Since the beginning of his political career, Donald Trump has misled, mischaracterized, dissembled, exaggerated and, at times, flatly lied. His flawed statements about the border, the economy, the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 election have formed the bedrock of his 2024 campaign.
Though his penchant for bending, and often breaking, the truth has been well documented, a close study of how he does so reveals a kind of technique to his dishonesty: a set of recurring rhetorical moves with which Trump fuels his popularity among his supporters.
In the week starting with Trump’s victory speech in Iowa through his win in the New Hampshire primary — the contests that put him on the path to becoming his party’s nominee for the third consecutive time — The New York Times analyzed all of his public statements, including speeches, interviews and social media posts.
His words focused heavily on attacking his political rivals, self-aggrandizing and stoking fear to make his case for 2024. In doing so, Trump often relied on repeated falsehoods and half-truths. He has yet to deviate from this approach in the general election.
Here’s a look at how he does it.
1) Trump grossly distorts his opponents’ records and proposals to make them sound unreasonable.
President Joe Biden has not proposed quadrupling taxes. In fact, he has consistently vowed not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000.
Biden has not implemented an electric car mandate. The administration has announced rules that would limit tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks, effectively requiring automakers to sell more electric vehicles and hybrids. It doesn’t ban gas cars.
2) Trump exaggerates and twists the facts to make his record sound better than it is.
There were in fact terrorist attacks in the United States during the Trump administration. In 2017, to name one, a native of Uzbekistan plowed a pickup truck down a bike path in Manhattan, killing eight people. The Justice Department said the driver, Sayfullo Saipov, carried out the terrorist attack in the name of ISIS.
The economy wasn’t the “best” under Trump. Even setting aside COVID, the average growth rate was lower under Trump than under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. And inflation was low, but it wasn’t nonexistent.
The national average price of a gallon of gasoline dropped to that price during one week amid the COVID lockdown in 2020, when demand was extraordinarily low. When Trump left office in January 2021, the national average was $2.42.
3) Trump relies on both well-worn and fresh claims of election rigging to suggest he can lose only if his opponents cheat.
The 2020 election was not rigged. Trump has uttered hundreds of inaccurate claims to support the false claim that it was — mischaracterizing voting processes, citing baseless cases of supposed fraud and sharing conspiracy theories about voting machines.
Registered Democrats were not able to vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary. The contest was open to registered Republicans and independents. Any Democrats who switched parties or re-registered as independents to vote in the Republican primary — and some did — had to do so before an October 2023 deadline, months before the contest.
The claim that “thousands” of voters were blocked from casting their ballots in Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election — at the expense of Trump’s preferred candidate, Lake — is false. There were some glitches in Maricopa County, but voters were largely able to cast their votes.
4) Trump has turned his criminal cases into a rallying cry, baselessly asserting that he is being persecuted by his successor.
Trump has not offered any evidence for his contention that Biden has orchestrated the criminal charges against him. Two of his four cases were brought at the state level. At the federal level, Trump’s criminal charges — in relation to his effort to remain in power after losing the 2020 election and, separately, over his retention of classified documents after leaving office — are handled by a special counsel and were put before grand juries.
Trump has been indicted four times. Capone was indicted at least six times, according to A. Brad Schwartz, a historian and biographer of the infamous gangster.
There is no evidence that these events wouldn’t or couldn’t have occurred had the 2020 election outcome been different — and it’s impossible to prove. But experts say the context surrounding those events render his claims highly questionable.
There is no proof that China’s stock market woes were related to Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses.
5) Trump describes the United States as a nation in ruins.
Immigrants caught crossing the border without legal permission are processed, whether they are returned to other countries or later released into the country awaiting future proceedings.
There are no plans to make Army tanks all electric.
This is, of course, false.
Energy production — including oil and gas — has boomed under Biden. Under both administrations, the United States has been a net exporter of petroleum and natural gas, but it still relies on imports.
Trump’s claim is most likely based on an FBI field office memo that warned of the potential for extremism among adherents of a “radical-traditionalist Catholic” ideology. But the memo was withdrawn and repeatedly condemned by the nation’s top law enforcement officials.