Letter: Trump the king of liars

The Republican spin machine has been very successful in demonizing Hillary Clinton. They make dishonest claims, and repeat them so often that the lies become accepted as truth by many Americans. Donald Trump lies more than 75 percent of the time, while Clinton is one of the most honest in the race.

PolitiFact.com fact-checks statements by politicians and political interest groups. It won a Pulitzer Prize for its fact checking. Critics on both sides of the political divide accuse them of bias.

The 2013 “Lie of the Year” winner was President Obama’s promise, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” In 2015, it was more the liar of the year award for “various statements” made by Donald Trump, including his claims that the Mexican government sends “the bad ones over” to the U.S. and that he saw “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City, N.J., cheering the 9/11 attacks.

In the PolitiFact.com Truth-O-Meter, as of May 16, Trump was the biggest liar with 2 percent “true,” 6 percent “mostly true,” 15 percent “half true,” 15 percent “mostly false,” 43 percent “false,” and 18 percent “Pants on Fire” statements.

Sixty-four percent of Ted Cruz’ statements were “mostly false” or worse.

Clinton, Bernie Sanders and John Kasich (who would probably be elected if nominated) have been the most truthful. Hillary had 23 percent true, 27 percent mostly true, 22 percent half true, 16 percent mostly false, 11 percent false, and 2 percent “Pants on Fire” statements.

This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Letter: Trump the king of liars."