Trump's 15 worst lies over four years compiled by CNN's fact-checker

On Saturday, writing for CNN, fact-checker Daniel Dale — who has reliably covered the Trump falsehood beat for years — compiled what he believed to be the top 15 lies that have defined this presidency.

"There's just so much ugly garbage to sift through before you can make a decision," wrote Dale, a former reporter for the Toronto Star. "But I'm qualified for the dirty job. I fact checked every word uttered by this President from his inauguration day in January 2017 until September 2020 — when the daily number of lies got so unmanageably high that I had to start taking a pass on some of his remarks to preserve my health."

As of October 2020, Trump was averaging 50 lies or false statements a day, according to one estimate — requiring Dale to cut down his list to just the most outrageous or persistent lies.

The lies he chose were: Trump's claim that COVID-19 was under "tremendous control;" his editing of a hurricane map with a Sharpie; his claim that the president of the Boy Scouts called him to thank him for a speech; his suggestion that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) supports al-Qaeda; his claim that the U.S. used to have a $500 billion trade deficit with China; his anecdotes about people crying around him; his claim that he didn't know about the payment to Stormy Daniels; his claim that President Obama started family separation; his suggestion Joe Biden would end protections for pre-existing conditions; his claim that he created the Veterans Choice program; his claim that wind turbines cause cancer; his perpetual promise to have a health care plan in two weeks; his claim to have been Michigan's "Man of the Year"; and his insistence that he won the 2020 election.

"The nation's truth problem, clearly, isn't just a Trump problem," concluded Dale. "With this last blizzard of deception and the Capitol insurrection it fomented, Trump has shown us, once more, just how detached from reality much of his political base has become — or always was."

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