Believe Me
Donald Trump likes to use the phrase “believe me” at the end of every claim so much, it is as if it had the same function as a period.
- “Hi how are you doing believe me”
- “Does the chef allow substitutions believe me”
- “Where is the restroom believe me”
In fact, you can watch a video compilation of the many many many times Trump is asking you to “believe me!”
We wanted to see just how trustworthy Donald Trump is, outside of the over 180 times we’ve cataloged him making false claims.
Using the three presidential debates as a case study, we reviewed the most comprehensive of fact checkers to arrive at a grand-total of false claims between the two candidates to see if we should believe Trump when he tells us to believe him.
Let’s first break down each debate and compare each candidate.
First Debate
The first debate was held on September 26, 2016 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY and was hosted by Lester Holt.
Some of the more outlandish claims by Trump was that he was not for the Iraq war before the invasion.
| Candidate | Speaking Time | Total Lies |
| Trump | 45:03 | 34 |
| Clinton | 41:50 | 4 |
Fact checking provide by Toronto Star.
Speaking time calculated by ABC News.
Second Debate
The second debate was held on October 9, 2016 at Washington University in St. Louis, and was hosted by Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz.
| Candidate | Speaking Time | Total Lies |
| Trump | 39:07 | 33 |
| Clinton | 38:29 | 5 |
Fact checking provide by Toronto Star.
Speaking time calculated by Politico.
Third Debate
The third debate was held on October 19, 2016, at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, hosted by Fox News’ Chris Wallace.
| Candidate | Speaking Time | Total Lies |
| Trump | 35:41 | 37 |
| Clinton | 41:46 | 4 |
Fact checking provide by Toronto Star.
Speaking time calculated by CNN.
Grand Total
| Candidate | Speaking Time | Total Lies |
| Trump | 119:51 | 104 |
| Clinton | 122:05 | 13 |
From our total we can see that Trump lies exactly 8 times more than his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and tells a lie on average once every minute.
Reality
I don’t think we should believe him.