The American people aren't buying it This is our last newsletter of the year, and we're ending on a high note. We teamed up with the pollsters at The Washington Post to figure out...
| |  | | Democracy Dies in Darkness | | | | | | | | | | The truth behind the rhetoric | | | | | | The American people aren't buying it This is our last newsletter of the year, and we're ending on a high note. We teamed up with the pollsters at The Washington Post to figure out a key question: Do Americans believe the president or the truth? For months, President Trump has claimed that U.S. Steel has announced plans to build more than six new plants. Throughout the midterm election, he repeatedly said that Democrats had signed onto an "open borders" bill. And he has long charged that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in the 2016 election. None of these claims is true. What's more, most Americans don't believe them, according to the first-ever Washington Post Fact Checker poll. Fewer than 3 in 10 Americans, including fewer than 4 in 10 Republicans, believe these or several other prominent claims by the president, according to the poll. In short, Trump has avalanched the country with false claims — but the American people aren't buying them. Some other key findings: - Overall, 44 percent of Trump's strongest supporters believe his false claims, while 35 percent of Republicans and 20 percent of Democrats believe them.
- Among adults who say Fox News is one of their top two sources for political news, 33 percent believe in Trump's false claims tested in the poll, on average, compared with 21 percent of those who say Fox is not a main news source.
- More than 6 in 10 Americans say they believe fact-checking organizations when they conclude that Trump has made a false claim. Just about half are confident in similar assertions in newspapers and on cable news.
|  | | Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here, for the weekly newsletter. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. Here's another thousand or so false claims The Fact Checker's database of Trump's false or misleading claims keeps growing and growing. We just updated it through Trump's 700th day in office. The new total? A whopping 7,546 claims. Just to illustrate how hairy things have become, take the month of October 2018. Trump made 1,205 false or misleading claims — an average of 39 a day — as he barnstormed the country for Republican candidates in the midterm elections. The October total alone surpasses the first eight months of Trump's presidency. We also have a new champion-day for most false or misleading claims. Not surprisingly, it was Nov. 5, the day before the midterm elections. Trump held three campaign rallies and racked up 139 false or misleading claims. The runner-up was not far behind, with 130 claims on Nov. 3. All 7,546 claims are categorized and fact-checked on our searchable database. | | | The most popular fact-checks of the year A huge thank-you to all who read, shared and commented on our work in 2018, to everyone who suggested fact-checks and complimented our cat GIFs. This newsletter will return in early January. In the meantime, here's a list of the most popular fact-checks of 2018. The most popular was our Four Pinocchio fact-check of the Trump administration's rhetoric on family separations. The runner-up was our piece explaining the science behind Elizabeth Warren's DNA test results. The Fact Checker's videos have a huge following online, so we also listed the top five this year. See you in 2019! We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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