Donald Trump made the Washington Post’s “Biggest Pinocchios of 2015” list three separate times Monday, chronicling claims by prominent people that turned out to be false.
The paper faulted Trump’s assertion during his presidential announcement that Mexico is “forcing criminals, drug dealers and rapists” to illegally cross the border into the U.S.,” contending: “There is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans.”
“Moreover, the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants in prison do not belong in the category that fits Trump’s description: aggravated felons, whose crimes include murder, drug trafficking or illegal trafficking of firearms,” they write.
Trump’s second offense, his claim that President Obama approved the intake of 250,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S., spread like wildfire in the Republican presidential field, according to the Post. The White House has said.
“Donald Trump first said President Obama planned to admit 200,000 Syrian refugees, a figure conjured out of thin air. Then it became 250,000. But the real figure is 10,000. … Trump’s false rhetoric inspired other GOP candidates to offer wildly inflated figures as well,” the Post claims.
As recently as mid-November, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes maintained that the White House has approved the acceptance of roughly 10,000 refugees in 2016, and even more the following year.
The third and most recent of Trump claims is his assertion that he saw footage of “thousands on thousands of Muslims” in New Jersey celebrating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down,” the billionaire told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in late November.
“Despite repeated debunking of this claim, Trump continued to assert he was correct, even though he could produce no evidence except a handful of news stories that made brief mentions of alleged celebrations — which never could be confirmed,” the Post stated.
Trump was not the only White House contender to make the Post’s list of Pinocchios. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who previously claimed a man “was put in prison for conspiracy just for having dirt on his land,” was included, as was Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for claiming her husband, former President Bill Clinton, signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law to prevent “an anti-gay marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Altogether, nine individuals and the phrase “Hands up, Don’t shoot,” popularized following the death of Michael Brown, made the annual list of outstanding fibs.
