Who is the bigger liar: Biden or the previous President?

Trump lied hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. Some Trump fans just couldn’t sleep.

You point out what you consider falsehoods, but you do not counter with any factual evidence to prove your point.

And ”... most of his lies were of the harmless variety” is an absolute fabrication. Trump lied over 30,000 times in his four years, and many were of the sort to subvert justice, incite division, harm enemies, and encourage violence.

The previous president, of course. He would say one thing one moment or speech and just the opposite the next. It was SO obvious!

You can’t be serious. There had never been a President or for that matter, you cannot name a politician as immune to every aspect of the truth. NO ONE, you can name, living or dead, holds a candle to Trump’s proclivity for lying. There just plain is no contest. NOTHING was immune! No topic or subject could be raised or discussed objectively free from lies or exaggeration. The man lied to the point that there was no substance to ANYTHING he had to say. The most petty of matters—the size of his bulging waist or tiny hands, through his ignorance of nuclear protocols and inability to read or write—NOTHING left his mouth that might ever be assumed to be the truth!! His Presidency was UNIQUE in this respect, and Biden isn’t even CLOSE! Trump is and will remain in a league by himself!

Reading the CNN article, I don’t find any of his statements to be blatant lies or intentionally deceitful. I have no issue with his statements, although he may have misspoken about some statistics.

I do, however, think the OP has mischaracterized and overemphasized some of the commentary from the CNN article.

The media nor anyone else will EVER report or INVENT a story allowing a sane man to conclude Biden as adroit and practiced a liar as Trump. It just plain CANNOT BE DONE! At this stage, Biden could not live long enough to be even CONSIDERED for inclusion in a class with Trump.

Biden has a lot of catching up to do!

Trump, by a million to one.

Your list is mostly nonsense, and nothing like the non-stop blatant self-serving lies and nonsense that was most everything Trump said in office.

For example, point 3 looks accurate. USA seems to have vaccinated the most people to me. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations.

I think point 6 is accurate as well.

The immigrant stuff is also a case of Republicans trying to incite their racist base. There is always an immigrant surge this time of year, and it’s not different under Biden.

All politicians lie to one degree or another. What makes Trump stand out is that he is a habitual liar. He lies about things that were easy to show were wrong, like the crowd size at his inauguration.

A lie is a lie, “harmless” or not. And Trump’s aversion to truth, no matter how petty, posed grave consequences for the nation because it showed that you could not trust a single utterance out of his mouth.

I’ve known of Joe Biden for a long time, and my impression of him, even before he was Obama’s VP, was a true public servant, a politician who does things for the right reasons, despite any public mistakes.

I’ve also known of Donald Trump for a long time. My impression of him, long before he expressed an interest in running for President, was that of a self-centered playboy-wanna-be who never never let the truth get in the way of the message.

Trump’s 25,000 lies, fibs, little white lies. Also his total disregard for life “It is what it is” (caused by not quarantining everyone when the came back from overseas or once they came in contact with a positive COVID-19 cases) Shows who is the turd.

Trump was in a class of his own when it came to lying. You could not believe a word that came out of his mouth. How he ever became president is one of life’s mysteries. I hope he doesn’t try to get back in.

Note The President Trump said yesterday the January 6th rioters loved the police, and were hugging and kissing them.
Seriously.
Like they didn’t kill one, and injure 140 more.

@Strauss: “I’ve known of Joe Biden for a long time, and my impression of him, even before he was Obama’s VP, was a true public servant, a politician who does things for the right reasons, despite any public mistakes.”

No need to do this. I grew up with Biden as this guy, and watched him lie repeatedly – even all through this election.

You don’t need to make Biden into someone he’s not to counter the madness @crazyguy is selling. It’s frivolous at best to ask who is the bigger liar, or who could win in an arm wrestle. The truth is, we know that Biden was one standard of liar before Trump came and rewrote what liar means.

It’s not worth engaging in this silliness, when the goal from the OP is to troll Democrats into defending someone who is not worth defending in an attempt to prop up the reputation of Trump.

Well, think about it this way. This is the first press conference Biden has had since taking office. And he lied at least 5 times. Now…extrapolate that out to all the times President Trump interacted with the press…press conferences, informal questions, Covid response briefings (daily). AND take a look at the “lies” Trump told. Most of them were claims he lied when he was later proven true, or complete fabrications. If the press treated Biden the same way, then he wouldn’t get a pass on #2 or #5 and there would have been at least 10 more lies on the list.
Additionally, you have to go into all the lies Biden has told during campaigning as well as the claims of actions he would take and how they fell into lies after taking office. So who is the bigger liar? I’m going with Biden on this one.

Trump lied daily 12 times before lunch and your opinion of what was said by Biden doesn’t make it a lie.

Face it you don’t like Democrats, can we agree on that ?

@Tropical_Willie Sooo….your opinion of what Trump said makes it a lie?

No it is not my opinion it is Washington Post’s and all his lies were documented.

Repeat not my opinion, your view of Biden statements is your opinion.

Yet if you look at the WaPo’s list, you can find many, many of their claims that were opinions and actual lies themselves. Thank you for agreeing the media is biased.

@seawulf575 WaPo is middle of the road media and you don’t agree with it – - that is your opinion.

I’m out !

@seawulf575 Even coming from you seeing someone in such sad state of being in denial is just too depressing to witness. I ache for your loss.

Did you actually read the article, or did you just copy and paste the quotes? Because fact check articles aren’t lists of untruths. They are lists of pertinent claims with discussions of whether or not they are true or false underneath. Case in point, the CNN article says that claims 3, 4, and 6 are true (though in need of some context). And since you’re willing to give Biden a “pass” on 2 and 5, that leaves only two more claims to evaluate.

When discussing claim 1, the CNN article notes that it has not evaluated all of the data. It also notes that the claim is actually true according to the data they did evaluate if we don’t parse it as finely as they initially chose to (that is, it’s true if we recognize that he is using “families” and “people” interchangeably, even if he probably shouldn’t do that).

Claim 7, on the other hand, is definitely false. Maybe he confused two different statistics, or maybe he was hoping everyone else would confuse them if he led them down that path. Regardless, it’s false. So we’ve got one clearly false claim that you aren’t willing to give him a pass on, not the five you claimed in the OP.

As a side note, I don’t know how much of a pass Biden should really get on claim 2. It’s half true, but the main point is clearly an exaggeration. On claim 5, however, CNN seems to have confused forecasters with all economists (which is at odds with the way they have insisted on parsing other claims). So that one may deserve the pass. Either way, that leaves you with no more than two false claims.

All of that aside, though, politicians lie. We all know this. They also bend, obfuscate, and otherwise play around with the truth. No one who has been paying attention should be surprised that Biden has said and will continue to say false things, and I agree with @hello321 that we need not and should not pretend Biden is someone he’s not in order to respond to this question.

However, we should also not be blind to the fact that some politicians have a more tenuous relationship with the truth than others and are willing to go a lot further with their lies. Because it’s not just the quantity of Trump’s lies that were a problem. It was how often they lacked any connection to reality and the danger that poses to an information society.

Saying that there were five times as many filibusters in 2020 as there were from 1917 to 1971 when in fact there were only twice as many is false, but at least the underlying claim that the filibuster is used a lot more now than it used to be is true. This is in contrast to the things Trump would say, from the petty and minor (like when he pretended it didn’t rain during his inauguration or that his crowd size was bigger than Obama’s) to the downright dangerous (like the numerous times in early 2020 when he claimed that COVID-19 was contained and under control).

Some of Trump’s lies were standard politician lies, however, such as his repeated claim that the US had an annual trade deficit with China of $500 billion despite the fact that it had never gone above $368 billion before he became president (and reached an all-time high of nearly $419 billion in the second year of his presidency). And we should be on the lookout for bigger lies from Biden since he or his advisers may think that they can get away with more than previous presidents in the wake of Trump blowing so many of the previous norms out of the water.

@Tropical_Willie Might want to ask WaPo about Nick Sandmann sometime and their spot on “reporting” on that one. Yeah, they are a bastion of truth with no agenda. Do you really believe the stuff you shovel?

@Irukandji Thanks for addressing the specific points in my question. You and wulfie are the only ones that tried. Others are all blowing smoke, just like the Democrats talking about disenfranchising black voters when the Georgia bill does nothing of the kind!

I did read the article, and I agree with most of the color you have added to the discussion here. I did dumb down my analysis a bit. I did read the CNN analysis of facts (I was actually surprised to see CNN doing a rather thorough job!), and selected those points where there appeared to be either deliberate or confused misstatement.

I love your last sentence: And we should be on the lookout for bigger lies from Biden since he or his advisers may think that they can get away with more than previous presidents in the wake of Trump blowing so many of the previous norms out of the water.

I disagree with your characterization of Point 1. I think Biden realizes he has a problem on the Southern border, and he also realizes he is following some solutions that the previous President used effectively. He is struggling to appear more humane and fair. Same thing on Point 7.

On Point number 4 (Republican corporate tax cut), I feel very strongly, that Biden and his Democratic cohorts have completely, deliberately misstated the facts. I am truly surprised to see CNN not give Biden a pass on that rather obvious misstatement.

On point number 6, I think Biden’s misstatement was also deliberate, and therefore, inexcusable.

The biggest lie of them all is the lie you tell to yourself when you say Trump’s lies don’t matter because all politicians lie.

@seawulf575 I think WaPo is the most biased of all the left-leaning media. Once in a while, you may find a CNN, MSNBC or even NY Times story that you sort of agree with. I am yet to find a story on WaPo that I can even be bothered to analyze.

@filmfann An “obvious” rose-colored glasses lie. Much less harmful than Biden’s lies about immigration and taxes.

@Zaku There is always an immigrant surge this time of year, and it’s not different under Biden.

That, my friend, is the biggest lie I have seen propagated by anybody.

Here is a quote from
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-03-05/us-detained-nearly-100-000-migrants-at-us-mexico-border-in-february-sources

Last month’s total would represent the highest tally for the month of February since 2006.

A slightly more recent report had this to say:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported Wednesday that agents arrested and encountered a total of 100,441 non-citizens, nearly triple the number of encounters reported in February, 2019.

@Zaku As far as vaccinations go, if you look at absolute numbers, the comparison isn’t even close. However, if you look at the per capita numbers, we have been beat by many countries.

Coronavirus Vaccinations Around the World (Interactive):

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

For those that can’t view it because of a paywall: The top countries are:

Israel: 112 out of 100 people Fully vaccinated: 53% of population
Seychelles: 100 out of 100 35%
UAE: 81 out of 100 ——(no data listed)
Chile 51 out of 100 17%
UK 49 4.5%
Monaco 47 22%
Bahrain 46 16%
Maldives 44 —- (no data listed)
US 41 15%

This data is as of today, 3/27/2021.

@jca2 Thanks. I am certain @Zaku knew this when he posted!

This entire discussion is a lesson on wackadoodle conservative nonsense thinking. Just consider for a second how preposterous this question of the “bigger liar” really is. Now if the question is about the biggest lies, Trump TO THIS DAY claims that HE won last November’s election.
What lie has Biden told to top THIS one? Think of it. According to him, HE is the legitimate President of the United States. What lie has Biden told which instigates open overthrow of the government by those so feeble minded as to believe ANYTHING spoken by the fool? Who in their right mind would even posit Biden as a viable candidate against Trump in a lying contest? Like the mob at the Capitol, anyone at this date wishing to insist on such comparisons is pitifully beyond the reach of both reason and basic common sense.

My favorite Trump lie . I defy anyone to come up with an equivalent by Biden or anyone else outside of a mental institution.

The spectacular list of lies is beyond monumental. His record beggars believability! Trump’s record for lying is outside the realm of anything previously seen in a politician. It is beyond the pale for any person that you or I could readily name. If you doubt the truth of that, I defy you to list ANYONE comparable.

@LostInParadise I personally recall seeing a hurricane track on CNN on Aug 29 for 30 that included Alabama. Even though I have searched for that track many times, I have been unsuccessful.

However, I did find the following story:
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/weather/2019/08/30/hurricane-dorian-alabama-update-path-track-category-projection-forecast/2164905001/

which has a couple of damning statements:

The Alabama National Guard tweeted Hurricane Dorian is expected to reach southern Alabama early next week.

How does Dorian affect Alabama? After Labor Day and into next week, the long-range weather models have Dorian going anywhere from into the Gulf and as far west as Louisiana, to curving into the Atlantic. This was a tweet on Aug 28 by Alabama EMA.

I do believe that Trump should have used more up-to-date information on the track in his utterances on Sep 1. However, as I said, I had seen mention of a possible track including Alabama on Aug 29 or 30.

@stanleybmanly Well, I mean, quite a few charlatan for-profit TV evangelists come to mind, as do the likes of alt-Right maniac radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, who are all basically professional liars and inciters of xenophobia… rather like TV personality and somehow-due-to-all-the-dumbassess Donald Trump.

Trump was less coherent and self-consistent than the others, though.

As this conversation amply illustrates the right in this country has drifted beyond the realm of practical plausibility. These people will cull and endlessly drag up arcane statistics without any nuance for their interpretation or understanding. The news is actually a dangerous weapon which rather than enlighten them, serves to reinforce tjhe most ridiculous of their fantasies. Someone should unplug their monitors, then compel them to read Kafka, Lewis Carroll and Mark Twain.