The file
Every entry below sets something he has said about himself against what the record shows. No original reporting: each line links to a named outlet, court, agency, or filing. Where an account is denied, the denial is carried with it. Where a penalty was overturned or an appeal is live, the entry says so.
Plot of record
Technique network
The claim
I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.
The record
The loan was four hundred and thirteen million dollars.
A lawyer for Trump called the allegations "100 percent false and highly defamatory."
TechniqueHistorical revision through omissionReputation laundering
The claim
I’m really rich.
The record
He invented the source, then spent forty years quoting it.
On the record
A casino is built so the house cannot lose. Six times, the house lost.
TechniqueReputation laundering
The claim
A dealmaker of historic instinct, author of The Art of the Deal.
The record
Not the best at everything. Statistically, the most at one thing.
A lawyer for Trump called the tax information "demonstrably false."
TechniqueHistorical revision through omission
The claim
Trump Steaks are by far the best tasting, most flavorful beef you’ve ever had.
The record
The best beef you have ever had was off the shelf inside sixty days.
TechniqueReputation laundering
On the record
The name was supposed to be the asset.
TechniqueReputation laundering
The claim
I don’t settle lawsuits, very rare, because that’s why I don’t get sued very much.
The record
He held the line right up to the moment it stopped being useful.
TechniqueFuture-fakingAuthority laundering
On the record
The court ordered his children into lessons on not taking from their own charity.
TechniqueReputation laundering
The claim
Truth Social as a rival to the world’s largest platforms.
The record
He is the product and the largest shareholder. Both positions lost.
TechniqueFuture-faking
The claim
If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.
Letter signed by Dr. Harold Bornstein, 2015
The record
He wrote his own physical. He graded it himself. It took five minutes.
The claim
The ramp that I descended after my West Point commencement speech was very long & steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery.
The record
Nobody asked. He briefed the country on the ramp anyway.
TechniqueMinimizing
On the record
Then he sought the one job on earth that is ninety percent handshake.
The claim
Bone spurs in both heels, diagnosed 1968.
The record
The heels healed. The grievance did not.
The Times found no documentation supporting the family’s account, and Elysa Braunstein said she was not certain her father ever examined Trump.
TechniqueEvidence management
On the record
The numbers keep landing right on the line — except the one year they didn’t.
TechniqueEvidence management
On the record
He has never met one. He raised it in public anyway.
The claim
My two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart... I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!
6 January 2018
The record
No one has ever had to announce this.
TechniqueGrandiosity contagion
The claim
That his cognitive test score demonstrates "extreme intelligence."
The record
The test is built so that passing it means nothing. He has described passing it for six years.
On the record
Twenty-three disciplines. One of them is "things."
TechniqueGrandiosity contagion
The claim
A plan to repeal and replace, ready on day one.
The record
Everybody knew.
TechniqueAgency diffusion
On the record
An administration that would sooner invent a language than admit a typo.
TechniqueGaslighting
On the record
A burger chain corrected his spelling before he did.
The claim
That Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama, and that the official forecast map said so.
The record
He tried to amend a hurricane by hand rather than delete a post.
On the record
He did not get better at it. He got faster.
TechniqueFirehose of falsehood
On the record
Three attempts. Never once persuaded half the country.
The claim
We won the election.
On the 2020 result
The record
Sixty-some filings. One went his way. Some of the judges were his own appointments.
TechniqueProof drowningFirehose of falsehood
On the record
A distinction he holds alone and never brings up.
On the record
Guilty on thirty-four counts. Grounded for zero days.
Trump has repeatedly called the case a "witch hunt" and politically motivated; his appeal argues the same.
On the record
Trump has called the case "a hoax" and "a con job," and said Carroll was "not my type."
TechniqueDARVO
On the record
The penalty came down. The finding under it never won a majority either way.
TechniqueEvidence management
The claim
That was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period.
Press secretary Sean Spicer, 21 January 2017
The record
He called the Park Service about the pictures. Personally. On day two.
TechniqueGaslightingReality preemption
The claim
Close to one million ticket requests for the Tulsa rally, 20 June 2020.
The record
The million was his own figure. He supplied it before the count.
TechniqueVisibility manipulation
On the record
He was his own source. The voice gave it away.
TechniquePersona fabrication
The claim
A spontaneous groundswell at the 16 June 2015 announcement.
The record
The crowd at the beginning of all of it was on the clock.
On the record
The smallest available use of the largest available office.
The claim
I won with a score of 70, and am so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things. It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!
August 2026, aged 80, on winning the Senior and Super Senior titles at his own Bedminster club
The record
Ten under his age, on a course he owns, in a field that is usually just him.
TechniqueReputation launderingGrandiosity contagion
Washington Post, Aug 2026LA Review of Books, interview with Rick Reilly
On the record
The most powerful man in the world, working the merchandise table.
TechniqueReputation laundering
The claim
That rain and a Secret Service refusal forced him to cancel the 2018 visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris.
The record
He skipped the cemetery. He cited the weather.
Trump: "I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes" — and called the report "fake news" (The Hill, Sep 2020). The AP's two independent sources and Kelly's later on-record confirmation came after this denial.
TechniqueHarm sanitizationMinimizing
The claim
I know the best people.
The record
He hired the best people. He asked them about him afterwards.
Tillerson’s State Department spokesman denied the report.
The claim
They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.
Full-page advertisement, 1 May 1989
The record
Thirty-five years later, he still hasn’t taken it back.
The claim
That the Hurricane Maria death toll was invented by Democrats to make him look bad, and grew "by magic."
The record
He threw paper towels at survivors, then disputed the arithmetic on the dead.
TechniqueHarm sanitizationBlame concentration
The claim
It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.
Public remarks, 27 February 2020
The record
He had the private briefing and the public microphone. He used them to say opposite things.
TechniqueMinimizingHarm sanitization
The claim
Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning.
White House briefing, 23 April 2020
The record
It is the only presidential remark on record with its own poison-control dataset.
The next day: "No, I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you, just to see what would happen." (PBS NewsHour)
TechniqueAuthority laundering
On the record
The policy was reversed in weeks. For some of the families, nothing was.
TechniquePreemptive dehumanizationAgency diffusion
DHS Office of Inspector General, OIG-20-06, Nov 2019American Immigration CouncilSouthern Poverty Law Center, timeline
On the record
Three hours and seven minutes. He was watching it happen on television, like everybody else.
TechniqueAbdication framingAgency diffusion
The claim
This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago.
Statement accompanying his October 2016 video apology
The record
The apology and the defense arrived in the same statement, pointed in opposite directions.
TechniqueMinimizing
NPR, Bush confirms the tape, Dec 2017Hollywood Reporter, Bush’s account
The claim
You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.
Trump Tower press conference, 15 August 2017
The record
He drew the line and then argued for people standing on both sides of it.
TechniqueFalse balanceMinimizing
CNBC, full transcript, Aug 2017NBC News, on the Conway defense
The claim
An orderly, pre-planned national security measure, in effect within hours of signing.
The record
The agencies enforcing the order learned what it meant at the same time the travelers did.
TechniqueAgency diffusion
The claim
I have no idea who this reporter is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence.
Statement after the video surfaced
The record
The denial was about a man he had sat across from before.
TechniqueEvidence management
The claim
I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.
New York magazine, 2002, four years before Epstein’s first arrest
The record
The friendship is not disputed. Only how much of it he still owns is.
TechniqueMinimizing
Rolling Stone, quoting the 2002 New York magazine interviewU.S. Department of Justice, Epstein flight logsPolitiFact, on the falling out, Jul 2025Fox News, Trump’s 2025 account
The flight logs place him on Epstein’s plane for at least one identified flight, Palm Beach to Newark, 1997. Epstein’s contact books list him under multiple phone numbers. Both are government records the DOJ released under its own name. Neither one alleges a crime.
Sources, by citation count
Legal status current to 2026-08-20. Corrections.