The media frenzy revolving around Congressman George Santos has many calling for his resignation. As the North Shore Leader warned in their pre-election opinion piece, Santos indeed seems to be a fake and a fabulist. https://www.theleaderonline.com/single-post/endorsement-robert-zimmerman-for-us-congress-ny3
Some of his fabrications involve the colleges he attended, the companies for which he worked, whether or not he is Jewish, the properties he owns and, perhaps, his finances.
But Santos is hardly the first pol who has provided some whoppers in misleading the public. Here are some of the most noteworthy ones over the past few decades.
We’d like to know which you think is the biggest, most impactful lie of the era. Or perhaps you have a suggestion of your own.
President George H.W. Bush: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
President Bill Clinton: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…Ms. Lewinsky.”
George W. Bush, Oct. 2002: Iraq has a “massive stockpile” of biological weapons.
Barack Obama, 2013: “ If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,”
Obama ally Jonathan Gruber on lying to the public about Obamacare’s costs: “If you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in—you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed, okay. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass…”
The Obama administration regarding the Iran nuclear deal: The Obama administration secretly tried to help Iran use U.S. banks to convert $5.7 billion in Iranian assets after promising Congress that Iran would not get access to the U.S. financial system — and then lied to Congress about what it had done.
Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim film: “We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.” Yet, documents proved that the Department knew it was a planned attack.
Donald Trump: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian (hurricane). We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. #alwx”
Trump: The tax plan under consideration in Congress “was the largest tax cut in the history of the United States.” Treasury Department data revealed it would rank eighth.
Trump: “I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I’m like, wait a minute. I made a speech. I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, million and a half people.” Official estimates claimed a crowd of about 500,000.
Trump: “Just stay calm. It will go away.” Later, the journalist Bob Woodward revealed that Trump had told him at the same time the president was publicly downplaying the virus’ severity; he knew it was more dangerous than the flu and “deadly.”
Trump: “I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq.”
Trump: “A reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine.” (Trump was on the cover eleven times and Nixon appeared 55 times.)
Trump: “We got 306 because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before so that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan.” (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all won bigger margins in the Electoral College.)
Joe Biden: ”I hope you won’t hold it against me but I was a hardened coal miner.” Biden made this false claim to a coal mining group.
Biden: “I graduated at the top half of my class in law school.” He was 76th out of 85.
Biden: “I graduated with three degrees.”
Biden: “I was the outstanding student in the political science department.”
Biden: “I got started out of an HBCU, Delaware State.” He did not attend the college.
Biden: “I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets on Soweto trying to get to see [Nelson] Mandela.” When he was caught in the lie, he said: “I guess I wasn’t arrested.”
Biden: “I used to be a tractor-trailer driver.” Actually, as a senator, he once rode along with the truck driver from Delaware to Ohio.
Biden: “That’s why I and so many damn other people l grew up with have cancer.” He blamed the oil industry for cancer he doesn’t have.
Biden administration: “The border is secure.”
Biden administration: “There was a 0% rise in inflation.” This was the comparison of June to July 2022. But that is an inaccurate measurement of inflation. You have to compare July 2022 to July 2021, which showed an inflation rate exceeding 8%.
Biden: “We are not coming into a recession.” Even though GDP growth was negative for two continuous quarters, which is the classic, traditional definition of a recession, President Biden changed the definition so that this would no longer be considered the measuring threshold, and he could claim there was no recession.
Biden: “They can be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year.” Even though the president vowed to destroy the fossil fuel industry and canceled pipelines and drilling on federal lands.
Biden: “To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped — it’s outrageous. I promise these people will pay.” He falsely claimed border agents whipped migrants.
Biden: “When I was 17 years old, I participated in a sit-in to desegregate restaurants in movie houses… I organized a civil rights boycott because they wouldn’t serve black kids” One of the football players Biden says he was defending debunked Biden’s story and said Biden was not even aware of the event until after it occurred.
Biden: ”[It’s] where I have been at [the green zone in Iraq] seven times and shot at.” This never happened.
Biden: “Jill and I have mourned police officers in this Capitol rotunda, not once but twice, in the wake of Jan. 6.” No police officers were killed as a result of the riot.
U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (D-California): He falsely claimed that he himself was in personal possession of a “smoking gun” proving Trump’s collusion with Russians.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusetts): The Washington Post disclosed that, on her Texas bar registration card, Warren had written “American Indian” when asked to identify her race. It apparently helped to secure her a teaching position at Harvard University.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut): “We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.” He was never deployed to Vietnam.