
9. Blasting Biden for a program launched under Trump
10. Relentless deception about who pays tariffs
11. A wild exaggeration of the increase in autism rates
12. China’s (non-)operation of the Panama Canal
13. Trump’s invented dominance with “the youth vote”

On Thursday morning’s edition of CNN News Central, Sidner and Berman each cracked wise after Dale ticked through some of those falsehoods:

JOHN BERMAN: All right, new this morning, we are seeing the impact of some of the things that President Trump is saying that are not true, saying that Ukraine started the war with Russia and more. Russian officials say they’re laughing at all of this they’re so happy. But Ukraine, Russia, this is not all the president has been saying that’s not true.

CNN’s fact checker in chief, Daniel Dale, is with us.

And, Daniel, on cnn.com you list what you call the 13 biggest lies of the first month. We can’t do all 13, but what are some of the ones that jump out at you?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: John, there were so many lies from the president of the United States in his first month that I had a hard time making that list of 13, which I think is bananas, if you take a second to think about it.

I did make a list, though, and I had it done. It was edited. And then the president dropped in probably the biggest lie of the whole month. You’ve been talking about it on your show this morning. Listen to what he said about the war in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I have the power to end this war. And I think it’s going very well. But today I heard, oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.

DALE: Russia started the war in Ukraine. This is obvious. It barely needs a fact check. I think the brazenness of this claim, John, is an example of the president’s willingness to lie about even obvious stuff. Some of the lies on my list are about complicated policy subjects like tariffs. But he’s also lying about things we witnessed with our own eyes.

I’ll give you another representative example. It’s an example of the president’s years old habit. Something I call Trump-flation. And that is, making his inaccurate stories more and more inaccurate over time.

So, listen to how the saga of the imaginary Gaza condoms evolved over the course of about a week.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, BIMBO WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas. $50 million. And you know what’s happened to them? They’ve used them as a method of making bombs.

$50 million, plus another $50 million for condoms for Hamas. Do you know about that? $100 million for condoms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: So, we went from $50 million in condoms for Gaza, to $50 million in condoms for Hamas to make bombs, to $100 million in condoms for Hamas. None of this was true. The White House had no evidence whatsoever of any condom purchases for Gaza or for Hamas. So, this was quite a tale.

I’ll give you a third example on my list. The president has been repeatedly deceptive about the subject of birthright citizenship, the constitutional right he’s trying to end. And he keeps saying that the U.S. is the only country in the world that offers birthright citizenship.

In fact, that’s not even close to true. There are dozens of countries that also grant automatic citizenship to people born on their soil. And you don’t have to look far. The list includes Canada and Mexico.

Now, you might say the president might be confused about this. Well, he’s been making this same false claim, telling the same lie, since at least 2018. We’ve been fact checking this for more than six years.

BERMAN: Yes, repeating lies does not make them more true.

Daniel Dale with the facts this morning. Great to see you. Thank you very much for this hard work. People should go check out your full list on cnn.com. Sara.

SIDNER: It is a long one.

And speaking of long ones, this buffoon puts Pinocchio to shame.  FACT: Whatever else his tiny hands might connote, his lie-o-meter nose operates independently.