PolitiFact, a US fact-checking newsroom, reviewed a large sample of Trump’s public statements over the past year and found that most were either false or contained significant inaccuracies, while a small share were rated true, the Polish state news agency said.
Several of the disputed claims focused on Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
In April last year, Trump blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the conflict. “You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size,” Trump said, referring to Russia’s military power.
Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago property on February 18, 2025, Trump suggested Ukraine was responsible for Russia’s attack because it could have reached an agreement with Moscow.
"You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he said.
Trump also claimed that Zelensky's support had "dropped to 4 percent” and that the country had been destroyed.
A February 2025 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, conducted on a representative sample of 1,000 people, put trust in Zelensky at 57 percent.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, after Vladimir Putin announced what he called a “special military operation.”
Russian forces attacked from several directions, including from Belarus and from occupied Crimea, and began missile strikes on cities and military sites across Ukraine.
The war has also been described in United Nations language as a Russian invasion. The UN General Assembly adopted a Ukrainian resolution condemning Russia’s aggression and supported wording that referred to a “full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation,” after amendments proposed by countries including Poland.
Trump has faced criticism for health-related statements as well.
In September last year, he warned pregnant women against taking Tylenol, saying the active ingredient, acetaminophen, could increase the risk of autism in children.
"Don't take it if you're pregnant. Don't take Tylenol, and don't give it to the baby after the baby is born,” he said.
The European Medicines Agency said at the time that available evidence did not show a link between paracetamol, known as acetaminophen in the United States, and autism.
The agency said existing European Union guidance remained unchanged: paracetamol can be used during pregnancy when needed, at the lowest effective dose and for the shortest necessary time.
Trump has also promoted the claim that he “ended eight wars” and deserved a Nobel Peace Prize, adding that he wanted to end the war in Ukraine as well, while acknowledging it had been harder than he expected.
Michael O’Hanlon, a security and foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based policy think tank, said Trump made a positive contribution in some cases, but argued that several conflicts were still ongoing, and some cited examples did not match the definition of a war with active fighting.
In US domestic politics, Trump has attacked New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, calling him a “100% communist lunatic” and a “self-proclaimed communist” on Truth Social.
Małgorzata Zachara-Szymańska, a political scientist at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, southern Poland, said such accusations are aimed at demonizing an opponent, since social policy proposals often struggle to gain traction in US public debate.
PolitiFact has described similar attacks on Democrats as part of a “red scare” tactic, a long-running political strategy that exploits public fear of communism to discredit rivals.
On the economy, Trump has also claimed there was no inflation in the United States. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that annual inflation was 2.7 percent in November.
Karol Szulc, an analyst at the University of Wrocław in southwestern Poland, said Trump’s use of misinformation has several drivers.
He pointed to structural changes in US media and politics that weakened expectations of balanced debate, and he argued that "Trump’s limited knowledge of world affairs can lead him to treat personal opinion as fact."
Szulc also said some false statements appear to be deliberate. "He lies to protect himself. Little children do that," Szulc said.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP