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Political Fact Check: Trump’s “Lie of the Year” Award

Donald Trump received Politifact’s 2015 “Lie of the Year” award for a collection of comments he’s made this campaign cycle. Politifact d...

Donald Trump received Politifact's 2015 "Lie of the Year" award for a collection of comments he's made this campaign cycle.

Politifact describes itself as an "independent fact-checking journalism website aimed at bringing you the truth in politics." This year, the site has been fact-checking the 2016 candidates. And no candidate has been checked more than Trump.

Of the 77 Trump statements the site analyzed, 76 of them have been rated as "mostly false," "false," or "pants on fire"... the three most untruthful categories on the site.

One of the remarks the site labeled "pants on fire" was this, made just over a month ago:

"I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was calming down. Thousands of people were cheering."

We fact-checked this earlier this year, and we found it false, too. There is no evidence or video of so-called thousands of people in Jersey City cheering. Weeks later, Trump continues to stand by his claim, despite having no evidence to back it up. Public officials on the ground in New Jersey say it never happened.

But that's not the only "pants on fire" claim made by the front-runner. He's made several racially-charged comments such as this:

"The Mexican government, they send the bad ones over."

Trump's referring to immigration over America's southern border. But this is false. There's no evidence to show the Mexican government encourages criminals to cross the border. Most illegal immigration comes from people seeking work. And recent estimates show illegal immigration from Mexico has dropped dramatically during the recession and has remained low.

"If you're from Syria and you're a Christian, you cannot come into this country, and they're the ones that are being decimated. If you are Islamic, it's hard to believe, you can come in so easily. In fact, it's one of our main groups of people that are coming up."

This, as Politifact agreed is false. Syrian Christians have been admitted as refugees in recent months. There's nothing in U.S. law or regulation that discriminates against Christian refugees.

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