Donald Trump has said a lot of regrettable things in the course of his campaign for the presidency. Many of these statements were mean taunts, politically insensitive remarks, or egotistical bloviating. However, as it appears, a great majority of Trump's public statements were not true. Thus, Trump has been awarded Politifact's "Liar Of The Year" for his array of false statements and exaggerated claims.
Politifact is a Pulitzer-prize winning fact check service, that said of its most recent award recipient, "It was hard to single one out from the others," eventually deciding to lump all of Trump's lies into "one big trophy." The service said that in a study of 77 statements made by the presidential candidate, 76% were considered "mostly false," "false," or "pants on fire." Donald Trump is the only politician with this high a percentage of untruthful statements.
Regarding the decision, Trump told Fox & Friends, "They are a very dishonest group, in my opinion." He continued, "You can tell something 100 percent [correctly] and they will make it out to a lie if you're a certain person."
Politifact justified Trump's receipt of the award through three basic statements (and reoccurring sentiments) said during his presidential campaign. All three lies were designated as "pants on fire." The first, "I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down," said at a November 21st rally in Birmingham, Alabama, was quickly rebuffed by local news and New Jersey officials.
The second lie that earned Trump the prize was his claim that "the Mexican government ... they send the bad ones over." Trump went on to call the vast majority of Mexican illegal immigrants rapists, murderers, and "some, I assume, are good people." This statement, too, was deemed false, as most illegal immigrants come to America looking for work.
The third and final "pants on fire" lie that sealed Trump's fate was a Twitter post that claimed "Whites killed by whites - 16%. Whites killed by blacks - 81%." According to Politifact the actual percentage of whites shot by whites is 82% in 2014 compared to 15% by African-Americans."
