One of the most consistent characteristics of the Donald Trump administration was disinformation.
The false or inaccurate claims of his spokesmen and some of his advisers were the subject of criticism and ridicule on social media and the media during his four-year tenure.
But it was the president himself who was the great standard-bearer of that lie machine that operated in the White House since January 2017.
According to an estimate by the Washington Post, Trump made nearly 30,000 false or misleading comments in the four years of his presidency.
Many were absurd lies, contrary to his investiture.
But others were so dangerous that they had real effects on the population, the institutional system and the democratic pillars of the country.
The Noticias Telemundo verification team with the contribution of the editors of the Politifact organization, chose the big lies of Trump during his term;
those statements that had disastrous consequences for some people, those that impacted Latino communities inside and outside the country or represented a real threat to American democracy.
Here is our list, in no particular order: all are extremely serious to say the least.
"By April, when it starts to heat up, [the virus] will miraculously go away"
Trump downplayed the coronavirus from the first day the pandemic was known, and he assured on multiple occasions that it would soon disappear.
To be exact, he said it 40 times between February 10 and October 31, 2020, according to a count kept by The Washington Post.
[Trump falsely suggests he won the Nobel Prize]
On February 7, he wrote on his now-suspended Twitter account that he had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping and predicted a successful handling of the coronavirus in China, “especially as the hot temperature and the virus hopefully , weaken and then disappear ”.
Trump again minimizes the danger of the pandemic by comparing it to the flu
Oct. 6, 202002: 40
Days later, on February 10, in a meeting with state governors at the White House, Trump repeated the message: "During the month of April, the heat, generally speaking, kills this type of virus."
Hours later, at a rally in New Hampshire in the middle of the presidential campaign, he reassured it: "By April, when [the temperature] starts to heat up, it miraculously goes away."
By then, of a total of 1,018 deaths from COVID-19 in the world, only one person had died outside of China.
The United States had only 13 infections.
Yet a month later, when the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, Trump continued to dismiss the coronavirus.
The following day, from the Oval Office and in the company of the Prime Minister of Ireland, he said that the pandemic was “a matter of time;
I think it's going to go pretty fast. "
[One million for travel, his pension and other Trump privileges at stake for the impeachment]
Rapid had been the expansion of the coronavirus.
In one month, the affected countries and territories went from 25 to 117 and deaths outside of China had gone from one to 1,440.
At the beginning of March, the cases in the United States had risen from 13 to 987 and if there were no deaths, the official death toll was 29.
In April, when, according to Trump, the virus should disappear "miraculously", the United States was already the country with the most confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in the world, closing the month with more than 1 million infected and more than 52,000 deaths.
Even so, Trump kept insisting that the pandemic would disappear soon.
"He's going to go," he said April 28 at a news conference.
In the months that followed, despite increasingly painful numbers, he stood firm on a claim that had largely turned out to be a lie.
Health specialists and affected people repudiate Trump's attitude to hide the lethality of the coronavirus
Sept.
10, 202002: 02
In early September, an audio recorded by journalist Bob Woodward was revealed in March, in which Trump acknowledged that he purposely downplayed the severity of the pandemic: "I still like to minimize it because I don't want to create panic."
Even on October 31, Trump said that with or without a vaccine to fight COVID-19, the virus: "is going to disappear."
That same day, the United States set a new global record by announcing nearly 100,000 new infections in a single day.
By the end of 2020, one in every 1,000 people in the United States had died from COVID-19.
On the first day of the new year, the country crossed the 20 million infected people mark and reported the loss of a total of 350,000 lives.
Now, the number of infected has increased to more than 23 million and the number of deaths has exceeded 400,000.
The false accusations of fraud and a stolen presidential election
A day after the elections, on November 4, Trump spoke from the White House on the results that were already leaning in favor of his opponent, Democrat Joe Biden.
"This is a fraud for the American people, it is a shame on our country," he said, "frankly, we won this election."
Hours before he had also said it on Twitter, denouncing that he had won by a high margin and that "they are trying to STEAL the election."
Journalist publishes unpublished videos of the assault on the Capitol in Washington
Jan. 14, 202103: 12
As the votes continued to favor Biden, Trump continued to denounce electoral fraud and waged more than 50 legal battles to try to stop the vote counting or reverse the results in states that had already declared Biden president-elect.
However, none of his lawsuits were successful because he was never able to present convincing evidence of any fraud.
Trump even went to the Supreme Court to uncertify Biden as a winner in the Pennsylvania election, a state he had anticipated would win.
But on December 8, the highest court rejected the request.
That same day, the court also dismissed a request to declare Trump the winner in Nevada.
[No, the horned extremist who invaded the Capitol is not from Antifa]
On December 14, the Electoral College confirmed the victory for Biden, who received 306 votes to 232 for Trump.
Biden also beat Trump in the popular vote by more than seven million.
With 81.2 million votes in his favor, Biden was the candidate with the most votes in American history.
Even so, Trump continued to lash out at the results.
In subsequent days, he continued to launch false reports on Twitter about the election with phrases such as "tremendous evidence of voter fraud," "the rigged 2020 election," and "many thousands of non-citizen votes in Nevada."
These and many other messages, including Christmas, were flagged by Twitter as lacking in veracity.
In the last week of 2020, a new Republican attempt to invalidate votes in favor of Biden also failed.
NFL Patriots coach rejects Trump's Presidential Medal of Freedom
Jan. 12, 202100: 23
In the greatest example of the toxicity of Trump's lies about the election result, on January 6, as Congress was counting Electoral College votes to certify Biden's victory, hundreds of the president's supporters stormed the Capitol in an unprecedented event.
Far from asking his followers to leave the premises of Congress, Trump continued to insist on the lie of electoral fraud, so Twitter not only removed three of his harmful messages, including a video, but also suspended his account for 12 hours .
In the video, Trump told the protesters "we love them, they are very special."
[Trump, alone, angry and defiant in the White House, fears for his legacy]
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, released a message on January 7 assuring that “the shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that the president intends to use the remainder of his time in office to undermine the peaceful transition. and legal of power to his chosen successor, Joe Biden ”, and announced the indefinite suspension and for at least two weeks of the president's accounts on both Facebook and Instagram.
Five people died in the events of that day.
In the early morning of January 7, Trump said in a statement that there would be "an orderly transition on January 20."
But he insisted: "I totally disagree with the outcome of the election."
That same night, he posted a video in which he spoke directly to the protesters telling them that "those who broke the law are going to pay."
But he did not recognize the result of the elections, but defended his multiple and failed legal battles to reverse it, saying that his sole objective was "to defend the integrity of the vote and in doing so he was fighting to defend American democracy", questioning the legality of an election endorsed over and over again by the electoral authorities of each state and the courts.
FBI warns of possible armed attacks ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration
Jan. 15, 202100: 29
On January 8, after his 12 o'clock punishment, Trump returned to the social network to announce that he would not attend Biden's inauguration and call his followers "great American patriots."
It was then that Twitter decided to permanently suspend the president's account "due to the risk of further incitement to violence."
The supposed approval of hydroxychloroquine
On March 19, 2020, during an update on the pandemic situation in the United States, Trump told reporters that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had put hydroxychloroquine through an expedited approval process. and that it had authorized its use to treat the coronavirus.
"It has been approved," he said of the drug commonly used against malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
However, minutes later, from the same podium, the head of the FDA, Steven Hahn, had to deny the president.
He said that Trump had ordered them to evaluate the drug, but that his department wanted to do so within an "extensive and pragmatic clinical trial to collect that information and answer the questions that need to be answered."
Trump insists on amplifying information about the coronavirus that contradicts experts
July 28, 202002: 02
Two days later, turning a deaf ear to what Hahn said, Trump wrote on Twitter that hydroxychloroquine along with azithromycin - which is used to treat bacterial infections like bronchitis and pneumonia - “taken together, they have a real chance of being one of the greatest revolutions in the history of medicine ”.
However, Trump's message had already reached the population and less than a week later, a sextegenarian couple in Arizona consumed chloroquine phosphate to protect themselves from the coronavirus.
The man died and the woman arrived at the hospital in critical condition, although she survived.
"Trump kept saying it was practically a cure," the widow told NBC.
To date, no clinical benefit of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine has been demonstrated in the treatment of COVID-19.
"Current data indicate that they do not reduce the mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients nor are they helpful for people with moderate symptoms of this disease," said the World Health Organization (WHO), which also warned that if taken without medical supervision, "they can cause serious side effects, so they should be avoided."
The FDA has also warned about its consumption "due to the risk of heart rhythm problems."
[Dangerous "disinfectant injections" and other misguided Trump coronavirus suggestions]
It was not the only time that Trump encouraged the use of unproven or approved remedies to treat the coronavirus.
A month later, at an April 23 press conference at the White House, Trump asked his coronavirus team to investigate whether a disinfectant could be used as a remedy.
“I see the disinfectant kills him in a minute, a minute.
Is there a way to do something like this through an injection or almost a cleaning? ”He said.
Trump suggests disinfectant injection to treat coronavirus
April 24, 202004: 32
The then president's comments were immediately criticized and prompted even disinfectant manufacturers to come out to warn the population of the risks of consuming them.
"Under no circumstances should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body," the manufacturer of Lysol and other products said in a statement.
“We have to separate families.
The Democrats gave us that law "
The separation of thousands of migrant families at the border is remembered as one of the cruelest policies of the Trump presidency, a decision by his administration for which he unreasonably blamed Democrats.
On May 16, 2018, during a White House panel discussion on the policies of the sanctuary state of California, Trump falsely remarked, “We have to separate families.
The Democrats gave us that law.
It's a horrible thing that we have to separate families, the Democrats gave us that law and they don't want to do anything about it. "
In addition to holding Democrats responsible for the separation of families, Trump also wanted to blame them for a lack of immigration legislation.
But back then, both the Senate and the House of Representatives, where the laws are made, were led by Republicans.
Even so, Trump continued to insist on his lie on Twitter (his account has already been deactivated).
Days after the meeting at the White House, he wrote: "Put pressure on the Democrats to end this horrible law that separates children from their parents when they cross the border."
A month later, on June 5, 2018, he said again that the separation of families was “the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats.
Border security laws need to change, but Democrats can't agree! "
And on June 16, he exclaimed that "Democrats can fix this forced separation of families at the border by working with Republicans on new legislation!"
But the truth is that the separation of families was never a law nor was it inherited by the Democrats.
It was a policy established by the Trump administration.
There are 666 migrant children still separated from their families: more than what was known to date
Nov. 10, 202000: 28
In March 2017, then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly (who was later appointed Trump's chief of staff) was asked in an interview on CNN whether it was true that the government was considering separating parents and children in the border.
His response was very clear: “Yes, I am considering it, to deter further movement along this terribly dangerous network.
I'm considering just that. "
Just over a year later, on May 7, 2018, then-Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions officially announced what would become known as the zero tolerance policy.
To parents planning to cross the border with their children, Sessions warned, "That child may be taken away from you."
That same week, in an interview with public radio NPR, Kelly said that the separation of families would work as a strong deterrent for migrants: “They chose to come to the United States illegally and this is a technique that nobody expects will be used in a way extensive or for a long time ”.
Family separation was driven by Jeff Sessions, according to 'The New York Times'
Oct. 7, 202003: 36
Amid criticism, Trump announced in June 2018 the end of the zero-tolerance policy, just hours before a judge canceled it.
However, it later emerged that the government had been separating families on the Mexican border since mid-2017 - shortly after Kelly's remarks on CNN - as part of a pilot program in El Paso, Texas.
"A path to citizenship" for dreamers
In an exclusive interview with Noticias Telemundo in July of last year, Trump assured that he would take decisive action to open "a path to citizenship" for Dreamers, as immigrants who arrived as children brought by their parents are known.
He said the bill or executive order would arrive "in the next few weeks," but that has been more than six months and Trump never did anything.
Rather, it did, but not for the benefit of the Dreamers.
During his administration, Trump said on more than one occasion that he loved the Dreamers and would take care of DACA, the program created by former President Barack Obama to protect these young people from deportation.
Hundreds of people protested in New York City on August 30, 2017, after the Trump administration announced the cancellation of DACA. Joe Penney / Reuters
In his first press conference from the White House, on February 16, 2017, less than a month after being sworn in as President, Trump had this to say: “We are going to show great heart ... We are going to deal with DACA with heart ”.
On April 21 of that same year, in an interview with the news agency The Associated Press, he said that his government was "not looking to do anything right now" with DACA and that its policy was for the Dreamers to remain safely in the country.
Although he said that in the long term he would seek to "solve the problem", at that time he assured that the Dreamers could "rest easy".
[This was the worst lie of the year. It cost lives, but it was not the only one. And there is not a single culprit]
Months later, on September 1, 2017 he said "We love Dreamers."
Four days later, he announced the end of DACA.
Even so, on September 6 he reiterated about the Dreamers: "I have a great love for them."
When several states successfully sued the government to prevent the end of the program, Trump, the president who claimed to love Dreamers, took the case to the Supreme Court, which in June 2020 ended up ruling against him as well.
"Biden wants the Dreamers to stay in the US," says a pro-immigrant activist
Jan. 15, 202102: 07
Still, whoever had told the Dreamers not to worry didn't give up.
After the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump Administration reduced the extension of DACA from two years to just one for those who renewed their protection and stopped receiving new applications to join the program.
"We are going to build a great wall"
Trump's great campaign promise was the construction of a wall along the nearly 2,000 miles of border that the United States and Mexico share, and he also promised that Mexico would pay for 100% of the barrier.
Even after meeting with former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on a visit that caused controversy, Trump returned to the United States assuring that "Mexico will pay for the wall."
At that time, Trump described his project as an "impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful wall."
Once in the White House, he announced the immediate construction of the wall and until the end of his government he repeated many times that he was already building it.
On January 4 of this year, at a rally in Georgia the day before the second round of the elections that gave control of the Senate to Democrats, he said the following:
"We are going to build the wall and Mexico is going to pay for it, it will if I am here," he assured a crowd of supporters.
Yet after spending $ 15 billion on building barriers over 738 miles, the Trump administration has only covered 452 miles, or less than a quarter of what it originally promised.
Trump says Mexico is already paying for the wall
Jan. 29, 2020
What's more, according to the most recent government report on the wall project, released in December, of the barriers erected, less than 80 miles correspond to barriers in places where there were none before.
And of these, only half are new primary barriers, the rest are secondary barriers.
Most of the completed work represents replacements in areas where the material was dilapidated or out of date.
Another 300 miles have already received financing, but are in the construction or pre-construction stage.
Trump's "great, beautiful wall" is then no more than 40 miles of new barriers.
["Do you know who is paying for the wall?" Trump asks. His answer is (again) false]
Nor was it true that Mexico would cover the expenses.
Neither the Government of Peña Nieto nor that of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have paid for a single mile of the barriers built or to be built.
What Trump has put up as a "wall" has been American taxpayers' money.
"A perfectly correct and routine conversation"
In July 2019, Trump asked Volodymyr Zelenskiy, then president-elect of Ukraine, to investigate the activities of Hunter Biden, the son of the current president-elect of the United States, who years before had joined the board of directors of a company in Ukrainian natural gas.
[Trump is already the first president to face two impeachments. Now what's next?]
The call, which was described by Trump as "totally appropriate," was at the center of a complaint made by an anonymous official to the intelligence inspector general in August of that year.
That same month, the Politico news website revealed that the Trump Administration was withholding $ 250 million in military aid to Ukraine.
The informant's complaint, which was described as "urgent concern," would not be known until September, when it reached Congress.
In the call with Zelensky, Trump had made "a promise" to the Ukrainian leader.
On September 21, when he could still say what he wanted on Twitter, Trump pointed out on that social network that his call with Zelensky had been "a perfectly correct and routine conversation" and assured that "nothing that was said was bad at all. way".
However, two days later, the president told reporters: "It is very important to talk about corruption ... Why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?"
Donald Trump raises a newspaper announcing his acquittal in the Senate on February 6, 2020, following his impeachment for the call he made to the president of Ukraine to ask him to investigate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. Leah Millis / Reuters
A day later, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, appeared on television referring to press reports “of a call by the President of the United States to a foreign power to intervene in his election.
This is a violation of their constitutional responsibilities ”.
"The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution, especially when the president says 'Article 2 says I can do whatever I want,'" he said.
He added: "This week, the president has acknowledged asking the president of Ukraine to do things to benefit him politically," which constituted a "betrayal of his oath, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our election."
[Trump is lying when he says that immigrants do not keep their appointments in immigration courts]
It was the beginning of an investigation against Trump that would lead to his impeachment for "a perfectly correct and routine conversation."
Finally he was exonerated by the Senate, under a Republican majority.
But in just a matter of hours, Trump will leave the White House as the only president to have faced impeachment twice and leaving behind a trail of falsehoods that left their mark on the country.
As in the first, this time it was also his lies that pushed him over the political cliff.
A Trump adviser quoted by CNN summed it up like this: "Trump destroyed everything he built politically because he could never tell the truth."
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