A year of unprecedented deception: Trump averaged 15 false claims a day in 2018

President Donald Trump’s year of lies, false statements and misleading claims started with a series of morning tweets.

He also took credit for the “best and safest year on record” for commercial aviation, even though there had been no commercial plane crashes in the United States since 2009 and, in any case, the president has little to do with ensuring the safety of commercial aviation.

The fusillade of tweets was the start of a year of unprecedented deception during which Trump became increasingly unmoored from the truth. When 2018 began, the president had made 1,989 false and misleading claims, according to The Washington Post’s Fact Checker’s database, which tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.