How many lies has Trump told in 2025? Donald Trump’s False and Misleading Claims (Since Nov. 2024)

Overview: Volume of Falsehoods and Fact-Checker Tally

During his first term (2017–2021), fact-checkers counted an unprecedented 30,573 false or misleading claims by Donald Trump glennkessler.substack.com. Since November 2024 – when Trump returned to campaigning and then to office – no single comprehensive total has been reported. The Washington Post Fact Checker who led the first-term tally notes that no one is cataloguing every claim in Trump’s second term, though Trump appears to be continuing at a similar pace (~20 false claims per day) glennkessler.substack.com. Fact-checkers across outlets have documented hundreds of specific falsehoods in speeches, interviews, Truth Social posts, and rallies. For example, FactCheck.org reviewed just **five late-October 2024 campaign events and flagged “more than 60 false, misleading and unsupported claims” in those four days factcheck.org. In one April 2025 interview marking 100 days in office, Trump made 32 false or misleading claims washingtonpost.com. The deluge of misinformation has been so extreme that PolitiFact dubbed 2025 the “Year of the Lies,” instead of selecting a single “Lie of the Year”politifact.com politifact.com. Notably, Trump once again dominated fact-checkers’ annual lists of the most egregious falsehoods factcheck.org, underscoring that his barrage of false claims has persisted unabated.

Election and Voting Falsehoods

Trump persisted in spreading debunked election fraud narratives even after 2024. At campaign rallies in October 2024, he repeatedly insisted he “won” the 2020 election and claimed that Joe Biden’s victory was the result of massive cheating factcheck.org factcheck.org. These assertions remain groundless – dozens of judges (including Trump’s own appointees) rejected his fraud claims for lack of evidence factcheck.org, and Trump’s own cybersecurity officials had called 2020 “the most secure” U.S. election in history factcheck.org. Trump has also suggested a new voter-fraud conspiracy involving immigrants: in early 2025 remarks, he alleged that Democrats are bringing undocumented immigrants “to sign them up to vote.” In reality, noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections, and there is no evidence of any such illicit voter-registration scheme factcheck.org. (Illegal voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare and harshly penalized factcheck.org.) These false election-related claims – from the “stolen” 2020 outcome to phantom illegal voters – have been a recurring theme in Trump’s post-2024 rhetoric, typically delivered at rallies or on social media.

Immigration and Crime Misinformation

Immigration has been a focal point of Trump’s misleading claims. Many echo exaggerated narratives from his earlier campaigns:

“Emptying Prisons” Myth: Trump has repeatedly claimed that foreign countries “are emptying out their prisons and insane asylums” to send “millions” of criminals into the U.S. This incendiary claim is rated **Pants on Fire – there is no evidence it’s happening politifact.com. Fact-checkers note Trump has cited a drop in Venezuela’s crime rate as “proof” of this fictional scheme, but experts attribute Venezuela’s crime trends to other factors (economic collapse and internal crackdowns) – not a secret mass export of prisoners politifact.com. U.S. border data also show minuscule numbers of migrants from places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, belying Trump’s insinuations about entire nations dumping inmates into America politifact.com.
“They’re Eating the Pets” Hoax: In a Sept. 2024 campaign debate, Trump made a shocking allegation about Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio – “They’re eating the dogs…They’re eating the cats…They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” Local authorities immediately debunked this. Springfield’s police chief and city manager confirmed there were “no credible reports” of migrants harming pets, and the town’s mayor reassured residents that “your pets are safe”factcheck.org factcheck.org. This bizarre falsehood, originally floated by Trump’s running mate (Sen. J.D. Vance), was acknowledged even by Vance as likely untrue factcheck.org. Nonetheless, Trump amplified the tale to stoke fear of immigrants.
“Migrant Crime Wave” Claims: Throughout 2024–25, Trump often blamed immigrants for what he called “the Worst Crime Wave in History!” – another gross distortion. During a live online response to the State of the Union (March 2024), he asserted “Migrant violence is leading to the worst crime wave in history!”factcheck.org. In fact, U.S. violent crime rates today are barely half of their early-1990s peakfactcheck.org. The nationwide murder rate did spike in 2020 (Trump’s final year in office) but has declined since factcheck.org. Crime data do not support claims of a unique “migrant crime” surge factcheck.org. (Trump even alleged that FBI crime statistics showing recent declines were “fake numbers” – also false factcheck.org.) Likewise, Trump and Vance falsely alleged the Biden administration had released “13,000 murderers” into the country; there is no basis for that figure factcheck.org. FactCheck.org emphasizes that immigrants are not driving a historic crime wave – and FBI data on post-2020 crime drops are legitimate, not fabricated factcheck.org.
Humanitarian Aid Falsehoods: To fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, Trump misrepresented government programs. After two 2024 hurricanes (Helene and Milton), he claimed FEMA was diverting disaster relief funds to “spend on immigrants”, leaving Americans stranded – a Pants on Fire lie politifact.com. In reality, FEMA’s support programs for migrants are funded separately and do not deplete the Disaster Relief Fund politifact.com. (Ironically, as president in 2019, Trump himself reprogrammed some FEMA funds toward border enforcementpolitifact.com.) He also blamed undocumented immigrants for harming Social Security, saying they “hurt” the program’s solvency. In truth, unauthorized workers pay billions into Social Security (via payroll taxes) but cannot receive benefits, actually shoring up the trust fund more than draining itpolitifact.com.

Common thread: Trump’s immigration rhetoric since late 2024 has recycled unverified horror stories and inflated statistics – from lurid tales of pet-eating refugees to sweeping claims that migrants caused a national crime wave. All have been thoroughly debunked by fact-checkers factcheck.org factcheck.org, yet Trump continues to repeat many of these falsehoods in rallies, interviews, and on Truth Social.

Economic and Domestic Policy Claims

Trump’s statements on the economy, taxes, and domestic policy since 2024 have featured rosy misrepresentations and false comparisons:

“Greatest Economy Ever”: Trump habitually boasts that “We had the greatest economy in the history of our country.” He repeated this on the 2024 campaign trail and into 2025, but it is false. Key metrics like real GDP growth were not record-breaking under Trump – for example, annual GDP growth topped Trump’s best year (3.0% in 2018) many times in earlier decades factcheck.org. Unemployment pre-pandemic was low, but not unprecedented. In short, Trump’s pre-2020 economy was strong but far from the all-time historical peak, contrary to his repeated claims factcheck.org.
Inflation and Prices: With inflation a hot issue, Trump has misled about price trends. He has repeatedly claimed that inflation is “stopped” or “dead” under his leadership and that under Biden it was the “worst in U.S. history” factcheck.org. This is incorrect. U.S. inflation reached ~9% in mid-2022 (a 40-year high, but not the highest ever) and had fallen to about 3% by late 2024 washingtonpost.com. Many earlier periods saw higher inflation (e.g. 12.5% in 1980) washingtonpost.com. No data support Trump’s assertion that he “inherited the worst inflation ever” washingtonpost.com. In December 2025, Trump even declared gas prices were “under $2.50 a gallon” on average and “just $1.99” in some states factcheck.org – fact-check: false. The actual U.S. average was ~$2.90 at that time, and even the cheapest state (Oklahoma) averaged $2.34, nowhere near $1.99 factcheck.org. He similarly crowed that grocery costs were falling, citing an “82%” drop in egg prices and a “33%” cheaper Thanksgiving turkey. In reality, **food prices were up ~1–2% in 2025 factcheck.org, and his specific examples were distorted (retail egg prices fell ~42% from an unusual avian-flu spike, not 82%, and turkey prices fell ~16% with store discounts – nowhere near one-third) factcheck.org factcheck.org. Bottom line: Trump’s blanket statements that “prices are down” under him are misleading or outright false factcheck.org factcheck.org.
Tax Cuts and Deficits: Trump often touts his 2025 tax legislation (the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”). In a December 2025 address, for example, he claimed “many families will be saving between $11,000 and $20,000 a year” thanks to the new tax cuts factcheck.org. This is wildly exaggerated – nonpartisan analyses show the average household saves about $800 a year factcheck.org, and only the top 1% of earners might see anything near the five-figure sums Trump cited. On fiscal matters, Trump also repeatedly claims that tariffs on foreign imports (under his “reciprocal tariffs” policy) are a boon: “We’re taking in billions and billions… Now we’re making $3 billion a day”, which he said would allow paying down U.S. debt and even mailing out “tax dividend” checks to Americans glennkessler.substack.com factcheck.org. This is highly misleading. Tariffs are taxes mostly paid by U.S. consumers and businesses, not by other countries glennkessler.substack.com. Total tariff revenue is a drop in the bucket (around $100 billion a year glennkessler.substack.com) – nowhere near “trillions” – and cannot fund major tax cuts or debt reduction on its own (the federal debt is in the tens of trillions). Trump’s own administration implicitly acknowledged tariffs’ costs by authorizing billions in farm bailouts and aid to those hurt by trade wars glennkessler.substack.com. Fact-checkers note that Trump’s tariff math doesn’t add up, and his pledge to use tariffs to slash the budget deficit by “25%” is unfounded glennkessler.substack.com.
Federal Spending and Programs: Trump’s domestic agenda claims have veered into the fanciful. To justify eliminating the USAID agency, he repeatedly alleged that “$50 million [was] being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas”. He even inflated the figure to $100 million in some retellings glennkessler.substack.com. This claim is absurdly false. USAID’s HIV prevention programs did distribute condoms in the Middle East, but the total was under $50,000 (three zeroes less than Trump said) and none of it went to Gaza glennkessler.substack.com. It appears someone in Trump’s circle conflated “Gaza” with a province in Mozambique (also named Gaza) and mixed up USAID with a different health grant glennkessler.substack.com. Despite the factual debunking, Trump kept repeating this nonsense as he dismantled USAID in 2025 glennkessler.substack.com. Another oft-heard boast: Trump claims to have saved U.S. jobs and industries via massive foreign investment deals – “nearly $20 trillion in new investments” – double what even his own White House reports (which themselves count non-binding pledges) show glennkessler.substack.com. Such inflated figures and superlatives are a staple of Trump’s economic messaging, but they lack grounding in official data glennkessler.substack.com.

Foreign Policy and National Security Claims

On the world stage, Trump’s penchant for exaggeration and false claims has continued, often as he takes credit for events that didn’t happen or distorts geopolitical realities:

“Ended Seven Wars” Boast: In a Sept. 23, 2025 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Trump declared, “In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars.” PolitiFact rated this claim Mostly False politifact.com. While Trump helped broker or facilitate a few agreements (e.g. easing tensions between Serbia and Kosovo or in parts of Africa), **several conflicts he referenced were not fully resolved – and some “peace deals” remained fragile or disputed by the countries involved politifact.com. In other cases, Trump overstated U.S. involvement or claimed credit prematurely. He also boasted in that speech of “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear facilities, which is untrue – no such U.S. military action occurred, aside from continued sanctions and cyber operations. The reality is that Trump’s claims of ending wars are overstated; fact-checkers concluded he “misleadingly” exaggerated his peace-making record politifact.com politifact.com.
Ukraine War Revisionism: Trump has repeatedly inserted false narratives about Russia’s war on Ukraine. In February 2025, he shocked observers by saying of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”glennkessler.substack.com. This effectively blamed Ukraine for Russia’s 2022 invasion, echoing Kremlin talking points. It’s a bogus rewriting of history: Ukraine did not instigate the war – Russia did by invading, and Zelensky’s government had no viable “deal” that could have prevented unprovoked aggression. As one analyst noted, Trump’s stance is akin to claiming WWII was caused by Poland or Pearl Harbor by the U.S. – a distortion of cause and effect glennkessler.substack.com. Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine should cede to Russian demands was widely debunked as ignoring the true chronology of the conflict glennkessler.substack.com. Nevertheless, Trump has continued to “tilt toward Russia” in his rhetoric glennkessler.substack.com, falsely implying the onus was on Ukraine to stop the war.
“Eight Wars” and Other Military Claims: By late 2025, Trump was even touting “I’ve ended eight wars” (adding one more to the tally) – a claim for which there is no factual basis beyond the dubious “seven” he already counted. He has also taken credit for unspecified counterterrorism feats, and made the bizarre statement in a 2025 speech that “Every boat that you see get blown up, we save 25,000 – on average – 25,000 lives.”glennkessler.substack.com. This referred to the Trump administration’s controversial naval strikes on boats allegedly carrying Venezuelan drugs or migrants. The math is invented – fact-checkers note Trump provided no source for the “25,000 lives saved” figure, and it’s unclear how one even quantifies lives saved from blowing up a single small vessel. PolitiFact flagged this “made-up math” claim as one of the most egregious falsehoods of 2025 politifact.com. In short, Trump often justifies deadly force with unsupported statistics, portraying himself as a lifesaver on dubious grounds.
Conspiracy Claims (Espionage and Enemies): At times Trump has promoted evidence-free conspiracy theories to discredit opponents. For instance, amid investigations into his ties with Jeffrey Epstein, Trump claimed the incriminating “Epstein files were made up by Comey… by Obama… by Biden.” There is zero evidence that any such files were fabricated by past presidents or FBI directors; this is a baseless accusation Trump floated to confuse the narrative glennkessler.substack.com. Similarly, Trump declared in early 2025 that “We’ve ended weaponized government where a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent like me.”glennkessler.substack.com This was during his address to Congress (State of the Union), implying he ended the supposed “weaponization” of the Justice Department. In reality, no laws or norms had changed – Trump simply installed loyalists and criticized ongoing independent prosecutions of himself. Fact-checkers point out the irony: Trump claimed to stop “weaponization” even as he publicly pressured the Justice Department and pursued his own probes of rivals glennkessler.substack.com. These statements serve to cast Trump as a victim-turned-reformer, but lack factual grounding.

Science, Health, and Environmental False Claims

Trump’s misrepresentations have extended into science and public health, often contradicting expert consensus:

Vaccine and Autism Myths: In September 2025, Trump held a press conference on an “autism crisis” alongside his HHS Secretary (noted anti-vaccine figure Robert F. Kennedy Jr.). Trump hyped it as “one of the biggest medical announcements… in the history of our country,” but instead promoted an unproven link between autism and Tylenol (acetaminophen) use during pregnancy factcheck.org. He explicitly warned pregnant women, “Don’t take Tylenol… tough it out,” claiming the pain reliever causes autism factcheck.org en.wikipedia.org. This assertion is unsupported by scientific evidence: extensive studies have found no causal link between acetaminophen and autism, and recent research suggests no significant connection at all factcheck.org. Medical experts (including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) quickly condemned Trump’s advice – untreated fever or pain in pregnancy can be dangerous, and acetaminophen remains the recommended safe option for such cases factcheck.org. Trump and RFK Jr. also trotted out familiar anti-vaccine tropes. Trump claimed the Amish “don’t take vaccines or pills” and have “essentially no autism”, and he railed against the childhood vaccine schedule as if kids were being injected with “a vat of 80 different vaccines”en.wikipedia.org. These statements are flat-out false. The Amish do vaccinate (albeit at lower rates) and do have autism cases; major studies have debunked any link between vaccines and autism en.wikipedia.org. Fact-checkers labeled Trump’s 2025 autism/vaccine claims “an appalling display of ignorance” – part of a pattern of spreading debunked health conspiracies during his second term.
Climate Change Denial: Trump has continued to downplay or dismiss climate science. He often calls climate change “the greatest hoax” or “a con job”, and has repeated one particularly absurd talking point from years past: that sea levels will rise “only one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.” He reiterated this claim in 2024, vastly understating the real threat factcheck.org. (In reality, global sea level rose about 6 inches in the last 100 years, and scientists project it will rise several feet in the next 100–200 years if emissions continue – hundreds of times Trump’s figure.) By trivializing the problem, Trump justified rolling back climate initiatives. Fact-checkers have consistently pointed out that Trump’s climate claims contradict established data and consensus – for example, 2015–2022 were among the hottest years on record, ice sheets are melting, and the oceans are rising at an accelerating rate, not a microscopic crawl factcheck.org. Despite clear evidence, Trump’s speeches and Truth Social posts frequently treat climate science as a joke, misleading the public about the urgency of climate risks.
Other Scientific Distortions: Trump’s disregard for facts has surfaced in various domains. He claimed “all the legal scholars” long agreed Roe v. Wade should be overturned (when in truth legal opinion was divided – even some conservative scholars supported Roe as precedent) factcheck.org. He touted fringe theories like water fluoridation being harmful (echoing RFK Jr.’s debunked views factcheck.org). During the COVID-19 pandemic’s aftermath, Trump continued to inflate his own successes and spread doubt – for instance, falsely asserting he had distributed a “cure” or that testing created cases, statements repeatedly refuted by medical authorities. While campaigning in 2024, he falsely claimed “we achieved herd immunity” and that Biden “tried to keep COVID lockdowns for years” – again, not true (lockdowns had largely ended under Trump before Biden took office). These examples illustrate that **Trump’s pattern of false claims encompasses science and health topics as well, often promoting fringe ideas or self-congratulatory untruths over hard evidence.

Common Themes: Since November 2024, Trump’s false or misleading claims have clustered around a few themes. Election denial (casting doubt on any loss as “fraud”) remains a core narrative factcheck.org. Immigration fear-mongering is prominent, with Trump painting immigrants as criminals, invaders, or economic threats – claims repeated ad nauseam despite factual refutation politifact.com factcheck.org. On the economy, Trump frequently overstates his achievements (jobs, trade deals, growth) and invents numbers to disparage his opponents’ record (e.g. inflation, gas prices) washingtonpost.com factcheck.org. Foreign policy lies often involve taking undue credit or deflecting blame – from exaggerating peace deals politifact.com to misleading justifications of violent actions glennkessler.substack.com. In science and public health, Trump has shown a willingness to embrace conspiracy theories (vaccines, climate) that energize his base, even if it means contradicting experts and data en.wikipedia.org factcheck.org.

While a precise count of Trump’s falsehoods post-2024 is elusive (and likely enormous), fact-checkers have documented dozens of notable examples across virtually every policy area. Many of these claims are repeated rallies lines or social media refrains, indicating a deliberate strategy of reinforcement. In summary, the pattern of frequent, repetitive false claims that defined Trump’s first term has very much continued into late 2024 and 2025, with leading fact-check organizations continually debunking the same themes: election fraud lies, immigration myths, economic exaggerations, and a litany of other false statements glennkessler.substack.com politifact.com. Each of these has been verified false or misleading by reputable fact-checkers (The Washington Post, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, AP, Reuters, and others), underscoring the extraordinary scale of misinformation in Trump’s post-2024 political discourse.

Sources: FactCheck.org factcheck.org factcheck.org; PolitiFact politifact.com politifact.com; Washington Post Fact Checker glennkessler.substack.com washingtonpost.com.