Htydjtk

So I saw this morning that Donald Trump (US president) claimed the US would be at war with North Korea by now if he hadn't been elected.

This made me wonder if there are any restrictions on what a politician can make or whether this is all down to public opinion (the public pointing out that tensions have been going on for decades or that Donald Trump was originally escalating things rather than calming them down).

Can a politician make any claim and the onus is on their opposition to prove them wrong?

(I'm more interested in the west but if this or 'politician' is too broad then answer specifically on the US president)

You are partly right:

• A politician can make almost any claim, unless libel laws apply.


• There is no onus on the opposition to prove him wrong because a politician has no right to be believed by the public. The opposition would only try to prove him wrong if there are people left who believe the lying politician.

Most lies will be judged in the "court of public opinion" and not in a court of law. Especially if it comes to hypotheticals -- who knows if a different President would have more or less success with North Korea? One could well argue that previous Western diplomacy was not well suited to deal with DPRK brinkmanship, and that it took another brinkman to bring them to a test stop.

To speak of Canada specifically, our federal politicians operate under the Rules of Order and Decorum while sitting in Parliament, and there's a goodly number of things they're not supposed to do. The ones that seem to come up the most often are:

• "It is unacceptable to allude to the presence or absence of a Member
  or Minister in the Chamber." They're not allowed to point out that
  no one has seen the Honourable Member at work for the last six
  months.




• "Remarks directed specifically at another Member which question that
  Member’s integrity, honesty or character are not in order. A Member
  will be requested to withdraw offensive remarks, allegations, or
  accusations of impropriety directed towards another Member." They're
  not allowed to just flat-out call one of their coworkers a liar.




• "Members are discouraged from referring by name to persons who are
  not Members of Parliament and who do not enjoy parliamentary
  immunity, except in extraordinary circumstances when the national
  interest calls for the naming of an individual." This sometimes
  makes the debates pretty oblique.




• "Personal attacks, insults and obscene language or words are not in
  order." Notably, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once claimed that he
  had actually said 'fuddle duddle' and not some other word that may
  have started with 'fu-'.

Outside of parliament, though, they're mostly just regular citizens.