10 Things President Trump and His Administration Have Lied About Since Day One

As American and even global  citizens, it’s our responsibility to keep our politicians honest and accountable, even those in the highest offices.
In that spirit, we’re keeping track of dishonest statements from President Donald Trump and his administration, starting from his very first moments as commander-in-chief.
Click through the slides to see the Trump administration's lies and misinformation spotted by fact-checkers so far — and check back soon, as we’ll be updating this gallery as often as necessary.

1. January 20, 2017: America’s wealth has dissipated

“We’ve made other countries rich, while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon,” Trump said in his inaugural address.
“Economists measure the wealth of nations in two ways. They look at the size of their economies, the GDP, and they look at how well the average citizen is doing, or GDP per capita,” PolitiFact reports. “Through either lens, the wealth of the United States has not dissipated.”

2. January 20, 2017: America refuses to defend its own borders

“We’ve defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own,” Trump said in his inaugural address.
ABC News points out the United States spends $18 billion a year on border control — which already involves 700 miles of fence (up from 77 in 2000), as well as “11,000 underground sensors, 107 aircraft, 175 mobile surveillance units, and 273 remote video surveillance cameras.”

3. January 21, 2017: Trump’s inauguration had the largest-ever audience

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told the press the viewers comprised

  “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.”

Snopes says: “No reliable data backs up that claim. Trump’s swearing-in saw fewer television viewers than four other inaugurations and prompted fewer Metro rides than both of Barack Obama’s inaugurations, and an optical analysis conducted by a crowd safety consultant found that Trump’s inaugural crowd size was significantly lower than that of 2009.”

4. January 21, 2017: Trump never feuded with the intelligence community

“[The media] sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community,” Trump said during a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency. “And I just want to let you know, the reason you're the No. 1 stop is exactly the opposite."

PolitiFact reminds readers Trump “lashed out” on multiple occasions:

 “He said that intelligence officials had used Nazi-like tactics against him and belittled the agencies as a whole for their incorrect belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.”

5. January 22, 2017: Spicer’s crowd size claims are “alternative facts” 

On Meet the Press, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway had this to say about Sean Spicer’s claims about the inauguration attendance:

“Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts.”

Merriam-Webster explains that “a fact is a piece of information presented as having objective reality.”

6. January 23, 2017: Homicides in Washington D.C. have risen by 50 percent

“In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 percent,” the White House website stated before Politifact corrected this statistic on January 23. The statement has since been edited to say “over the past four years.”

“The most recent figures, from 2016, show a 17 percent decline in [Washington D.C.] homicides from 2015,” Politifact says.

“In addition, the long-term trend shows significantly lower numbers for homicides in Washington, D.C., than was the rule for the 1990s — even if you compare the spike of 
2015.”

7. January 25, 2017: ISIS wouldn’t exist had America kept the oil when leaving Iraq

“We should’ve kept the oil when we got out [of Iraq],”  Trump told ABC News’ David Muir on January 25.   “Had we taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS because they fuel themselves with the oil. That’s where they got the money.”

FactCheck.org begs to differ:
 “In fact, ISIS largely has been funded through extortion, robbery, taxes and Syrian oil, according to government reports and terrorism financing experts.”

8. January 26, 2017: Homicides in Philadelphia are “terribly increasing.”

“Here in Philadelphia, murder has been steady — I mean — just terribly increasing,” Trump said in a January 26 speech in Philly.

“The 277 people killed in 2016 is the third-lowest amount since 1990 and down about 45 percent from the 1990 peak,” Politifact reports.

9. February 5, 2017: Only 109 people were affected by the travel ban

“I think it was very smooth,” Trump told Fox News of the travel ban. “We had 109 people out of hundreds of thousands of travelers and all we did was vet those people very, very carefully.”

Politifact says that number refers to the number of people who were in transit when the ban was announced and doesn’t account for the over 1,200 who were prevented from boarding flights to the United States or the roughly 60,000 people whose visas were revoked.

10. February 6, 2017: The “very, very” dishonest press doesn’t report on terrorism

In a speech at U.S. Central Command headquarter, Trump claimed “Radical Islamic terrorists” are “determined to strike our homeland” as they did “all across Europe.”

“All over Europe, it’s happening,” he said. “It’s gotten to a point where it's not even being reported, and in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it.”
Politifact sets the record straight: “We found no support for the idea that the media is hushing up terrorist attacks on U.S. or European soil … There is plenty of coverage of in the American media of terrorist attacks. We rate the statement Pants on Fire!”