GOP front-runner Donald Trump has gotten a lot of flak for some of the ridiculous statements he’s made this campaign season, including that women who seek abortions should be punished, and that Mexico should pay for a wall at the U.S. border. There’s no shortage of lists of the shocking things he’s said.
But Trump isn’t the only 2016 candidate to make erroneous claims on the campaign trail. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Reagans “started a national conversation” about HIV and AIDS, and she later walked back her statement, calling it a “mistake.” According to The New York Times, Ronald Reagan didn’t give a speech about the disease until 1987, when an estimated 40,000 people had already died of AIDS.
And Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders thought New York City's subway system still used tokens.
We’ve rounded up some of the most outlandish, surprising, and just plain false claims the 2016 candidates have made during the current campaign season. To err is human — but there are some serious whoppers here…
Molly Horan contributed reporting.
Editor's note: This slideshow was originally focused on Trump's quotes on the campaign trail. It has been expanded to include the other four candidates still in the running.
Donald Trump
"Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" — on Twitter, as the tragedy of the Orlando shooting unfolded
After sending the tweet on Sunday, Trump told CBS on Monday that the tragedy, which left at least 50 people dead, could be repeated if President Obama doesn't refer to it as "radical Islamic terrorism."
"Believe me, all I want is safety, I want safety for this country," Trump told CBS This Morning. "What happened yesterday will happen many times over with a president like Obama that doesn't even want to use the term 'radical Islamic terrorism.'"
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.
Donald Trump
"Number one, I have great respect for women. I was the one that really broke the glass ceiling on behalf of women, more than anybody in the construction industry," Trump said to Bill O'Reilly on Fox News Monday. "My relationship, I think, is going to end up being very good with women."
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"I'm building a wall. It's an inherent conflict of interest," Trump on the federal judge presiding over lawsuits against his embattled Trump University. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel has "an absolute conflict" in the case because he is "of Mexican heritage."
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
In a 2004 interview with Dateline, Trump spoke about his response to a former employee’s pregnancy by calling it "inconvenient" for a business. “[It’s] a wonderful thing for the woman, it’s a wonderful thing for the husband, it’s certainly an inconvenience for a business. And whether people want to say that or not, the fact is it is an inconvenience for a person that is running a business."
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"She's a woman that's been very ineffective, other than she's got a big mouth," Trump said of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at a press conference Thursday. "I don't know if you'd call it a fraud or not, but she was able to get into various schools because of the fact she applied as a Native American, and [she was] probably able to get other things," Trump added. "I think she's as Native American as I am, OK?"
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"You mean Pocahontas?" Trump said to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in reference to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D). The remark came when Dowd asked Trump if he'd faced backlash from Republicans for his Twitter feud with the senator.
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.
Hillary Clinton
"Let me say that I don't think he's had a single negative ad ever run against him. And that's fine," Clinton said of Sanders during a May appearance on Meet the Press. "But we know what we're going into, and we understand what it's going to take to win in the fall. And finally, I would say that, you know, polls this far out mean nothing."
As PolitiFact pointed out, Clinton's claims about Sanders and campaign ads aren't entirely true. Several ads from other Democratic groups, including some that support Clinton, have released attack ads against Sanders.
Photo: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock.
Hillary Clinton
"We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." — at a CNN town hall in March. Clinton recently apologized for the statement, which resurfaced as she picked up campaigning in West Virginia, calling it a "misstatement." "What I said was totally out of context from what I meant," she said. "It was a misstatement, because what I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs."
Photo: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"All of the men, we're petrified to speak to women anymore. We may raise our voice. You know what? The women get it better than we do, folks. They get it better than we do. If she didn't play that card, she has nothing." — on Hillary Clinton and the "women's card" at a campaign rally in Spokane, Washington, in May 2016
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!" — in a tweet on May 5, 2016
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"We can't continue to allow China to rape our country" — on America's trade deficit with China
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Hillary Clinton
"I have a lot of experience dealing with men who sometimes get off the reservation in the way they behave and how they speak." — to CNN's Jake Tapper, ignoring the phrase's origins, which are offensive to Native Americans. Her campaign later apologised.
Photo: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"I think the only card she has is the women's card," Trump said of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. "She has got nothing else going. Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she would get 5% of the vote. And the beautiful thing is, women don't like her."
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Hillary Clinton
"It's not been as widespread as it has been made out to be." — on the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal, which exposed the dismal healthcare coverage many veterans experience
Photo: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock.
John Kasich
"Well, I would give you, I'd also give you one bit of advice. Don't go to parties where there's a lot of alcohol. OK? Don't do that." — on avoiding sexual assault
Photo: REX/Shutterstock.
Bernie Sanders
"You get a token, and you get on." — on the New York City subway system, which hasn't used tokens since 2003
Photo: RMV/REX/Shutterstock.
Ted Cruz
"I think they cancelled their football programme and brought in a girls' junior high team." — on the Texas Longhorns' loss to the Iowa State Cyclones
Photo: Brandon Marshall/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base." — on Fox News host Megyn Kelly, after she moderated a GOP debate
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.John Kasich
"We just got an army of people, who, and many women, who left their kitchens to go out and go door to door and to put yard signs up for me." — on winning his 1978 Ohio state Senate campaign
Photo: REX/Shutterstock.
Ted Cruz
"If Donald Trump dresses up as Hillary Clinton, he still can't go to the girls' bathroom." — on North Carolina's LGBTQ discrimination law
Photo: Brandon Marshall/REX/Shutterstock.Hillary Clinton
"I don't know where he was when I was trying to get health care in '93 and '94, standing up the insurance companies, standing up against the drug companies." — on Bernie Sanders during a campaign event in St. Louis. Sanders' aides responded to the statement by tweeting an image of Sanders standing behind Clinton at an event to promote healthcare reform in 1993.
Photo: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." — Trump's campaign in a December statement just days after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, CA.
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.
Bernie Sanders
"Greed, fraud, dishonesty, arrogance. These are just some of the adjectives we use to describe Wall Street." — in a tweet about Wall Street
Photo: RMV/REX/Shutterstock.Hillary Clinton
"That's what they offered…Every secretary of state that I know has done that." — Clinton said at a CNN town hall event, after being asked about the $675,000 she accepted from Goldman Sachs for delivering three speeches. She later said, "They're not giving me that much money now."
Photo: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"There has to be some form of punishment." — on women who seek abortions (Trump later backtracked on this statement.)
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Bernie Sanders
"It's something I have not studied, honestly, the legal implications of that." — Sanders said of bringing Metropolitan Life Insurance under the financial regulatory scheme. The comment came during an interview with the New York Daily News ' editorial board, in which Sanders floundered while answering questions about the specifics of his plans to break up Wall Street institutions.
Photo: RMV/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And [Republican candidate Marco Rubio] referred to my hands — if they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem, I guarantee." — on his penis.
Photo: Ron Sachs/REX/Shutterstock.Ted Cruz
"I didn't want a shutdown. Throughout the whole thing, I said we shouldn't have a shutdown…Now, folks here can disagree. But repeatedly, I voted to keep the government open." — on the government shutdown, which Cruz helped lead in 2013
Photo: Brandon Marshall/REX/Shutterstock.Hillary Clinton
"Libya was a different kind of calculation. And we didn't lose a single person." — Clinton said at an MSNBC town hall event in March of the 2011 intervention. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, died in 2012 at the U.S. outpost in Benghazi.
Photo: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock.Donald Trump
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems to us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." — on Mexico and immigration
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