‘I’m Struggling To Keep Up!’ Trump Wears Out CNN Fact-Checker With Falsehood-Riddled Marathon Weave

CNN senior reporter Daniel Dale had trouble keeping up with President Donald Trump as the president held a press briefing marking one year since his second term began — and Dale was brought in to fact-check him periodically.

Trump opened the briefing with a lengthy, rambling weave that included attacking Don Lemon, raging about migrants, riffing on the killing of Renee Good, and narrowly escaping the clutches of a “nasty” binder clip. He spoke for almost an hour-and-a-half before finally taking questions.

The presser encompassed several editions of CNN News Central, during which anchors tossed to Dale no less than three times as he racked up a tally of over 17 falsehoods:

HILL: There is also, over the last nearly two hours, as you point out, there’s a lot that we need to fact check here, because there was a lot of what the president said that was not true. Daniel Dale is joining us for some of that.

You know, Daniel, as you’ve noted for us over the last couple of hours, some of these are things that we have heard from the president a number of times, certainly over the last year. What are the points that he continued to hammer home that are inaccurate? I mean, we picked up on gas prices a little fudgy there, the price of goods, inflation.

Walk us through.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: There are just so many. I’m struggling to keep track of it. You know, $18 trillion investment in the U.S., that’s a fictional figure, 600 percent reduction in prescription drug prices. That’s a fictional figure. I ended eight unendable wars. Eight is a fictional figure. We inherited inflation at a historic high. No, he inherited a 3 percent inflation just a little bit above where it is now, although it did hit about a 40-year high in June 2022, more than two years before he returned to office. He said many of the groceries have come way down.

Yes, there are some particular grocery products that have gotten cheaper during his presidency, but on the whole, grocery prices have increased. And in fact, December’s inflation report showed that the biggest one-month jump in grocery prices in three years occurred between November and December. He just veered into so many inaccurate tangents.

He repeated this claim that the Los Angeles wildfires of early 2025 were supposedly caused by the state trying to use some of its water to protect a small fish species. Experts in California water policy have repeatedly explained those two things simply have nothing to do with each other. That’s imaginary.

He said things like, I think NPR and PBS have closed down. They haven’t. You can check for yourself not to tell you to go to another station, but they’re still on the air.

So just claim after claim, I think we’ve addressed like 15 plus over my three fact check hits so far this afternoon. I could go on and on, but just a litany of lies, many of them debunked months or years ago by myself and others.

KEILAR: Yes. And thank you for taking us through that. Let’s go back to the White House where Kristen Holmes is.

Watch above via CNN News Central.

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