INTRODUCTION
This page looks at how truthful statements made by various politicians are by examining their record from the fact checking website Politifact which examines statements and rates gives them 6 different grades from "True" for completely truthful statements to "Pants on Fire" for outright lies. Fact-checked statements don't represent all statements made by the politicians. Obviously true statements aren't likely to be fact-checked. However the records do provide a good means of comparing different politicians.
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Charts
1. Accuracy of Statements Made by Barack Obama
2. Accuracy of Statements Made by Donald Trump
3. Accuracy of Statements Made by Joe Biden
4. Accuracy of Statements Made by Mike Pence
5. Accuracy of Statements Made by Hillary Clinton
6. Accuracy of Statements Made by Mitt Romney
7. Accuracy of Statements Made by Ron DeSantis
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Data Table
8. Accuracy Rate of Statements by Prominent American National Politicians According to Politifact
The current US President, Donald Trump, has a particularly poor record. 35% of statements made are rated as false and 15% as “Pants on Fire” which means completely made up. He is generally regarded as untrustworthy and to have a propensity for lying and exaggerating things despite his ardent supporters claiming that he "tells it like it is". It was one of the reasons former FBI director James Comey gave for making notes of what Trump said privately. And Trump's record compares very unfavorably to Barack Obama, the previous President, whose false statements are 12% and “Pants of Fire” statements are 2%. Only 15% of Trumps statements are rated as true or mostly compared to 49% of Obama's statements. The losing Democrat candidate in 2016, Hillary Clinton, has a very similar record to Obama with 50% of her statements rated as true or mostly true. Democrats appear to perform better than Republicans generally. Conservatives seem to be more liberal with the truth. Joe Biden's record is notably less favorable than the other 2 Democrats examined although he still rates better than all 3 Republicans. Mike Pence is notable in that his “Pants on Fire” rating is only 2% but he has the most false statements other than Trump and the least true statements other than Trump. It's likely that his poor record is related to having to defend Trump.
Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, has a relatively good record of telling the truth compared to other prominent American national politicians.
8. Accuracy Rate of Statements by Prominent American National Politicians According to Politifact
Politician | True | Mostly True | Half True | Mostly False | False | Pants on Fire |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Donald Trump | 34 | 76 | 102 | 155 | 255 | 108 |
Barack Obama | 123 | 165 | 161 | 71 | 71 | 9 |
Joe Biden | 14 | 23 | 25 | 18 | 14 | 4 |
Mike Pence | 5 | 6 | 15 | 9 | 14 | 1 |
Hillary Clinton | 72 | 76 | 69 | 41 | 31 | 9 |
Mitt Romney | 30 | 33 | 58 | 34 | 32 | 19 |