Trump is the forever king of our annual awards Like Meryl Streep at the Oscars, President Trump has come to dominate our annual awards for the biggest Pinocchios. The year 2020 marked his biggest prize-haul. Trump became a one-man hurricane of disinformation on the coronavirus pandemic, on his dealings with Ukraine, on Joe Biden's campaign positions, on ... you name it. Trump falsely accused Democratic and Republican state officials across the country of rigging the election against him. His own administration highlighted how his false claims on voting-by-mail were almost identical to the Russian propaganda being spread online to destabilize U.S. politics. Indeed, Trump in 2020 swamped all of his records for most falsehoods in a day, in a week, in a month. He would hold multiple rallies in a day, sometimes bookended by interviews on Fox News. (A recipe for slaughtering the truth if ever there was one.) To this day, Trump continues to submerge deeper into an alternate reality that he won the election, despite losing more decisively than Hillary Clinton in 2016. Nevertheless, this may be Trump's last appearance on our annual list. As of Jan. 21, we will set a high bar for fact-checking his statements. He will be a defeated ex-president, and we tend to focus on claims made by people in power. Trump: "I will always protect people with preexisting conditions." Trump understands little about health-care policy. But he does understand that the Affordable Care Act's protections for people with preexisting health conditions are highly popular. So in every speech, he includes this line, even though it is directly contradicted by the policies his administration has pursued, including asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire ACA, thus ending the guarantee for patients with preexisting conditions. Few claims better illustrate the gap between Trump's words and actions. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Until next time ... We want to thank our readers for their support, for their fact-checking suggestions and tips, for their fair-minded criticisms and for their commitment to the truth. An extra-special thanks to those who read our book, "Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth," which was published by Scribner in June to rave reviews. This newsletter will return next year. And don't worry, we will have plenty to fact-check! We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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