Whatever Trump says is usually completely false. He's lies as he breathes.

It would be very easy to search for his use of the word "transition," or any suggestion that there would be a "transition period." I don't recall any such claims, but then again, I didn't listen to a single word that the con man had to say during the campaign. The general gist of it, however, was that we'd be living in a paradise / Golden Age generated by tariff payments from overseas, which were also going to pay for education, or something. And it was all going to happen "very quickly," as I recall. But this is an easy one. He says very clearly:

I said, 'You're gonna have a transition period.'"

Did he? I started hearing about pain and transition periods only after the markets started crashing. Was it a feature of the campaign? A transition period during which we all have to sacrifice? In which there might be some pain for the American people while the dream of a tariff-generated paradise realizes itself? Let's go to the tape...

I don't recall anything it was reported that he said to undermine his fantasy that foreign governments/suppliers were going to pay the tariffs. (Not that that wouldn't have had the same result - a lot of pain - but that wasn't what he was marketing.)

I believe he did mention it at some point between November and his inauguration, though. Of course, at that point, it was too late for people to change their vote...