Trump is lying 30 times a day on average as US midterm elections approach: Reports

In the lead up to the US midterm elections, President Donald Trump’s tendency for making false or misleading statements has increased dramatically, according to reports.

A fact-checking journalist on Sunday alleged that Trump has begun telling even more falsehoods than previously ahead of the congressional elections, which will take place on Tuesday, and called the president a “serial liar.”

“These are not simply the usual exaggerations of a crowd size and so on,” said David Dale, who is the Washington correspondent for Canada’s Toronto Star.

“He's making stuff up in the last couple weeks in a way that I don't think we've seen from a serial liar, the President, before" he told CNN on Sunday.

Dale described Trump’s recent false statements as “whoppers,” adding that they have been “complete fabrications.”

He argued that the term “lies” is “the most accurate word for some of these claims.” However, Dale added that he personally uses “false claims” when it is not clear whether Trump is simply “confused” or “just doesn’t understand the policy.”

The journalist cited a recent example of Trump telling a “lie” to The Wall Street Journal when the president said he doesn’t “have tariffs anywhere,” despite the fact that he has implemented tariffs on products from several foreign countries being imported by the US.

“I think if we want to regain the trust that has been lost in media, we have to level with readers,” the journalist argued. “We have to be seen to be straight shooters, and I think in most cases the word is lie,” he added.

In a recent analysis, The Washington Post has claimed that Trump has increased the amount of making false or misleading statements many folds in the lead up to the elections.

According to the newspaper, during the first nine months of his presidency, Trump made an average of five inaccurate statements per day. However, in the past seven weeks, Trump has increased that average six times, reaching about 30 per day.

“The burden of keeping track of this verbiage has consumed the weekends and nights of The Fact Checker staff,” the Post said in its report.

PressTV-US midterm congressional elections: What’s at stake

The 2018 US midterm congressional elections are drawing closer. Let's see what's at stake for Republicans and Democrats this year.

Americans will elect lawmakers for all 435 seats in the House of Representative and 35 seats of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested. In addition, 39 state and territorial governorship as well as numerous other state and local elections will also be contested. 

Trump has acknowledged that members of his Republican Party could lose their majority in the House of Representatives.

Trump said Democrats may win by a narrow margin. He expressed more optimism about Republicans retaining control of the Senate.

Democrats are generally favored to win the 23 seats they need to wrest the majority from Republicans in the US House of Representatives for the first time since 2010, according to opinion polls and nonpartisan forecasters.

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