Presidential candidates are usually held in high esteem. Those who choose to throw their hats in the ring are expected to be highly educated and intel

Presidential candidates are usually held in high esteem. Those who choose to throw their hats in the ring are expected to be highly educated and intelligent. However, it seems that the current American political system’s script that forbade gaffes has been torn to pieces. Today it seems like anything goes. Presidential candidates say the silliest things. At the moment it seems like all their intelligence and common sense goes out the window. Let’s go down memory lane and relive the ridiculous things said by U.S. presidential candidates. 1. The U.S. GDP is Below Zero Statements like these make many people think that Donald Trump has made an art form out of contentious mistakes. This was said in 2015 during his presidential announcement speech. GDP represents all the economic activity within a country during a specific period. For this outlandish statement to be true, it would mean that the U.S. would have to be a deserted land where no one ventures. In reality, during the period that Trump was referring to, GDP increased by one percent annually in the fourth quarter of 2015 and by two percent annually in the third quarter. 2. The DC Area Has Never Had a Recession Former governor of Arkansas, Mike Dale Huckabee, was a presidential hopeful who on occasion was known for not getting his facts right while being so confident in his words, that it was outrageous. In September, 2015, he made claims that the DC metropolitan area never had a recession. Now this was laughable. After all, the US has faced recessions in the past. Much of Washington’s workforce is employed by the government. As such, the blow from economic downturns is cushioned. This is not to say that they don’t experience recessions and its effects. 3. All My Grandparents Were Immigrants Politicians seem to say almost anything while being interviewed, even making false claims about their own lives. Hilary Clinton was eyeing those pro-immigrant votes and confessing that all her grandparents were immigrants may have been her way to get it. Well, if that were only true. Her statement was only twenty-five percent correct. Pretty low don’t you think? Her paternal grandfather was an immigrant from England. Her other grandparents were as American as it gets with two of them from Illinois and one from Pennsylvania. 4. America’s Villains Were BFFs Ben Carson is known for his numerous outrageous statements. He basically tried to connect some invisible dots by claiming that in 1968, Mahmoud Abbas, Ali Khamenei and Vladimur Putin all met at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow and from then on, established a friendship that would serve them decades later. This is unfounded and bears no truth. Putin was sixteen years old then and was in high school. Khamenei was in prison about that time. Also, Abbas was certainly way too young to be at university. According to Carson, he got that information from the CIA.    5. Criminals Aren’t Deported by the Federal Government Jeb Bush was another presidential candidate who dropped clangers every now and again. Bush said at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, “The federal government right now does not deport criminals.” These words may have given false hope to hardened criminals out there but Bush got it wrong. It was true that the government often chose not to deport violent criminals but isn’t a generalization that should have ever been made. At that time, over 80,000 criminals were being deported yearly by the government.

The Most Ridiculous Things Said By U.S. Presidential Candidates

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