In four years, President Trump made
30,573 false or misleading claims.Number One:
Quote:“We also built the greatest economy in the history of the world… Powered
by these policies, we built the greatest economy in the history of the world.”
Fact Check:
This is Trump’s favourite false claim, so there should
be no surprise
he said it twice in his farewell address.
By just about any key measure in the modern era,
Eisenhower, Johnson and Clinton presided over
stronger economic growth than Trump. The gross
domestic product grew at an annual rate of
2.3% in
2019, slipping from 2.9% in 2018 and 2.4% in 2017.
But in 1997, 1998 and 1999, GDP
grew 4.5%, 4.5%
and 4.7%, respectively. Yet even that period paled
in comparison with the postwar boom in the 1950s
or the 1960s. Growth between 1962 and 1966 ranged
from 4.4% to 6.6%. In 1950 and 1951, it was 8.7%
and 8%, respectively.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate reached a low of
3.5% under Trump, but it dipped as low as
2.5% in 1953.
After the Coronavirus tanked the economy, Trump
jacked up his claim even more, falsely saying it had
been the greatest economy in the history of the world.
This marks the
493rd time that Trump used a variation
of this line, meaning he said it on average every other day.
—Why is it that the American public let Trump get
away with these sorts of blatant lies? And the thirty
thousand other lies? Why is there such political apathy in
America?
Even more incomprehensibly is the question of how
a rogue real estate salesman, draft dodger, and
games show host was ever elected in the first place.
And how could it be that the people's favourite 2016
candidate Hillary Clinton (65,853,514) lost to Trump
(62,984,828)? And yes, I know it's because of the
non-democratic, antiquated Electoral College.