Donald Trump is dismissing the political fact-checking website PolitiFact, which on Monday awarded him its 2015 Lie of the Year for his claims about Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attacks.
{mosads}“[PolitiFact is] a totally left-wing group,” the GOP presidential front-runner said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “They are bad news.
“You could tell something 100 percent and they will make it out to a lie if you’re a certain person,” he added.
Trump also defended his assertion that scores of Muslim Americans celebrated the 2001 terrorist attacks, saying people have come forward with evidence to back his recollection.
“Well, you know there were a lot of people, and I’ve had it from a lot of people,” he said of others corroborating his claims. “We’ve had hundreds of phone calls. We’ve had at @RealDonaldTrump, we’ve had proof.”
PolitiFact, which is run by the Tampa Bay Times, announced Monday that Trump had garnered its annual Lie of the Year for “various statements” of questionable accuracy on the 2016 campaign trail.
“When it comes to inaccurate statements, the Donald was on fire,” PolitiFact wrote.
“Trump hasn’t apologized or backtracked on his statements. Instead, when challenged, he offers flimsy explanations and suggests he shouldn’t be held accountable — or simply insists he’s right.”
PolitiFact concluded that roughly three-quarters of Trump’s public statements were “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire.”
It cited Trump’s recollection of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, as one of the real estate tycoon’s most egregious inaccuracies.
PolitiFact additionally dismissed Trump’s claims about the Mexican government sending “the bad ones over” into the U.S. and statistics he used about the number of black people killing white people.