Data Report: False Claims Associated with Donald Trump in His Second Presidential Term
Introduction
The second tenure of Donald Trump as the president of the United States began on January 20, 2025. Media outlets like Associated Press and CBS News have reported that Trump made false and misleading claims that mislead both the public and some media. [1] [2]
Aiming to evaluate the claims, the report collects data from Google Fact Checking Tool and focuses on the search result of the word “Donald Trump” from January 20, 2025 to March 5, 2025 (the date of data collection). The data include:
- Any claims made by Donald Trump;
- Any claim title contains the word “Donald Trump; and
- Any text contains the word “Donald Trump”.
The purpose of the study is to provide an overview of the claims both concerning and made by Donald Trump, the claimants of these claims, as well as the fact-checkers involved. The limitation of the data collection is that it only covers claims in English.
Data analysis
The data shows that “President” and “Ukraine” are the nouns appearing the most frequently with “Donald Trump”. The inference can be that the public and media closely associate Donald Trump with his “president” title so as his “inauguration”. Also, the relationship between the US and Ukraine is likely to be the most heated topic which generates speculation and debate.
There are verbs frequently being associated with Trump, such as “say”, “show” and “post”. It is interesting that the terms may be relevant to viral and controversial speeches or actions taken by Trump. For instance, “executive order” may connect to what Trump signed on issues ranging from tariffs on Mexico to pauses on foreign aid. [3]
The study finds that nearly 30% of claims subjecting to fact-checking are made on social media but we are yet to ascertain the specific platforms. The sources range from images, posts and videos on conventional social media like Facebook Twitter to short videos and texts on Tiktok and Threads.
One major source of claims is Twitter (now known as X). Although Trump has been banned from Twitter, some media suggests that Twitter serves as the mouthpiece for Trump, which may affect the accuracy and reliability of the news shown to the public. [4]
The highlight is that Donald Trump himself has made around 20% of the claims subject to fact-checking. It suggests that Trump plays a dual role of making claims and involving in the content. And his claims aroused the attention of the fact-checkers.
The most frequent reviewing words made by the fact-checkers are “False” and the frequency of it is significantly higher than other words. Strong wordings like “fake” and “misleading” are commonly associated with Trump. Yet, strong negative words do not dominate the reviews as there are a number of contextual phrases like “tariff” and “US”.
Over the past ten years, claims associated with Donald Trump and subject to reviews are active during two significant periods: years between 2017 to 2020 and year 2025. This pattern overlaps with his first and second term of presidency. The popularity of diverse media platforms like TikTok may be one of the reasons contributing to the staggering increase of claim counts in 2025.
Conclusion
The data demonstrates that false claims concerning or made by Donald Trump are prevailing and the Ukraine issue faces the hit. It is inferred that Donald Trump contributed significantly as the president to these false claims as one of the major claimants, as well as the social media. It matches the media outlet’s finding as stated in the introduction.
Reference
- https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-trump-ukraine-3bea1df50167ac0a91f8c419b58c4b97
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-politico-payments-fact-check/
3. https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/tracking-trumps-executive-orders-rcna189571
4. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna174321
Source Code
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1_NqxKwbt7PQfg-iQHEzq93osl-h49011?usp=sharing
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