Untruths and Donald Trump

Donald Trump continues to come under fire for his comments about seeing Muslims in Jersey City celebrating the September 11th attacks.

The Republican presidential candidate cited a Washington Post article that was published one week after the attacks as supporting evidence. But the Washington Post and Politifact say Trump is wrong, and that there's no evidence that thousands of people were cheering across the river as the Twin Towers fell.

Yet, Trump's untruths—like his recent tweet that states 81 percent of whites killed in the U.S. are killed by black people—don't appear to be hurting his political standing.

Robert Shapiro, professor and former chair of political science at Columbia University, specializes in American politics and public opinion. He says when candidates make such statements, they are appealing to their constituents' worldviews.

"The level of partisan politics and the level of opposition to the Obama administration and the Democrats among leaders like Donald Trump and their supporters has basically affected their perceptions of reality."

Robert Shapiro spoke with WNYC's Soterios Johnson.