President Donald Trump was shamed Wednesday for a long history of making up "colorful quotes" intended to make himself look prescient and knowledgeable.
The president told an anecdote Monday about how he made what he called a "correct prediction” on the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum in 2016 while visiting his golf course in Scotland “the day before the vote."
CNN's Daniel Dale flagged the statement as false — despite Trump telling reporters "you remember."
"They couldn’t have remembered," Dale said. "It didn’t happen."
The fact-checker pointed out that Trump actually visited Scotland the day after the Brexit referendum, not the day before, and while he did say about three months earlier that he thought British voters would decide to leave the European Union, which he supported, he also downplayed his personal knowledge of the situation.
“I don’t think anybody should listen to me because I haven’t really focused on it very much," Trump said in an interview the day before the vote.
Dale said the fictional tale could be considered trivial compared to some of Trump's other lies, but he said the false claims were part of a longtime strategy Trump used to burnish his reputation.
"The pattern has a purpose," Dale wrote. "Trump’s stories serve to exaggerate his foresight about and knowledge of domestic and foreign affairs, embellish his biography and record in office, and diminish his political opponents."
Dale listed eight other examples – from declaring that he strongly opposed the Iraq invasion in 2003 to claiming that he deployed the National Guard during civil unrest in Minneapolis in 2020 – of Trump making up stories, including vivid but fake details and phony quotes, to make himself look shrewd.
"The stories tend to be colorful even though they’re fake," Dale wrote. "Trump’s historical fiction is sprinkled with vivid details and make-believe quotes, all the better to make it seem authentic and get it to stick in the minds of voters."