Rick Santorum: Trump "says things that don't comport with the facts. You want to call it a lie, call it a lie. I don't like calling people liars but the reality is this President has a problem" pic.twitter.com/jbzUDWqDA8
— New Day (@NewDay) May 2, 2018
Rick Santorum conceded on Wednesday that President Trump makes statements that “certainly don’t comport with the facts.”
The admission came as Santorum sparred with host Chris Cuomo on CNN’s “New Day” over Trump’s false and misleading statements.
“Does this president lie?” Cuomo asked Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania.
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“I don’t know,” Santorum. “I mean, the answer is he certainly says things that don’t comport with the facts.”
“I don’t like calling people liars, but the reality is this president has a problem,” he added.
The former GOP lawmaker also argued that while Trump may tell untruths, former President Barack Obama’s lies were more substantial and that the media failed to hold Trump’s predecessor to account.
“Nobody held President Obama accountable for those lies,” the two-time presidential candidate said. “I don’t think we’re putting it in the context that it needs to be put in, which is the media has focused a lot more on this president than it has President Obama.”
Santorum’s comments followed the release of a tally by The Washington Post’s Fact Checker that pegged the number of false and misleading statements by Trump since taking office at 3,001.