This was a truly tragic year of lying… No, I mean really, really tragic. The lies came so fast and so furious, and were so obviously false that the Politifact editors had trouble choosing just one. Yes, that means that Politifact finally announced the results of it’s Lie of the Year award.
The Biggest Lie Of The Year Is…
Without further ado, here’s the lie that hooked the big editor-picked Lie of the Year award:
“I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering” as the World Trade Center collapsed.”
The person who said that and took home the Lie of the Year was? You guessed it. None other than the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. As if you really expected anyone else.
Trump uttered this dangerous lie during a particularly divisive speech on Saturday, November 21, according to Politifact.
Whether that surprised you or not – and if you’ve watched any news program lately, probably not – Trump’s lie is as dangerous and hard to forget as he is, unfortunately.
PolitiFact’s 2015 #LieoftheYear, the falsehoods of @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/u1A07z2JO3 pic.twitter.com/nYdm3uItVY
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) December 21, 2015
The Real Truth
While the lie is bad, Trump doubled down on the lie after the fact during an interview with George Stephanopolous, even though a variety of government officials and reporters called him on the lie. He doubled down again when Politifact rated his claim “Pants on Fire” in the first place.
What was worse was Trump talking with Stephanopolous in another interview about himself – and his lying in general. He said, according to Politifact:
“People maybe call me out, but they turn out to be wrong, also … And many of the things I’ve said — and I think just about all of them — they may have been controversial at one point, George, but they’re not controversial in the end, because people start to say, you know, Trump’s actually right.”
Sorry, Trump, it doesn’t matter many people repeat a lie – or how many times – it doesn’t make the lie true. It just doesn’t. Period. End of story.
The real truth here is that it wasn’t “dancing Muslims” at all. It was “dancing Israelis,” according to FBI reports and news reports, although I’m quite sure Trump would much rather die than admit that, being as he’s so pro-Israel and all. Simply saying it was Muslims doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t.
That’s OK, though. Trump can keep on lying and giving Politifact statements to check. I’m sure they don’t mind.
Campaign Built On Lies
What’s interesting about this this Politifact Lie of the Year award is that they didn’t award it based on the single statement. Trump’s “entire campaign misstatements” earned him the win. According to Politifact:
“In considering our annual Lie of the Year, we found our only real contenders were Trump’s … it was hard to single one out from the others. So we have rolled them into one big trophy.”
The Truth-O-Meter, the tool Politifact uses to rate politically charged statements, reports that it’s rated a majority of Trump’s statements as false on at least some level. In fact, of the 77 statements Politifact checked, they rated only 1 as anything other than a lie.
That’s 76 of 77 statements that are false on some level. That’s more than any other politician at this point.
That’s truly tragic for a man who wants America to trust him enough to elect him to the presidency, wouldn’t you agree?
Featured Image By Mike Licht (CC by SA-2.0) and Politifact Screengrab
