Donald Trump is Lying 30 Times a Day on Average as the Midterms Approach, Fact-Checker Says

President Donald Trump has begun telling even more falsehoods than previously, a fact-checking journalist has alleged, referring to the commander-in-chief as already being a "serial liar."

"These are not simply the usual exaggerations of a crowd size and so on," David Dale, who is the Washington correspondent for Canada's Toronto Star, said Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources" television program.

"He's making stuff up in the last couple weeks in a way that I don't think we've seen from a serial liar, the President, before" he added.

Referring to Trump's recent false statements as "whoppers," the journalist pointed out that many of these have been "complete fabrications."

Host Brian Stelter then pointed to The Washington Post 's running count of false or misleading claims made by Trump since he took office in January 2017. Showing a recent article summing up the total from the newspaper on the screen, Stelter pointed out that the count had reached 6,420 in 649 days.

Dale argued that the term "lies" is "the most accurate word for some of these claims." However, he also said that he personally uses "false claims" to denote when it is unclear whether or not the president is simply "confused" or "just doesn't understand the policy."

Citing a recent example of Trump telling The Wall Street Journal that he doesn't "have tariffs anywhere," despite having implemented significant new levies on foreign products in escalating trade disputes, Dale said this is categorically a lie.

"I think if we want to regain the trust that has been lost in media, we have to level with readers," the journalist argued. "We have to be seen to be straight shooters, and I think in most cases the word is lie," he added.

The recent analysis from The Post reveals that Trump's well-document propensity for making false or misleading statements has increased dramatically in the lead up to the midterm elections, which will take place on Tuesday. During the first nine months of Trump's presidency, he made an average of five inaccurate statements per day, according to the newspaper. Now, in the past seven weeks, the president has increased that average six times, reaching about 30 per day.

"The burden of keeping track of this verbiage has consumed the weekends and nights of The Fact Checker staff," The Post wrote in its recent analysis.

Eliana Johnson, a national political reporter for Politico, who also appeared on the CNN panel, said that many Trump supporters are actually aware of his false statements, but still agree with his underlying point.

"The lies that are so obvious to us, I think are obvious to most Trump voters," she said. "They understand that he's not a truth teller, that he's a serial exaggerator, and yet they agree with him on sort of small grains of issues that he's talking about."