Trump’s Legacy Of Lies: Term One And Term Two
By Rob McConnell | TWATNews.com | Sunday, September 14, 2025
A Presidency Built on Falsehoods
From the very first day of his presidency in 2017, Donald J. Trump set a precedent: lies would not be the exception, but the rule. Standing before the world after his inauguration, his team declared it was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration.” Photographs, TV ratings, and transit data proved otherwise. It was a small falsehood by presidential standards, but it foreshadowed four years in which deception became routine.
By the end of his first term, The Washington Post Fact Checker had logged 30,573 false or misleading claims—an average of 21 per day. These ranged from exaggerations of economic achievement to outright fabrications about immigration, public health, and foreign policy.
Term One: 2017–2021
- Election Integrity Lies: Trump insisted “millions voted illegally in 2016.” No evidence ever supported this claim, but it fueled years of voter suppression efforts.
- Healthcare Misinformation: He frequently claimed to have “saved pre-existing condition protections,” even as his administration fought to repeal them in court.
- Disaster Denials: After Hurricane Maria, Trump claimed “nearly 3,000 did not die in Puerto Rico.” Official figures—approximately 2,975 deaths—proved otherwise.
- COVID-19 Falsehoods: Perhaps the most consequential lies came in 2020: “We have it totally under control,” “Hydroxychloroquine is a game changer,” and “If we didn’t test so much, we’d have very few cases.” Each misled the public as the pandemic ravaged the nation.
- The “Stolen Election” Fabrication: After his 2020 loss, Trump’s repeated assertion that “the election was stolen” culminated in an assault on democracy and the January 6th insurrection.
Term Two: 2025–Present
Trump’s return to power has brought no change in tactics. Within weeks, fact-checkers documented fresh waves of deception.
- Immigration: In his March 2025 address to Congress, Trump claimed “border crossings are at the lowest levels ever.” In reality, crossings remained high and volatile.
- Foreign Policy: In May 2025, he declared “there is a white genocide in South Africa” and circulated a video of “dead white farmers.” Reuters confirmed the video was actually from the Democratic Republic of Congo, not South Africa.
- Economy and Trade: He insists “tariffs are making the U.S. rich” and even claimed “Supreme Court has already upheld my global tariffs authority.” In fact, no such ruling has been issued.
- Public Health: In September 2025, Trump exaggerated overdose deaths, inflating CDC’s provisional figure of ~79,000 to a fabricated “300,000–350,000.”
- Grandiose Boasts: He told Americans drug prices were “cut by 1,500%.” Experts pointed out the number is mathematically impossible.
A Culture of Deception
Trump’s defenders call these statements “misstatements” or “exaggerations.” Critics, however, argue they reflect a deeper pattern: a deliberate strategy of sowing confusion, bending reality, and wearing down the public’s ability to distinguish truth from fiction.
In both terms, Trump’s lies have shaped policy, distorted public debate, and eroded trust in democratic institutions. The cumulative effect is not just political—it is cultural and societal. When a leader of the free world repeats untruths daily, truth itself becomes negotiable.
The Final Verdict
Donald J. Trump is not simply a politician prone to exaggeration. He is the most prolific purveyor of presidential falsehoods in American history. Whether in 2017 or 2025, his words have been consistently unreliable, his promises routinely broken, and his rhetoric dangerously detached from fact.
For America, the question remains: can a democracy survive when the truth is so relentlessly under attack by the very person sworn to uphold it?