The Whoppers of 2025

Summary

Since helium entered politics, President Donald Trump has been a regular connected our end-of-year database of the astir egregious and noteworthy falsehoods and distortions. With Trump backmost successful the White House successful 2025, it’s nary astonishment that helium dominates this year’s whoppers.

Trump is known for rhetoric that uses inaccurate and exaggerated claims, which helium repeats again and again. In his 2nd term, respective specified claims were utilized to warrant a whirlwind of argumentation changes and announcements. Using a method economists said wasn’t legitimate, helium calculated “reciprocal tariffs” for goods imported from different countries. In firing the caput of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, helium claimed without grounds that debased occupation maturation figures were “phony” oregon “rigged.” In supporting a frost connected overseas aid, Trump said $50 cardinal was being utilized to bargain condoms for Hamas successful Gaza, a assertion refuted by the contractor identified by the State Department.

In a falsehood-filled property conference, Trump, on with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., touted an unproven nexus betwixt autism and taking Tylenol during pregnancy. Kennedy, agelong known for spreading inaccurate accusation astir vaccines, besides features prominently successful this year’s compilation. In his efforts to alteration the nation’s vaccine and nationalist wellness recommendations, helium pushed unproven therapeutics for treating measles and made mendacious claims astir the COVID-19 vaccines.

There are different politicians connected our afloat database below, which is successful nary peculiar order.

Analysis

Tylenol and autism. Trump said a precocious September property league would uncover “one of the biggest [medical] announcements … successful the past of our country,” but alternatively the header quality was an unproven nexus betwixt autism and the usage of Tylenol, oregon acetaminophen, during pregnancy. Trump repeatedly told large women, “don’t instrumentality Tylenol,” and offered the unsound aesculapian proposal to “tough it out.”

The medication didn’t constituent to immoderate caller archetypal probe connected the topic, which has been studied. Some studies person shown an relation betwixt utilizing acetaminophen during gestation and an accrued likelihood of having a kid with autism, but nary causal nexus has been established. Recent probe indicates determination apt isn’t a link. As for Trump’s aesculapian advice, untreated symptom oregon fever during gestation tin beryllium harmful to some parent and child, and aesculapian groups person agelong recommended prudent usage of the cause — taking acetaminophen erstwhile needed successful consultation with a doctor. 

HHS Secretary Kennedy aboriginal falsely claimed that 2 circumcision-related studies provided grounds that acetaminophen causes autism erstwhile fixed to children. That’s not what the studies found. In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed a webpage to accidental that its erstwhile connection that “vaccines bash not origin autism” is “not an evidence-based claim,” echoing Kennedy’s anterior misrepresentations of science.

Inflation has not “stopped.” As cost-of-living issues proceed to beryllium a apical concern for voters, Trump has repeatedly claimed that ostentation is “stopped,” “dead” oregon at a little rate than it really is, falsely saying the state saw “the worst inflation” successful past (or “probably” did so) nether erstwhile President Joe Biden. That’s not the case. This month, successful a code astir the system successful Pennsylvania, Trump wrongly said helium “inherited the worst ostentation successful the past of our country.”

The annualized inflation rate was 3% erstwhile Trump took bureau successful January, and it was 3% again for the 12 months ending successful September, the latest information disposable from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation did emergence considerably successful the archetypal fractional of Biden’s term, but it past cooled substantially. From July to December 2024, the yearly summation successful the Consumer Price Index was beneath 3%.

The worst inflation increase year-to-year occurred aft World War I, a 23.7% emergence from June 1919 to June 1920. There person been galore different times with ostentation higher than the highest constituent nether Biden.

As we caput into the midterms, we’d caution voters that politicians often blasted their opponents for rising prices, but the causes of ostentation are usually much analyzable than that. For instance, Labor Day claims from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blamed House Republicans for “driving up the terms of burgers.” But drought conditions successful caller years, among different factors, drove up the outgo of crushed beef.

Russia, not Ukraine, started the war. After U.S. and Russian officials met successful Saudi Arabia successful February to sermon an extremity to Russia’s warfare successful Ukraine, Trump falsely reprimanded Ukraine, saying, “You should person ne'er started it.” He said Ukraine “could person made a deal.” As we wrote, the warfare started connected Feb. 24, 2022, erstwhile Russia launched a full-scale invasion, 2 days aft Russia recognized two separatist territories successful eastbound Ukraine arsenic autarkic states and sent Russian troops into Ukraine’s Donbas region. While Russian President Vladimir Putin gave “a agelong database of grievances” to warrant the attack, Jeffrey Mankoff, a elder subordinate with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program astatine the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an April 2022 study that the “fundamental issue” was “the legitimacy of Ukrainian individuality and statehood.”

Throughout the year, Trump besides repeatedly and wrongly claimed that the U.S. has provided much wealth successful assistance to Ukraine than Europe has. The opposite is true.

“Twisted and manipulated” study that wasn’t. When the Washington Post reported via anonymous sources that a authorities quality appraisal concluded the Venezuelan authorities was not directing the migration of members of the Tren de Aragua pack to the U.S., Tulsi Gabbard, the manager of nationalist intelligence, dismissed the report. She said those “behind this amerciable leak of classified intelligence” had “twisted and manipulated [the information] to convey the nonstop other finding.” But erstwhile a redacted transcript of the quality memo was publically released the pursuing month, it corroborated the Washington Post’s account. According to the quality memo, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “regime astir apt does not person a argumentation of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA question to and operations successful the United States.”

A fewer months later, Gabbard wrongly claimed to person uncovered “overwhelming evidence” that erstwhile President Barack Obama and others successful his medication manipulated quality to “lay the groundwork for what was fundamentally a years-long coup against President Trump.”

RFK Jr.’s dubious measles therapeutics. In March, during a measles outbreak successful Texas, Kennedy claimed determination were “very bully results” from treating patients with a definite steroid and antibiotic, arsenic good arsenic cod liver oil, saying “those therapeutics person truly been ignored” by the CDC “for a long, agelong time.” Neither the steroid nor antibiotic is simply a circumstantial attraction for measles, experts said, and cod liver oil, which contains vitamin A, besides isn’t recommended.

Vitamin A itself is recommended astir the satellite for measles, arsenic a mates high-dose bursts of the vitamin person been shown to trim measles mortality successful lower-income countries wherever deficiencies exist. But the payment is unclear successful the U.S. and countries without specified deficiencies. Cod liver lipid would request to beryllium consumed successful a perchance unsafe magnitude to get the vitamin A dosage utilized for measles.

In different comments, Kennedy downplayed the outbreak, which yet killed 2 children, and made unsupported and misleading claims astir the measles vaccine, which is safe and effective in preventing the highly contagious disease.

No grounds of “phony” Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. After a BLS study showed less-than-stellar occupation growth, Trump lashed retired astatine the BLS commissioner, saying “her numbers were wrong,” “phony” and “rigged,” and firing her. There’s nary grounds anyone manipulated the data. William Beach, the BLS commissioner during Trump’s archetypal term, wrote on X that the firing of Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, a Biden appointee who had worked successful the national authorities for much than 20 years, was “totally groundless” and “sets a unsafe precedent and undermines the statistical ngo of the Bureau.”

Trump besides wrongly claimed that “days earlier the election,” McEntarfer “came retired with these beauteous numbers trying to get idiosyncratic other elected” and past reduced the employment estimates “right aft the election.” That’s not what happened. On Nov. 1, 2024, conscionable earlier the election, the BLS report showed growth of conscionable 12,000 jobs successful October and downward revisions for the anterior 2 months.

Signalgate: Not “total exoneration.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that helium received “total exoneration” successful an investigative study by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General regarding a Signal radical chat astir a subject onslaught successful Yemen. But the report contradicted that assessment, concluding that Hegseth’s messages “created a hazard to operational information that could person resulted successful failed U.S. ngo objectives and imaginable harm to U.S. pilots.” The study besides faulted Hegseth for utilizing a idiosyncratic compartment telephone to relay delicate DoD accusation and for not retaining the Signal conversations arsenic authoritative records, arsenic required by national instrumentality and Pentagon policy.

Trump’s illustration connected “reciprocal” tariffs. In a Rose Garden announcement successful April of sweeping caller “reciprocal tariffs,” Trump held aloft a illustration that claimed to springiness a breakdown of the tariffs different countries complaint the U.S. and the corresponding tariff that the U.S. would arsenic a effect enforce against those countries. But it turned out the values assigned to different countries were not, successful fact, the tariff rates different countries were placing connected imports of U.S. goods, but alternatively a calculation of what the medication deemed would beryllium indispensable to equilibrium commercialized with assorted countries. Economists told america that was not a morganatic mode to cipher reciprocal tariffs for countries.

The misleading “reciprocal tariffs” chart, which informed the tariff rates helium past set, was conscionable 1 of the president’s mendacious and misleading talking points on tariffs. Among them, Trump repeatedly, and wrongly, claimed that the tariffs helium imposed would beryllium paid by different countries and not, astatine slightest partly, by American consumers successful the signifier of higher prices.

mRNA vaccine misinformation. Kennedy, and HHS, made a bid of mendacious statements astir mRNA vaccines, the exertion down the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. In announcing the termination of fractional a cardinal dollars of backing for mRNA vaccine projects, Kennedy said: “We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” claiming that “the information amusement these vaccines neglect to support efficaciously against precocious respiratory infections similar COVID and flu.”

The subject — peer-reviewed technological lit — and galore experts refute that. Studies repeatedly demonstrated the vaccines’ effectiveness and safety, with immoderate estimates of millions of lives saved during the pandemic, and the exertion has shown encouraging results against the flu. HHS aboriginal released a 181-page list of papers that claimed to amusement vaccine harms, a papers that wasn’t peer-reviewed and was written by radical who person dispersed unsupported claims astir COVID-19 vaccination and treatment.

Kennedy besides claimed the COVID-19 vaccines posed a “profound risk” to children, adjacent though superior broadside effects are rare. In ending backing to Moderna for processing mRNA vaccines against influenza viruses, HHS spokespeople wrongly said the mRNA exertion is “under-tested.” 

DOGE distortions, $50 cardinal not for condoms for Gaza. Before taking office, Trump said entrepreneur Elon Musk would caput his caller Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had initially promised to chopped “at slightest $2 trillion” successful wasteful authorities spending. Foreign assistance was 1 of the archetypal targets, with Trump mounting the code for questionable accusation that would plague the programme by claiming, “We identified and stopped $50 cardinal being sent to Gaza to bargain condoms for Hamas.” The contractor identified by the State Department said it provides infirmary services successful Gaza and has not utilized U.S. funds “to procure oregon administer condoms.” 

In his address to Congress in March, Trump made the inflated assertion that DOGE had “found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.” However, the DOGE website astatine the clip stated that the section had lone generated $105 cardinal successful savings and lone purported to supply grounds to enactment $19.8 cardinal of that total. (The website presently claims DOGE created $214 billion in savings, providing accusation connected astir $61 billion. It’s unclear however much, if any, of that is related to fraud.)

Trump besides claimed DOGE had identified millions of dormant individuals who were incorrectly labeled arsenic live successful the Social Security database, and misleadingly claimed that “money is being paid to galore of them.” Social Security Administration interior audits showed that the fig of dormant recipients inactive being sent benefits is apt successful the thousands, not the millions.

Crime claims down National Guard deployments. In making claims astir precocious transgression oregon lawlessness successful cities arsenic justification for the deployment of National Guard troops, Trump astatine times exaggerated oregon got the facts wrong. In aboriginal October, helium claimed that Portland, Oregon, “is burning to the ground” oregon has “fires each implicit the place.” But Portland Fire & Rescue reported fewer calls astir imaginable fires adjacent a national building, the tract of protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Portland Police told america the protests “are obscurity adjacent city-wide.” 

Trump’s statements astir the request for National Guard troops successful Portland and Chicago focused connected wide crime. “These are unsafe places,” he said. But successful tribunal filings and different correspondence, the medication said troops were needed to support ICE officials and national property.

In Washington, D.C., wherever the president is the commandant successful main of the National Guard, Trump wrongly said that “murders successful 2023 reached the highest complaint astir apt ever.” Murders had been declining since 2023, erstwhile the complaint was little than fractional the complaint successful 1991. After a national takeover of the city’s instrumentality enforcement, Trump falsely said an 11-day play with nary murders was the “first clip that’s taken spot successful years.” There was a 16-day play earlier this year.

For more, work our afloat stories connected these claims:

Trump Administration’s Problematic Claims connected Tylenol and Autism, Sept. 23

RFK Jr.’s Inaccurate Claims About Tylenol, Circumcision and Autism, Oct. 21

Revised CDC Website About Autism and Vaccines Is Not Evidence-Based, Nov. 20

FactChecking Trump’s Economic Speech, Dec. 11

DCCC Serves up Spin for the Labor Day Cookout, Aug. 29

Trump’s False and Misleading Ukraine Claims, Feb. 20

Trump Repeats False Ukraine Aid Claim, Aug. 20

Intelligence Memo Undercuts Trump’s Immigration Argument, May 9

Gabbard’s Misleading ‘Coup’ Claim, July 23

RFK Jr. Misleads connected Vitamin A, Unsupported Therapies for Measles, March 7

No Sign of Texas Measles Outbreak Slowing, Contrary to RFK Jr.’s Claims, April 11

RFK Jr. Minimizes Measles Outbreak successful Texas, Feb. 27

No Evidence for Trump’s Claims of ‘Rigged’ oregon ‘Phony’ Job Numbers, Aug. 4

Pentagon Inspector General Report Not ‘Total Exoneration’ for Hegseth, Dec. 5

Trump’s Misleading Tariff Chart, April 3

Recapping Trump’s Deceptive Tariff Claims, Aug. 13

RFK Jr. Justifies Cuts to mRNA Vaccine Projects With Falsehoods, Aug. 7

RFK Jr. Misleads About Safety of COVID-19 Vaccine successful Children, May 7

HHS Misleads connected mRNA Vaccine Safety After Pulling Moderna Funding, June 13

Trump Administration Makes Unsupported Claim About $50 Million for Condoms to Gaza, Jan. 30

FactChecking Trump’s Address to Congress, March 5

Q&A connected Trump’s Attempt to Deploy National Guard to Portland and Chicago, Oct. 17

Trump Distorts Violent Crime Statistics successful Ordering Takeover and Troops to D.C., Aug. 12

D.C. Homicide-Free Streak Not First successful ‘Years,’ Aug. 27

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