Here’s a fact check of some of President Trump’s claims, including a bunch of long-debunked lies, from a single softball New York Post interview released this morning.
Claim: “We're the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots.” Truth: Dozens of countries have mail-in ballots, including Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, and Switzerland.
Claim: The 2020 election was “rigged” and has “been proven to be rigged.” Truth: Not rigged, there’s no proof for Trump’s assertion more than five years later, and he lost fair and square.
Claim: Trump won “three” presidential elections. Truth: He won in 2016 and 2024, lost in 2020.
Claim: In the 2024 election, “There were areas that were just rigged…rigged against me.” Truth: Nonsense again; he won that election fair and square but lost some areas of the country fair and square.
Claim: Democrats “could not win” “if they didn’t cheat.” Truth: Democrats, like Republicans, clearly win various elections legitimately.
Claim: California mails out “38 million ballots," and while "some people get three, four, five ballots," "Republicans get, oftentimes, none.” Truth: California mails a ballot to all active registered voters, of which there are 23 million, not the “38 million” figure Trump has used repeatedly; while there are occasional errors by county elections offices and the postal service, there's no general anti-Republican bias in ballot-mailing in the state.
Claim: “I inherited the highest inflation in the history of our country…Biden had like 9, 10% inflation. And I inherited that, and we have it way down.” Truth: The inflation rate the month Trump returned to office was 3.0%, lower than the most recent rate of 3.8%; Biden-era inflation did peak at 9.1%, but that was in mid-2022, and it wasn’t close to the all-time record of 23.7%. Regardless, it had fallen substantially before Trump’s inauguration.
Claim: “We have $18 trillion being invested in the country in just 11 months.” Truth: This is a completely fictional figure. The White House’s own website says there have been $10.6 trillion in “major investment announcements” this term, and even that’s a massive exaggeration that counts vague pledges, not-even-pledges, and pledges that are about mutual trade rather than investments in the US.
Claim: Trump had gas prices at “$1.85 in Iowa” on the day he visited there in January. Truth: The Iowa average gas price that day was $2.57 per gallon, per AAA; GasBuddy found four stations in the state out of 2,036 selling for $1.97 that day, none at $1.85; the station outside the venue where he spoke was at $2.69. (Ethanol-gas blend E85 was around $1.85, but that can only be used in a small percentage of cars, and he didn’t say that was what he was talking about.)
Claim: Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was still wearing a mask “a couple of months ago.” Truth: I've found no evidence for this; the Talarico video many Republicans have mocked shows Talarico wearing a mask in 2022, not 2026.
Claim: Mitch McConnell was “losing by a lot” in the 2020 Senate election in Kentucky but then Trump endorsed him and got him elected. Truth: McConnell, running in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992, led in all but one public poll in that race, and that one exception was a poll conducted for a pro-term-limits group in which he trailed by just one point; he was always the overwhelming favorite.
Claim: The Jan. 6 attack was “nonsense” in which “the FBI said, ‘Go in. Go in.’” Truth: That was a riot perpetrated by Trump supporters, and there's no evidence the FBI ever told rioters to illegally enter the Capitol. DOJ’s inspector general found the FBI had zero undercover agents at the riot…and Trump was president at the time and had personally appointed the FBI director.
Claim: Former VP Harris “was the border czar” but “never went.” Truth: She went to the border twice as VP, and the Biden administration repeatedly emphasized she was never “border czar” but had a narrower assignment focused on the “root causes” of migration from Central America.
Claim: Under Biden, “25 million people” poured over the border. Truth: This is a further exaggeration from the wildly exaggerated “21 million” figure Trump used to use; even counting “gotaways,” it’s not even close to correct.
Claim: Democrats are so dumb that “we had 11,888 murderers, most of whom committed more than one murder, allowed into our country.” Truth: The federal data it appears Trump is referring to is about people who entered the US over the course of multiple decades, *including during Trump’s own first administration.*
Claim: Under Biden, countries emptied their jail populations into the US – “the whole jail was emptied into our country.” Trump and his team have never substantiated this claim even though he’s made it for years, and experts on global prison policy and on the countries he has previously identified as the supposed culprits have told me they’ve seen no evidence for it.
More details: https://t.co/NtFk7PUfwN
When I called out Trump years ago for being a danger to democracy, a free press, and truth itself, I was accused of making myself the story and showboating. How did things turn out? Trump is all of those things. Tonight, the free press is very much in danger in America. Wake up!
Dems should counter program Trump's 80th birthday celebration with performances by Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and Bad Bunny, have it emceed by Stephen Colbert, and name the event after Obama.
A message to all sane Republicans:
He pardoned 1,600 violent criminals.
You said nothing.
He bulldozed the East Wing.
You said nothing.
He interfered with the release of the Epstein files. You said nothing.
He took over the Kennedy Center and renamed it after himself. You said nothing.
He accepted a $400 million airplane as a personal gift. You said nothing.
He threatened Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Greenland, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. You said nothing.
He tariffed just about everyone but Russia, causing inflation and instability worldwide. You said nothing.
He attacked a nation during mediated negotiations. You said nothing.
His ill-conceived war killed 175 children on day one. You said nothing.
He alienated and insulted our allies. You said nothing.
His ICE Army terrorized and murdered U.S. citizens. You said nothing.
He committed murder on the high seas. You said nothing.
He co-opted the Justice Department and directed it to prosecute his political enemies. You said nothing.
It’s time to start talking.
THE MAGA AGENDA: protect the fetus, starve the child, honor the soldier, abandon the veteran, enrich the corporations, and fleece the worker, quote the Bible but ignore every single fucking verse.
Just so everyone is aware. Kevin Warsh who Trump picked to be the next fed chair is in the Epstein files and in 2010 spent Christmas with Epstein at st. Bart's. He's also the son-in-law of Ronald Lauder, cosmetic billionaire and founding member of the MEGA group with Les Wexner.
Warehouse in Surprise Arizona valued at 12 million sold to HS for 70 million.
Another in Social Circle, Georgia valued at 30 million and sold to HS for 130 million.
One in Roxbury New Jersey valued at 54 million and sold for 129 million.
Tremont PA worth 60 million and sold for 120 million dollars.
Salt Lake City 90 million sold for 145 million.
I’d like to see where the money went and how much people in the Trump administration got paid in kickbacks.
On just 5 warehouses our government overpaid by 348 million dollars. Kristi Noem should be in prison and we should stop sending taxes to the federal government. They can no longer be trusted with our money.
Fun fact for the $10 billion lawsuit crowd.
The IRS leak that exposed Donald Trump’s tax returns happened between August 2019 and November 2020.
405,427 other taxpayer returns were also leaked.
Trump was president. His own pick, Charles Rettig, ran the IRS. The contractor who did it, Charles Littlejohn, worked on a Trump-era IRS contract and is now serving five years in federal prison.
On January 29, 2026, Trump sued the IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over a breach that happened on his watch, under his commissioner, by a contractor his administration paid.
He is suing the federal government he ran, for failing to stop a leak that occurred while he was running it.
The taxpayer foots the bill either way.
TRUMP IS STILL IN THE EPSTEIN FILES: Rep. Jamie Raskin was visibly shaken after reviewing the unredacted files, saying, "Trump's name is all over these files.[..] you will see references to... 17-year-old girls, 16-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls, 11-year-old girls, 10-year-old girls, and I saw a reference today to a 9-year-old girl."
AND WE'VE DONE NOTHING to serve justice for those victims, and we must...if we are to retain our humanity. Stop falling for the distractions, and hold EVERYONE accountable.
As a Danish and European politician, I am not accustomed to deliberate public falsehood as a political method. But it is probably something we will have to get used to.
Take, for example, Jeff Landry’s blatant falsehood that Donald Trump was the first major politician to truly place Greenland on the world map.
If we confine ourselves to this century alone, Colin Powell was co-signatory of the Igaliku Agreement in 2004 while serving as Secretary of State. John Negroponte, then Deputy Secretary of State, represented the United States when the Ilulissat Declaration was signed in 2008. John Kerry visited Greenland in 2016 while serving as Secretary of State. And Antony Blinken visited the island in 2021.
Greenland was also visited by Angela Merkel in 2007, when the purpose was to study climate change.
And the island has continuously received visits from American politicians who genuinely take an interest in Arctic affairs. The foremost among them is undoubtedly Lisa Murkowski.
So Greenland has long been on the world map - partly because of climate change, and partly because of the question of Arctic security. And Greenland has continuously been integrated into Arctic cooperation, not least as a consequence of the Igaliku Agreement.
There was a time when I read a great deal of Jürgen Habermas and believed that the norm of truth was an unbreakable norm among civilized people. I believed that, as Habermas put it, the better argument exercised a kind of “forceless force.”
What we lack today is a new Habermas for the twenty-first century - someone capable of describing the performative role of the lie.
Because the reality is this: to someone who knows nothing about Greenland, Jeff Landry’s statements sound perfectly plausible. But they are simply a fabrication. A good story. Something designed to generate support without any ambition toward truth. Harry Frankfurt argued that this is the very essence of what he called “bullshit.”
We no longer merely disagree about values. Increasingly, we disagree about reality itself.
Jeff Landry is part of the post-truth culture that permeates American politics. But it is also something we in Europe will increasingly have to adapt to, simply because of the influence the United States possesses.
It is difficult to say where this post-truth strategy will lead the Western world. But I will be honest: I have reached an age where I preferred the world shaped by the ideals of the Enlightenment - by truth as a moral norm and obligation.
That world is gone. Perhaps permanently. I understand that. But I cannot pretend to admire the replacement.
Since Mike Johnson says members of Congress don't make enough money with just their salaries, may I suggest:
- Dialing back on those streaming subscriptions
- Reducing your cell phone plan
- Taking public transportation
- Eating cheaper cuts of meat
- Eating in more often
- Turning off the lights when you're not in the room
- Getting a part-time job at Walmart
- Growing a f-cking spine and stop whining
Signed,
Everyone trying to eke out a living in your shitty economy
TRUMP: “I came up with a new name. ‘Dumocrats.’ They’re dumb. It’s d-u-m. I got rid of the b. So, you’re only changing one letter. E goes and the U comes.”
I thank my lucky stars everyday I’m a Dumocrat and not a Rapeublican!
You didn’t design shit. This is an off the shelf rebrand of a device made by Wingtech called the Revvl 7Pro 5G and was available at T-Mobile for $0. The 7Pro has been replaced by the 8Pro because this thing is over 18 months old. And this is old stock that they bought to avoid a lawsuit.