Politifact on Donald Trump

Non-partisan fact-check website Politifact.com puts GOP Presidential candidate on its Truth-O-Meter and finds that 75% of his rated public statements have been largely false. Low-lights include:

• "The Islamic State didn’t build a hotel in Syria, they took over an existing hotel in Iraq. And they’re not using it to lure luxury travelers; it houses Islamic State commanders. We rated his statement False."
• "Last quarter, it was just announced our gross domestic product -- a sign of strength, right? But not for us -- it was below zero. Whoever heard of this? It's never below zero," Trump said.
  Trump messed up his economic terms; the gross domestic product was not "zero." The size of the U.S. economy -- which is what gross domestic product is -- is in the trillions of dollars and not anywhere close to zero. The growth in the gross domestic product has been zero, but it’s been below zero 42 times over 68 years. That’s a lot more than "never." We rated his claim Pants on Fire!"
• In 1999, Trump said he "was strongly pro-choice," Now he says he’s against abortions, along with the American public. "In terms of polling, the pro-choice (support) is going down a little bit," Trump said. Actually, the latest polling suggests that in May of 2015, 50 percent of Americans identified as pro-choice compared with 44 percent of Americans identifying as pro-life. That gap hasn't varied a lot over the years,  though the results reflect a slight increase in Americans identifying as pro-choice. We rated his statement False."
• "Our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent. Don't believe the 5.6. Don't believe it," Trump said. Setting aside his paranoia about the government cooking the books, Trump is off base even if you give him the maximum benefit of the doubt. Our research showed the highest formal statistic for underemployment is 10.8 percent, and if you use alternative measures, there’s still no realistic way to get it past 16 percent. And even that is a considerable stretch. We rated his statement False."