The 21 Biggest Lies Donald Trump Has Ever Told

Trump University actually received a D- rating when folks were attending back in 2010 and filing complaints about the institution. Because BBB has a three-year statute of limitations on complaints before they are dissolved, and Trump U wound down its operations in 2013 (leaving no opportunity for fresh complaints), the score naturally went up. By January of 2015, the BBB rating did upgrade all the way to A+, but Trump's statement was basically the definition of misleading.

During the March GOP debate hosted by FOX, Trump tried to make his proposal to go after the families of terrorists look attractive by claiming the wives of the 9/11 hijackers flew to Saudi Arabia two days before the attacks because they "knew exactly what was happening." This idea was dismissed way back when, though. A 9/11 commission report states none of the hijackers had wives or girlfriends in the United States prior to the attacks, and most of the 19 hijackers had broken off regular contact with family members long before September 11.

That's right. Trump said during a television interview that he didn't "know anything about David Duke," the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The evasive comment came despite the fact that Trump has disavowed Duke on multiple occasions since 1991, and had renounced him more than once during this presidential campaign.

Trump is paying for the majority of his presidential campaign, and that's way more than any of the other candidates can say. The man isn't exactly saying no to monetary donations from others, though. There's a tab right on his campaign website saying, "DONATE," and as of the last day of 2015, more than a quarter of his campaign finances had come from small and large individual contributions.

Trump tweeted crime statistics attributed to the Crime Statistics Bureau of San Francisco that claimed white people were responsible for 16 percent of the total number of whites killed (across some unknown period of time), while blacks were responsible for 81 percent of the total number of whites killed. For the year of 2014, the FBI released data that states pretty much the exact opposite. No, really. Change the 81 to a 15, and that 16 to an 82.

The massive overestimate traces back to a serious miscalculation by FOX News commentator Sean Hannity, but that's no excuse for repeating the falsity. In September, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that beginning in fiscal year 2016, the U.S. would accept 10,000 refugees specifically from Syria over the next year.

In accordance with the agreement made when the U.S. swapped five senior Taliban operatives in order to retrieve Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the group of detainees were in Qatar under government supervision when Trump made the claim.

Though the five detainees' travel ban was scheduled to last only one year, it had been extended, and officials stated the Taliban Five were still in Qatar as of January.

In a 2011 CPAC conference speech, Trump said "the people that went to school with [Obama], they never saw him, they don't know who he is." In fact, a number of news organizations have interviewed Obama's classmates from the past. The remark by Trump added flame to the fire alleging Obama was not a true citizen and that Americans should in some way be suspicious of the president.

Trump's read of the deal is that "If Israel attacks Iran … we’re supposed to be on Iran’s side." The aim of the provision that Trump so wonderfully exaggerated is actually to protect nuclear materials in Iran from sabotage or theft by, say, terrorists. And all the U.S. has pledged to do within the provision is to be "prepared" to cooperate with Iran on these issues.

Trump's hiring of around 200 undocumented Polish immigrants to work on the construction of Trump Tower even went to court when the workers sued Trump for being underpaid and mistreated.

When opposing candidate Marco Rubio brought the case up during a Republican debate, Trump's response of "wrong, wrong," could have been referring specifically to the amount the billionaire was fined or the scenario in its entirety. What Trump failed to do was openly admit to the fact that the hiring indeed went down, according to Vox.

During the Republican debate in Houston, the frontrunner denied Ted Cruz's claims that Trump wanted the U.S. to go into Libya to stop Muammar Gaddafi. Trump pretty plainly said just that, though: "Now we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick," Trump said in a 2011 video blog post.

According to Trump, Muslims can come into the U.S. "so easily," while Christians from Syria "cannot come into the country." A bold statement that is, Mr. Trump. There's, of course, no regulation within U.S. immigration law that forbids Christians (from any country) from applying for refugee status, and Syrian Christians had been admitted in the months prior to Trump spilling the untruth.

Trump has provided a variation of the statement on several occasions over the last year. One came during an interview on Fox & Friends: "Look, we’re the most highly taxed nation in the world — that’s why taxes have to go down, business has to come back, jobs have to be back," Trump said. But according to Politifact, the U.S. ranks in the middle or closer to the lower end when compared with more than 25 other countries on both tax revenue as a percentage of GDP and tax revenue per capita.

Trump literally told Americans during his February victory speech in New Hampshire not to believe statistics on unemployment that run in the range of 5 percent (even if that's the case?). According to Trump, the real deal on unemployment is a rate of "probably 28, 29, [or] as high as 35. In fact, [Trump] even heard recently 42 percent." Sure — it may have been fact that the Donald heard the number, but the number itself was so, so off. The number for January 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was in fact 4.9 percent.

Trump didn't only refer to the sale as a "great deal." He also called it "phenomenal," because why not make a mountain out of a mole hill? The presidential candidate sold the shuttle service to USAir after it took on sizable debt and the business defaulted.

It's possible Trump was just feeling too casual during one particular appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe in July. That relaxed vibe could have been the reason the candidate incorrectly placed the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. at over 30 million. Some pretty reputable sources, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Pew Research Center, estimate the number to be around 11 million. But what's the difference between 11 and 30 when among friends on morning news, right?

This remark can't really be verified to be absolutely false, but come on. Since the plural use of the word "hundred" implies at least 200 people (more likely some higher amount like 300 or 400), Trump would have had to be "friends" with approximately 1 out of every 10 or 20 people who died in the attacks.

The Trumpster has adamantly denied that he personally has ever filed for bankruptcy. Fine, Donald, but you most definitely filed for bankruptcy for your company on four separate occasions. The first was in 1991, when the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City was basically a disaster. The most recent was in 2009 for Trump Entertainment Resorts, after the company missed a $53 million bond interest payment.

The statement — that Trump could close the federal deficit by getting rid of "waste, fraud and abuse" — can't technically be designated a lie just yet, but can rather be viewed at as a serious unlikelihood. FOX News's Chris Wallace even confronted Trump on the matter during a presidential debate, showing the billionaire that his own numbers didn't come close to adding up, even if he eliminated the Department of Education in its entirety (as he has said he would do).

Considering the sale of Trump brand red meat was discontinued by retailer The Sharper Image and is now shown on the "flashback" page of the retailer's site, the steaks would have had to be frozen for quite some time prior to their appearance at the 2016 press conference. Good thing those steaks are pretty obviously not Trump steaks at all, but products of the Bush Brothers Provision Co.