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Donald Trump, King of the Whoppers

Published January 07. 2016 04:00PM

When it comes to exaggerations and outright lies, no one can hold a candle to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. In fact, USA Today this week crowned him "King of the Whoppers," and with good reason.

The national newspaper, which launches fact-checking during every presidential campaign, cited 13 major instances where Trump lied, but, more incredibly, he refused to admit his errors or apologize, even when faced with irrefutable evidence.

Trump is not the only one telling whoppers; there are politicians in both parties who are hoping that voters will take what they say at face value, even though the evidence doesn't support their assertions.

For example, either Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton doesn't know the meaning of "transparency" or else she is delusional when she claimed that she has been "transparent" about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

USA Today assembled samplings of the most far-fetched, distorted or downright wrong claims made during 2015. The most egregious of the Trump pronouncements came on Nov. 21 when Trump claims to have watched on television as "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey were "cheering" the fall of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

The New Jersey attorney general's office and multiple news organizations searched for evidence but found none. There were some celebrations aired in Middle East countries, but never in New Jersey or anywhere else in the United States.

"Never happened," said former state Attorney General John J. Farmer.

This was just one instance of Trump's pattern of inflammatory claims with little or no basis in fact, according to USA Today. In fact, in the Muslim cheering allegation, Trump demanded an apology, citing as evidence one news story about the alleged incident that was unattributed, unverified and never televised.

Here are other instances of Trump's exaggerations:

He boasted that he "predicted" Osama bin Laden's rise to power. In his 2000 book, Trump mentions bin Laden once, but predicted nothing about bin Laden's plans or his rise to head al-Qaida.

Trump "heard" that President Barack Obama was "thinking about signing an executive order where he wants to take your guns away." What Obama considered was requiring large-volume private gun dealers to conduct background checks, not confiscation of firearms from owners.

Trump said he "heard" the Obama administration planned to accept 200,000 Syrian refugees, then upped it to 250,000 in another speech. Not true; the number is about 10,000.

Trump said he got to know Russian President Vladimir Putin "very well" while the two were on CBS' 60 Minutes. Not true. The men were interviewed separately and in different countries thousands of miles apart, according to CBS, the network which airs 60 Minutes.

Trump claims his campaign is 100 percent self-funded. When he made that statement, 50 percent of his campaign funds had come from outside contributors.

Trump says his tax plan is revenue neutral, when it is not. The pro-business Tax Foundation estimates the Trump plan would reduce revenues to the U.S., Treasury by more than $10 trillion over 10 years.

Trump told the touching story of a 2-year-old who got autism a week after the child received a vaccine, but there is no evidence of such a link. The study that claimed to have found a causal effect between the administering of vaccines and autism has been exposed as an elaborate fraud. In fact, it was retracted more than five years ago by the journal that published it, and its author was stripped of his medical license in Great Britain.

Trump says Mexico doesn't have a birthright citizenship policy, but it does.

Trump claimed credit for Ford Motor Co.'s decision to move a plant from Mexico to Ohio. A Ford spokesman says the claim is "ridiculous," because the carmaker had made the decision for the move years before Trump announced that he was running for president.

Trump said in June that there are "no jobs" available in the United States, but official statistics showed 5.4 million job openings, the most in 15 years.

Trump claimed economic growth in the U.S. has "never" been below zero until the third quarter of 2015. In fact, economic growth has been below zero 42 times since 1946.

So, as you can see, Trump has played fast and loose with the truth. Still, he continues to lead the GOP pack, because many voters say that he "tells it like it is." In reality, he tells it like it isn't.

This sordid record of untruths would have long ago buried mere mortal candidates, but for Teflon Don, voters seem to be willing to look the other way when he tells these whoppers.

This deeply concerns me, because characteristics we should want in our president are trustworthiness and truthfulness.

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