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At Trump’s campaign rally, 3 in 4 claims fail the truth test

The following is from the Washington Post Fact Checker email sent July 13, 2018:

We did the math on President Trump’s recent campaign rally in Montana. It’s not pretty.

After analyzing each and every statement of fact made by the president, we counted 98 total and found that 76 percent were false, misleading or unsupported by evidence. Let that sink in. For every accurate or mostly accurate statement, Trump said three things that were false, misleading or unsubstantiated.

Here’s a breakdown: 45 statements were false or mostly false, 25 were misleading, 24 were accurate or mostly accurate, and four were unsupported.

The Fact Checker’s database has been tracking all of Trump’s false or misleading statements since he took office. But we had never measured the proportion of false statements to accurate statements. The president’s July 5 rally in Montana seemed like a good chance to see which side would win. As we said, the results weren’t pretty.

We fact-checked and categorized all 98 statements, which include a lot of Trump’s greatest hits on immigration, trade and the Russia investigation. He also threw some new falsehoods into the mix, crowing that he gets bigger crowds than Elton John and claiming he was the first Republican to win Wisconsin since 1952.

Data and Research Manager: