Highlights:
Throughout His Presidency. Trump Made More Than 30,573 False Or Misleading Claims. According to the Washington Post, “By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.” [Washington Post, 1/24/21]
The Washington Post Described Trump As Having An “Unusually Flagrant Disregard For Facts” That Required A Database Tracker. According to the Washington Post, “For more than 10 years, The Fact Checker has assessed the accuracy of claims made by politicians in both parties, and that practice will continue. But Trump, with his unusually flagrant disregard for facts, posed a new challenge, as so many of his claims did not merit full-fledged fact checks. What started as a weekly feature — “What Trump got wrong on Twitter this week” — turned into a project for Trump’s first 100 days. Then, in response to reader requests, the Trump database was maintained for four years, despite the increasing burden of keeping it up. The database became an untruth tracker for the ages, widely cited around the world as a measuring stick of Trump’s presidency — and as of noon Wednesday it was officially retired. Whether such a tracker will be necessary for future presidents is unclear.” [Washington Post, 1/23/21]
January 2021: Trump Made 322 False Or Misleading Claims. According to the Washington Post Fact Checker database, Trump made 322 misleading or false claims in January 2021. [Washington Post, 1/20/21]
2020: Trump Made 14,386 False Or Misleading Claims. According to the Washington Post Fact Checker database, Trump made 761 misleading or false claims in January 2020, 817 claims in February 2020, 532 in March 2020, 534 in April 2020, 645 in May 2020, 721 in June 2020, 879 in July 2020, 1,657 in August 2020, 2,239 in September 2020, 3,917 in October 2020, 1,287 in November 2020, and 397 in December 2020. [Washington Post, 1/20/21]
2019: Trump Made 8,155 False Or Misleading Claims. According to the Washington Post, “And in 2019, he made 8,155 suspect claims.” [Washington Post, 1/20/20]
2018: Trump Made 5,689 False Or Misleading Claims. According to the Washington Post, “In 2018, he added 5,689 more, for a total of 7,688.” [Washington Post, 1/20/20]
2017: Trump Made 1,999 False Or Misleading Claims. According to the Washington Post, “In 2017, Trump made 1,999 false or misleading claims.” [Washington Post, 1/20/20]
PolitiFact: Trump “Fueled Confusion And Conspiracies” About Coronavirus From The Start Of The Pandemic. According to PolitiFact, “President Donald J. Trump fueled confusion and conspiracies from the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. He embraced theories that COVID-19 accounted for only a small fraction of the thousands upon thousands of deaths. He undermined public health guidance for wearing masks and cast Dr. Anthony Fauci as an unreliable flip-flopper.” [PolitiFact, 12/16/20]
PolitiFact: Trump Spread The Lie That Coronavirus Was Being “Overhyped” To Hurt His Re-Election Bid. According to PolitiFact, “It was a symphony of counter narrative, and Trump was the conductor, if not the composer. The message: The threat to your health was overhyped to hurt the political fortunes of the president.” [PolitiFact, 12/16/20]
The Washington Post Tracked Over 2,500 Coronavirus-Related False Or Misleading Claims From Trump. According to the Washington Post, “False and misleading claims about the coronavirus pandemic emerged in 2020, so that by year’s end he had made more than 2,500 coronavirus-related claims — more than all of his trade claims over four years, even though trade has been one of the animating features of his presidency. Trump touted phony metrics to claim he successfully defeated the virus, pitched ineffective ‘cures’ and constantly attacked former president Barack Obama for alleged failures, such as leaving a ‘bare cupboard’ of ventilators (there were almost 17,000) and bungling the response to the swine flu pandemic in 2009-2010 (the response was considered a success).” [Washington Post, 1/23/21]
February 24, 2020: Trump Misleadingly Tweeted The Claim That The Coronavirus Situation Was “Under Control.” According to Trump on Twitter, “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” [Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 2/24/20]
February 24, 2020: There Were 53 Confirmed Cases Of COVID-19 In The United States. According to CNN, “There are now 53 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in the United States, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. These include 36 people who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, three people repatriated from China and 14 US cases. This reflects an increase in 18 cases from Friday, all among Diamond Princess passengers.” [CNN, 2/24/20]
March 15, 2020: Trump Claimed That The United States Had “Tremendous Control Over” The Coronavirus Outbreak In The Country. According to JM Rieger on Twitter, “We're learning from watching other countries ... This is a very contagious virus, it's incredible, but it's something that we have tremendous control over. I think very important the young people, people of good health and groups of people just are not strongly affected.” [Twitter - @RiegerReport, 3/15/20]
March 16, 2020: There Were At Least 3,482 Coronavirus Cases In 49 States, Puerto Rico, The U.S. Virgin Islands, And Washington D.C. According to CNN, “There are at least 3,482 coronavirus cases in 49 states, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Washington DC, according to government agencies and the CDC. At least 65 people have died. West Virginia remains the only state without any confirmed cases.” [CNN, 3/15/20]
Trump Admitted That He Played Down The Coronavirus Publicly. According to CNN, “‘I wanted to always play it down,’ Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. ‘I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic.’ If instead of playing down what he knew, Trump had acted decisively in early February with a strict shutdown and a consistent message to wear masks, social distance and wash hands, experts believe that thousands of American lives could have been saved.” [CNN, 9/9/20]
March 6, 2020: Trump Falsely Claimed That “Anybody That Wants A Test Can Get A Test.” According to Remarks by President Trump after a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “THE PRESIDENT: Anybody that wants a test can get a test. That’s what the bottom line is.” [Archived Trump White House, 3/7/20]
Trump’s Claim Was False; There Was An Insufficient Number Of Tests Available In The United States. According to CNN, “That wasn't true. There were an insufficient number of tests available, as Pence said the day prior, and Americans could not get tested simply because they wanted to get tested. ‘You may not get a test unless a doctor or public health official prescribes a test,’ Azar said the day after Trump's remark. (Azar claimed Trump was using ‘shorthand’ for the fact that ‘we as regulators, or as those shipping the test, are not restricting who can get tested.’)” [CNN, 3/11/20]
Trump Claimed That Google Would Create A Website For Americans To Figure Out If They Needed A Test. According to Wired, “President Donald Trump announced Friday that the US government’s coronavirus testing apparatus, which has lagged badly behind other developed nations, would soon get an assist from Google. The search and advertising giant will create a website, Trump said, that would help Americans figure out if they need a test for the virus, and if so where they can find one.” [Wired, 3/13/20]
Google Had No Idea Trump Planned To Mention A Site. According to Wired, “The only problem: There is no nationwide site like the one Trump described. And Google had no idea the president was going to mention one. A source at Google tells WIRED that company leadership was surprised that Trump announced anything about the initiative at the press conference. What he did say was also almost entirely wrong. There will be a coronavirus testing site, not from Google but from Alphabet sister company Verily. ‘We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for COVID-19 testing,’ Google tweeted in a statement. ‘Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.’ Even that, though, was not the original plan. The Verge reported Friday afternoon that Verily had intended the site for health care workers only. After Trump unexpectedly publicized the effort, Verily decided it will let anyone visit it, but can still only provide people with testing site information in the San Francisco area.” [Wired, 3/13/20]
Providing No Scientific Research To Support His Claim, Trump Insisted Coronavirus Would Disappear By April As The Weather Got Warmer. According to USA Today, “Trump says Coronavirus will be gone by April when the weather gets warmer The president continued to suggest the Coronavirus outbreak, which has claimed 1,000 lives as of Monday, will be gone by April. He told the crowd that ‘in theory’ once the weather warms up Coronavirus, which he referred to as ‘the virus,’ will ‘miraculously’ go away. Trump did not offer any scientific explanation to back up his claim.” [USA Today, 2/10/20]
The CDC Refuted Trump’s Claim: “At This Time, It Is Not Known Whether The Spread Of COVID-19 Will Decrease When Weather Becomes Warmer.” According to The Hill, “President Trump has suggested that the coronavirus outbreak will be gone by April because ‘the heat generally speaking kills this kind of virus,’ as reported by USA Today. He has appointed Vice President Pence to take charge of the U.S. response to the disease. But, will the coronavirus be responsive to seasonal changes similar to the flu? In short, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that the spread of the disease will abate with warmer weather. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that ‘at this time, it is not known whether the spread of COVID-19 will decrease when weather becomes warmer.’ COVID-19 is different from the virus strains that cause the flu even though it can lead to similar symptoms of respiratory problems.” [Hill, 2/28/20]
Trump Repeatedly Promoted Hydroxychloroquine And Chloroquine As Coronavirus Treatments. According to the Washington Post, “The world is looking for answers in the search for a treatment for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which has claimed more than 100,000 lives across the globe. President Trump has repeatedly touted the anti-malarial medications hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as that much-needed solution.” [Washington Post, 4/13/20]
Trump Claimed The FDA Had Approved Chloroquine To Treat COVID-19. According to CNN, “President Donald Trump claimed during a White House briefing on Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration had approved the ‘very powerful’ drug chloroquine to treat coronavirus. Chloroquine is used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. ‘It's shown very encouraging -- very, very encouraging early results. And we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. And that's where the FDA has been so great. They -- they've gone through the approval process; it's been approved. And they did it -- they took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we're going to be able to make that drug available by prescription or states,’ Trump said. He added: "Normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, and it's -- it was approved very, very quickly and it's now approved, by prescription.” [CNN, 3/19/20]
After Trump’s Press Conference, The FDA Said Chloroquine Had Not Been Approved For COVID-19. According to CNN, “Facts First: Chloroquine has not been approved by the FDA to treat the coronavirus -- and nor has any other drug, the FDA made clear in a post-briefing statement that said ‘there are no FDA-approved therapeutics or drugs to treat, cure or prevent COVID-19.’ Because chloroquine has been approved for other purposes, doctors are legally allowed to prescribe it for the unapproved or ‘off-label’ use of treating the coronavirus if they want. But its safety and effectiveness has not been proven with regard to the coronavirus. FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, speaking after Trump at the briefing, said that chloroquine would be tested through a ‘large, pragmatic clinical trial’ with coronavirus patients.” [CNN, 3/19/20]
Trump Claimed, “You’re Not Gonna Die From This Pill” In Support Of Using Hydroxychloroquine To Treat COVID-19. According to NBC News, “President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the potential benefits of hydroxychloroquine, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat malaria, lupus and other autoimmune ailments but hasn’t yet been proven effective and safe in treating the coronavirus. ‘What do you have to lose?’ Trump asked Saturday at the White House when pressed by reporters about hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness. And while he’s suggested that patients consult with their physicians about the treatment, he’s also said the drug can ‘help them, but it’s not going to hurt them.’ On Tuesday, when asked about the drug’s potential side effects, he downplayed them. ‘The side effects are the least of it,’ said Trump. ‘You’re not gonna die from this pill,’ he said. ‘I say ‘try it’ he said, noting ‘I’m not a doctor’ and to get a physician’s approval. But the president’s reassurance is raising concerns among experts about the dangers the drug poses to some.” [NBC News, 4/7/20]
Medical Experts Warned About Rare But Potentially Fatal Side Effects Of Hydroxychloroquine. According to NBC News, “As the U.S. scales up purchase and use of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients, a leading Mayo Clinic cardiologist is sounding a warning: Anyone promoting the drug also needs to flag its rare but serious — and potentially fatal — side effects.” [NBC News, 4/7/20]
Trump Urged Americans To Take Chloroquine Adding, “What Do You Have To Lose?” According to the Guardian, “In White House briefings on Saturday and Sunday, Trump urged Americans worried about the virus to try hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria, arthritis and lupus that has not been extensively tested for other conditions. ‘Take it. What do you have to lose?’ the president said on Saturday, suggesting that he might do so himself after asking ‘my doctors’.” [Guardian, 4/6/20]
Trump Falsely Claimed That “All Republicans Support People With Pre-Existing Conditions.” According to Trump on Twitter, “All Republicans support people with pre-existing conditions, and if they don’t, they will after I speak to them. I am in total support. Also, Democrats will destroy your Medicare, and I will keep it healthy and well!” [Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 10/18/18]
The Trump Administration Supported Republican-Led States In A Lawsuit That Claimed The Affordable Care Act’s Protections For Pre-Existing Conditions Are Illegal. According to NBC News, “The Trump administration backed Republican-led states in a lawsuit that claims Obamacare's protections for pre-existing conditions are illegal, and a federal court ruled the law unconstitutional in December**.** If the Supreme Court confirms the ruling, insurers would be able to start denying coverage to those people. The White House has not proposed alternative legislation that would offer those with pre-existing conditions the protections Obamacare gives consumers.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
Republicans Spent Years Trying To Repeal The Affordable Care Act And Weaken Protections For Those With Pre-Existing Conditions. According to NBC News, “Republicans have spent years trying to repeal Obamacare, and the GOP health care bills proposed — and voted on — over the course of the past year would have softened such protections, in some cases allowing insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions**.** Supporting the concept of health care for people with pre-existing conditions, and supporting legislation that accomplishes it, are two different things.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
2018: Trump Stated That The Obama Administration Separated Children From Their Families At The Border. According to remarks by Trump on the Illegal Immigration Crisis and Border Security, “But under President Obama, they separated children from the parents. We actually put it so that that didn’t happen […] But President Obama separated the children, the parents. And nobody complained. When we continued the exact same law, this country went crazy.” [Archived Trump White House, 11/1/18]
There Was No Widespread Obama-Era Policy Of Separating Parents And Children. According to NBC News, “There was no widespread Obama-era policy of separating parents and children. The Obama administration instead opted to detain families together, earning outrage of their own. Advocates said there were a handful of scenarios under the Obama administration where children were separated from their parents because of fears of human trafficking, but reunification was speedy.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
Trump Used The Lie To Defend His Administration’s Family Separation Policy, Which Resulted In Thousands Of Migrant Children Being Separated From Their Families. According to NBC News, “The president made this claim as a way to defend his own administration's policy that separated more than 2,600 migrant children from their parents earlier this year — a policy he was forced to end after widespread public outrage and condemnation from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
September 2018: Trump Claimed His “Administration Has Accomplished More Than Almost Any Administration In The History Of Our Country.” According to remarks by President Trump to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, “Today, I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we’ve made. In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country. America’s — so true. (Laughter.) Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay. (Laughter and applause.)” [Archived Trump White House, 9/25/18]
At The Time Of His 2018 Speech, Trump Had Struggled To Sign The Legislation He Promised On The Campaign Trail. According to NBC News, “Trump later said he intended that UN moment to garner a laugh, but he's repeated this claim seriously since. There are varying measures of success, but it's not ‘so true’ that his administration has been more successful than any other administration in history. When it comes to legislation, Trump has signed plenty of bills in his first two years as president, but President Barack Obama, in his first two years in office, signed significantly more. And not all legislation is created equal. Trump's struggled to sign the kind of major legislation he promised on the campaign trail. He’s tried and failed several times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. His signature legislative achievement, tax reform, has fallen short of the president’s own boasts about it and he’s offered vague promises of second tax cut to compensate. His first real bipartisan achievement — a criminal justice reform bill called the ‘First Step Act’ — was signed into law in late December, after he made this hyperbolic claim.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
Most Of Trump’s Agenda Focused On Deregulation And Pulling The U.S. Out Of International Deals. According to NBC News, “Much of Trump's agenda included deregulation and withdrawing the U.S. from international deals like the Iran deal and the Paris climate agreement, which he has successfully done. He’s also negotiated a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada intended to replace NAFTA, but in order to get it implemented, he’ll need support from a divided Congress.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
Then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer Falsely Claimed That Trump Had “The Largest Audience To Ever Witness An Inauguration, Period.” According to the Guardian, “On Saturday Spicer went on to say that photographs of the inauguration ‘were intentionally framed in a way in one particular tweet to minimise the enormous support that gathered on the National Mall.’ Almost shouting, Spicer continued: ‘Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted. No one had numbers because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out. By the way, this applies to any attempt to count the number of protesters today in the same fashion.’ Then, although he had just said that no one had numbers, Spicer claimed: ‘This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period … These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm for the inauguration are shameful and wrong.’” [Guardian, 1/21/17]
Crowd Safety Consultant: Trump’s Inauguration Crowd On The National Mall Was About One-Third The Size Of Obama’s. According to the New York Times, “An analysis of news footage appears to indicate that fewer people attended President Trump’s inauguration than President Obama’s in 2009. The footage on this page was captured 45 minutes before each oath of office. Attendees were still entering the National Mall up until Mr. Trump’s speech. The analysis by Keith Still, a professor at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, estimates that the crowd on the National Mall on Friday was about one-third the size of Mr. Obama’s. Professor Still was a crowd safety consultant for the 2011 royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and has advised the Saudi government on crowds for the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.” [New York Times, 1/20/17]
Pictures Showed A Significantly Larger Crowd Turnout At Obama’s 2009 Inauguration Compared To Trump’s 2017 Inauguration. [New York Times, 1/20/17]
Crowd Scientists: Women’s March In D.C. Had Three Times As Many People As Trump’s Inauguration. According to the New York Times, “The women’s march in Washington was roughly three times the size of the audience at President Trump’s inauguration, crowd counting experts said Saturday. Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still, crowd scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, analyzed photographs and video taken of the National Mall and vicinity and estimated that there were about 160,000 people in those areas in the hour leading up to Mr. Trump’s speech Friday. They estimated that at least 470,000 people were at the women’s march in Washington in the areas on and near the mall at about 2 p.m. Saturday.” [New York Times, 1/22/17]
Pictures Showed A Significantly Larger Crowd Turnout At The 2017 Women’s March Compared To Trump’s 2017 Inauguration. [New York Times, 1/22/17]
Trump Forced A Government Photographer To Edit Official Pictures Of His 2017 Inauguration To Make The Crowd Appear Larger. According to the Guardian, “A government photographer edited official pictures of Donald Trump’s inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger following a personal intervention from the president, according to newly released documents. The photographer cropped out empty space “where the crowd ended” for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009. The detail was revealed in investigative reports released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act by the inspector general of the US interior department. They shed new light on the first self-inflicted crisis of Trump’s presidency, when his White House falsely claimed he had attracted the biggest ever inauguration audience.” [Guardian, 9/6/18]
October 23, 2018: Trump Claimed That 50,000 People Were Watching His Houston, Texas Rally Outside The Arena, Calling It “Some Record Crowd.” According to Newsweek, “Nearly two years into his presidency, Donald Trump is still lying about his crowd sizes at rallies and campaign events around the country. At a rally in Houston on Monday evening, the president boasted, without evidence, that there were 50,000 people were watching the event outside the arena […] ‘This is some record crowd,’ Trump said in the opening remarks of his 76-minute speech, in which he hit on major campaign messages about immigration and trade. ‘They just told me we broke the record, but we could really break it if we could get all the people that are outside in here. We would break it by three times.’ The president later added that they put big screens up for the ‘50,000 people outside who we love,’ telling the crowd inside to ‘wave to them.’” [Newsweek, 10/23/18]
Houston Police Chief: There Were Only 3,000 People Watching The Rally Outside The Houston Toyota Center. According to Newsweek, “Contradicting Trump's account, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo tweeted that there were only 3,000 people watching outside the Toyota Center, where Trump rallied in support of his former foe Senator Ted Cruz in his re-election bid.” [Newsweek, 10/23/18]
February 11, 2019: Trump Claimed That The El Paso Fire Department Gave Him Special Permission To Pack More People Into His Rally Than The Facility Allowed. According to Politico, “During his rally at the El Paso County Coliseum, Trump touted his base supporters, saying ‘there has never been anything like this in the history of our country.’ ‘If you would say, as an example, that tonight 69,000 people signed up to be here,’ he said. ‘Now the arena holds 8,000. And thank you, Fire Department. They got in about 10,000. Thank you, Fire Department. Appreciate it.’” [Politico, 2/12/19]
The El Paso Fire Department Denied That Trump Had Received Special Permission To Pack More People In His Rally Than The Facility Allowed, Stating That Only 6,500 People Attended The Rally. According to Politico, “The El Paso Fire Department said Trump's statement was untrue. Fire Department spokesman Enrique Aguilar told the El Paso Times on Monday that Trump did not receive permission to exceed the limit and that there were 6,500 people inside the building during the president's rally. The coliseum holds about 6,500 people. There were thousands more watching Trump's speech on big screens outside the facility.” [Politico, 2/12/19]
2024: Trump Lied About Harris Using AI To Fake The Size Of The Crowd At Her Detroit Event
2024: Trump Falsely Accused The Harris Campaign Of Faking Photos Of The Crowd At Her Detroit Rally Through AI. According to Spectrum News, “Former President Donald Trump took to social media on Sunday to falsely claim that Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign faked photos of the crowd at her Detroit-area rally last week using artificial intelligence. The Republican presidential nominee claimed the crowd at the airport hangar ‘DIDN’T EXIST’ and that ‘nobody was there’ in multiple posts to his Truth Social platform, sharing a post from a right-wing former congressional candidate known for spreading misinformation. The crowd did in fact exist and the rally was attended by thousands of people, many of whom posted their own pictures and videos of the event, which was also live streamed by dozens of news channels and attended by a slew of prominent politicians While some AI-generated photos and videos have been circulated in right-wing corners of social media, it appears the photo Trump posted was in fact real, though it’s possible it was digitally edited The crowd did in fact exist and the rally was attended by thousands of people, many of whom posted their own pictures and videos of the event, which was also live streamed by dozens of news channels and attended by a slew of prominent politicians. ‘Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane,’ Trump wrote. ‘She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING.’” [Spectrum News, 8/11/24]
2024: Trump Exaggerated The Size Of His Michigan Crowd By Thousands
2024: Trump Exaggerated The Size Of His Crowd In Michigan By Thousands. According to Politico, “Trump, too, defended his crowd size — a new attack line from Democrats — saying ‘Nobody’s ever seen a town hall like this. You know town halls are supposed to have about 300 people. You have about 8,000 people here. And equally as important you have about 8,000 people that are not here they’re walking away.’ Outside a few minutes later, though, only dozens of people milled about the entrance, sitting in foldable lawn chairs and pulling up the rally on their phones.” [Politico, 9/17/24]
September 1, 2019: Trump Tweeted That Alabama Would Be Hit By Hurricane Dorian “(Much) Harder Than Anticipated.” According to Trump on Twitter, “In addition to Florida - South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!” [Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 9/1/19]
The National Weather Service In Birmingham Corrected Trump, Tweeting That Alabama Would “NOT See Any Impacts From #Dorian.” According to the National Weather Service for Birmingham, Alabama on Twitter, “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. #alwx” [Twitter - @NWSBirmingham, 9/1/19]
Trump Used A Marker To Falsely Exaggerate The Path Of Hurricane Dorian. [Vox, 9/4/19]
NOAA Released A Statement Supporting Trump And Contracting The National Weather Service Claim That Alabama Would Not Be Impacted. According to the Guardian, “But the president has been adamant throughout the week that he was correct, and the White House has deployed government resources and staff to back him. The latest defense came out on Friday evening, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a statement from an unidentified spokesman stating that information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to the president had demonstrated that ‘tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama.’ The advisories were dated from last Wednesday, 28 August, through Monday, the statement read. The statement also said the Birmingham NWS tweet on Sunday morning ‘spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.’ The statement from NOAA contrasts with comments the agency’s spokesman, Chris Vaccaro, made last Sunday. ‘The current forecast path of Dorian does not include Alabama,’ Vaccaro said at the time.” [Guardian, 9/7/19]
Weather Service Union Head And Former NOAA Staff Called The NOAA Statement “So Disappointing” And “Utterly Disgusting.” According to the Guardian, “The former National Hurricane Center director Bill Read blasted NOAA leadership on Friday night on his Facebook page calling the situation ‘so disappointing’ and saying he would comment because NOAA employees were ordered to be quiet. ‘Either NOAA Leadership truly agrees with what they posted or they were ordered to do it. If it is the former, the statement shows a lack of understanding of how to use probabilistic forecasts in conjunction with other forecast information. Embarrassing. If it is the latter, the statement shows a lack of courage on their part by not supporting the people in the field who are actually doing the work. Heartbreaking,’ Read wrote. Dan Sobien, president of the union representing weather service employees, tweeted on Friday: ‘Let me assure you the hard working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent out by NOAA management tonight.’” [Guardian, 9/7/19]
Trump Claimed That “Alabama Was Going To Be Hit Or Grazed,” And That “The Fake News Knows This Very Well.” According to Trump on Twitter, “Alabama was going to be hit or grazed, and then Hurricane Dorian took a different path (up along the East Coast). The Fake News knows this very well. That’s why they’re the Fake News!” [Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 9/5/19]
Trump: “The Fake News Media […] Went Crazy, Hoping Against Hope That I Made A Mistake.” According to Trump on Twitter, “The Fake News Media was fixated on the fact that I properly said, at the beginnings of Hurricane Dorian, that in addition to Florida & other states, Alabama may also be grazed or hit. They went Crazy, hoping against hope that I made a mistake (which I didn’t). Check out maps.....” [Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 9/6/19]
Alabama Was Spared By Hurricane Dorian. According to Politico, “Alabama was spared, but Dorian could still wreak havoc.” [Politico, 9/5/19]
Trump Lied About Hurricane Maria’s Death Toll Of Nearly 3,000 And Falsely Accused Democrats Of Inflating Numbers. According to the New York Times, “President Trump rejected the official estimate from the Puerto Rico government that nearly 3,000 people died from Hurricane Maria through a series of misleading or false claims on Thursday. He cited an outdated tally that officials had acknowledged almost immediately was too low, misleadingly suggested that doubt over the tally did not emerge until ‘a long time later,’ accused Democrats, without evidence, of inflating the figures and wrongly described the current official estimate as counting all deaths on the island, regardless of whether they were related to the storm. The 3,000 figure comes from an estimate in a study by independent researchers at George Washington University and commissioned by the Puerto Rico government.” [New York Times, 9/13/18]
Trump Falsely Claimed That Puerto Rico Had Received $92 Billion In Federal Aid For Hurricane Maria. According to NBC News, “President Donald Trump falsely claimed in a pair of tweets Thursday that Congress had ‘foolishly’ sent $92 billion of aid money to Puerto Rico, which ‘squandered away or wasted’ much of it. Congress has allocated $42.5 billion to disaster relief for Puerto Rico, according to federal data, but the island had received less than $14 billion through May. Trump signed another aid bill in June that will send an additional $1 billion to the island. The bulk of aid dollars is still in Washington, much of it waiting on processes that require officials to submit a series of plans outlining how they expect to use the money and await federal approval. What's more, the aid Puerto Rico received is a fraction of what it needs — Hurricane Maria inflicted an estimated $90 billion in damage on the island.” [NBC News, 7/18/19]
Trump: “I Am Not A Believer In Climate Change.” According to New Day, “TRUMP: I am not a believer in climate change. Now it's gone global warming and climate change, and now they call it, actually, extreme weather. That's the new one, because weather seems to be a little more extreme.” [New Day, 9/24/15]
VIDEO: Trump Called Climate Change A “Hoax.” According to Fox News via Media Matters, “TRUMP: This whole global warming hoax – you know, one of the great things, and if you notice, they call them tourists. All of those people on the ship in Antarctica that got caught in the ice. You know the ice is massive there. They started out in an area that didn’t have so much ice and then within in a period of four or five days they had miles and miles, they were surrounded by it. Well, they were global warming scientists. Now, the media is not saying that. They’re calling them tourists because it doesn’t play well to say they’re global warming scientists. They were going there to study global warming. This winter is brutal. I’m in New York right now and the airports were closed, everything is closed. It’s freezing. We haven’t had a winter like this in a long time.” [Fox and Friends via Media Matters, 1/6/14]
Trump Claimed Climate Change Was Created By “The Chinese” To Disadvantage American Manufacturing. According to Trump’s Twitter, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive” [Twitter, @realDonaldTrump, 11/06/12]
Trump Claimed Wind Turbines Emit “Tremendous Fumes.” According to Vox, “Trump began his comments about wind energy on an incoherent note, saying, ‘I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much.’ Things didn’t get much better from there. He continued: ‘But they’re manufactured tremendous — if you’re into this — tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint — fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything — right?’” [Vox, 12/23/19]
Trump Lied That Windmills Were “All Made In China And Germany […] We Don’t Make Them Here, Essentially,” Ignoring Domestic Manufacturers Of Windmills. According to CNN, “Trump: ‘No, wind's not so good and you have no idea how expensive it is to make those things. They're all made in China and Germany, by the way, just in case you, we don't make them here, essentially.’ The wind industry has been on a tear. The fastest-growing occupation in the US in 2017 was wind turbine technician, although it's still a small part of the economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 105,000 Americans are employed in the wind industry across all 50 states, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group. The industry is reliant on imports from ‘a wide array’ of countries, according to the Energy Department. According to the Energy Information Agency, US wind turbine manufacturing is dominated by three companies: General Electric, Siemens and Vestas. But each of these has both international and domestic manufacturing facilities. Vestas, a Danish company, for instance, has a large plant in Pueblo, Colorado. GE makes turbines in China, but also in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Grand Forks, North Dakota.” [CNN, 12/23/19]
Trump Claimed That Windmills Caused Whales To Go Crazy And Die. According to the Guardian, “Donald Trump has launched a lengthy and largely baseless attack on wind turbines for causing large numbers of whales to die, claiming that ‘windmills’ are making the cetaceans ‘crazy’ and ‘a little batty’. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, used a rally in South Carolina to assert that while there was only a small chance of killing a whale by hitting it with a boat, ‘their windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. No one does anything about that.’ ‘They are washing up ashore,’ said Trump, the twice-impeached former US president and reality TV host who is facing multiple criminal indictments. ‘You wouldn’t see that once a year – now they are coming up on a weekly basis. The windmills are driving them crazy. They are driving the whales, I think, a little batty.’” [Guardian, 9/26/23]
There Was No Evidence That Windmills Caused Any Whale Deaths. According to the Guardian, “‘He displays an astonishing lack of knowledge of whales and whale strandings,’ said Andrew Read, a whale researcher and commissioner of the Marine Mammal Commission, of Trump. ‘There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that wind turbines, or surveying for wind turbines, is causing any whale deaths at all.’” [Guardian, 9/26/23]
Trump Said Windmill Noise Could Cause Cancer. According to The Hill, "President Trump on Tuesday stepped up his attacks against wind power, claiming that the structures decrease property values and that the noise they emit causes cancer. ‘If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer,’ the president said while delivering remarks at the National Republican Congressional Committee's annual spring dinner. He offered no evidence to support the claim." [Hill, 4/3/19]
November 2019: Trump Lied That Windmills Reduced Property Values By 75%. According to CNN, “As to whether windmills affect property values, the evidence is mixed. This was the subject of a CNN Fact Check when Trump made the claim last month, saying windmills drove property values down 65%. Trump's claim wasn't supported by the facts when he said 65% and it's supported even less now that he's upped the damage to 75%.” [CNN, 12/23/19]
Despite Trump’s Claims To The Contrary, Gas Prices Under Biden Have Little To Do His Energy Policies. According to PolitiFact, “Biden ‘ruined it because he screwed up energy so badly that inflation went crazy.’ Gasoline prices are higher today than they were under Trump, but most of the blame goes to factors beyond Biden’s control. Experts say Biden’s policies may have marginal affected gasoline prices. But the price of gasoline — whether it’s high or low by historical standards — is mostly not something presidents can significantly control. Gasoline prices initially rose on Biden’s watch because of the recovery after the worst of the pandemic. As economic activity, commuting and travel rebounded, fuel demand rose faster than global supplies did. Then, in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. NATO countries and allies sought to reduce their purchases of Russian crude oil as punishment for its war, which hampered supply. And other major oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, have largely resisted requests to increase production to fill the void. Overall, this has kept global crude oil prices high, even though the price has fallen since its peak in summer 2022. Trump’s low average price was shaped by the opposite phenomenon that Biden experienced. Most of Trump’s final year in office occurred early in the pandemic, when automobile use was sharply reduced. This drove gasoline prices to unusually low levels. Meanwhile, one factor Biden does have some control over — oil production in the U.S., some of which occurs on federally leased lands — has set a record on his watch.” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
Trump’s Claim That Russian Interference Was A Hoax Earned Him The PolitiFact 2017 Lie Of The Year. According to PolitiFact, “Trump continually asserts that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election is fake news, a hoax or a made-up story, even though there is widespread, bipartisan evidence to the contrary. When the nation’s commander-in-chief refuses to acknowledge a threat to U.S. democracy, it makes it all the more difficult to address the problem. For this reason, we name Trump’s claim that the Russia interference is a hoax as our Lie of the Year for 2017.” [PolitiFact, 12/12/17]
May 11, 2017: Trump Called Russian Interference In The 2016 A “Made-Up Story.” According to CNN, “Trump told NBC News that he was frustrated by the ongoing investigation and believed it was motivated by Democrats' fury at losing the election. It was the first time that Trump had explicitly tied the Russia probe to his rationale for firing Comey. It was one of a series of explanations for dismissing the FBI director, some of which directly contradict those offered earlier by top White House officials. Trump told NBC's Lester Holt: ‘And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’’” [CNN, 5/12/17]
Trump Tweeted About The Russian Election Interference Calling It “The Russia Hoax.” According to Trump on Twitter, “The Russia hoax continues, now it's ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?” [Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 9/22/17]
Trump Claimed That He Believed Putin When He Stated He Did Not Interfere With The 2016 Presidential Election. According to Remarks by Trump in a press gaggle aboard Air Force One en route Hanoi, Vietnam, “[Putin] said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. But I just asked him again, and he said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they’re saying he did […] He just — every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe — I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. But he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ I think he’s very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth.” [Archived Trump White House, 11/11/17]
Director Of National Intelligence: Putin Ordered An Influence Campaign To Interfere In The 2016 Presidential Election. According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations. We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.” [Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” – Director of National Intelligence, 1/6/17]
Senate Intelligence Committee: The Russian Influence Campaign In The 2016 Election Made Efforts To Suppress Democratic Turnout. According to the NBC News, “Two separate reports on the operation were prepared for senators, both of which were obtained by NBC News. Both sets of researchers found, as Mueller did, that the Internet Research Agency set out in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, in part by inflaming right-wing conspiracy theories and seeking to engender distrust among — and suppress the vote of — left-leaning groups, including African-Americans. The Russians set up 30 Facebook pages targeting black Americans, the researchers found, and 10 YouTube channels that posted 571 videos related to police violence against African-Americans. YouTube, which is part of Alphabet, the holding company for Google, was not correct when it said in a statement last year that Russian content did not target a segment of U.S. society, the researchers concluded.” [NBC News, 12/17/18]
Trump Made Over 1,000 False And Misleading Claims About The Ukraine Call In Four Months. According to the Washington Post, “Then in late 2019 he responded to the uproar over a phone call in which he urged Ukraine’s president to announce an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden with more than 1,000 false and misleading claims on the issue in just four months.” [Washington Post, 1/23/21]
Trump’s Claim That The Whistleblower Got The Ukraine Call “Almost Completely Wrong” Won Him PolitiFact’s 2019 Lie Of The Year. According to PolitiFact, “The whistleblower, who to Trump’s consternation remains unidentified, raised the concern that the president’s actions leading up to and on that phone call amount to interference in the coming presidential election. Agree or disagree with the conclusion, or whether the president’s conduct warrants impeachment, the actions described in the complaint stand up to factual scrutiny. The claim that the whistleblower got his phone call ‘almost completely wrong’ is PolitiFact’s 2019 Lie of the Year.” [PolitiFact, 12/16/19]
August 29, 2019: A Whistleblower Filed A Complaint With Intelligence Community Inspector General Regarding Trump’s Ukraine Phone Call. According to ABC News, “Aug. 12, 2019: The whistleblower files a complaint with the intelligence community inspector general An unidentified member of the intelligence community filed a complaint with Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community. In the complaint, the whistleblower outlined several instances of concern related to the president's communications with a foreign leader. The complaint has not been made publicly available, but the inspector general revealed the nature of the complaint in a letter, and sources have told ABC News other details of the complaint. [ABC News, 11/12/19]
In Response, Trump Tweeted That His Call Was “Pitch Perfect.” According to Trump on Twitter, “Strange that with so many other people hearing or knowing of the perfectly fine and respectful conversation, that they would not have also come forward. Do you know the reason why they did not? Because there was nothing said wrong, it was pitch perfect!”[Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 9/20/19]
Trump Tweeted That The Whistleblower Got The “Phone Conversation Almost Completely Wrong.” According to Trump on Twitter, “The first so-called second hand information ‘Whistleblower’ got my phone conversation almost completely wrong, so now word is they are going to the bench and another ‘Whistleblower’ is coming in from the Deep State, also with second hand info. Meet with Shifty. Keep them coming!”[Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 10/5/19]
A Transcript That Corroborated Rather Than Contradicted A Whistleblower’s Account Was Released. According to CNN, “Facts First: Trump’s story is a complete fabrication. No tape of his call with Zelensky was ever released; Pelosi could not possibly have been angry with her allies after hearing a tape of the call because she has never heard a tape of the call. In fact, as of nearly five years after the July 2019 call, there is no known US recording of the conversation. What Trump’s White House actually released in September 2019 was a rough written transcript of the call — which corroborated, rather than contradicted, a government whistleblower’s central allegations about what Trump had said. Pelosi spokesperson Aaron Bennett said Sunday that Trump’s story is ‘fact-free nonsense.’” [CNN, 3/17/24]
Trump Told Zelensky He Wanted Ukraine To Investigate CrowdStrike And The People Involved With The Russia Investigation. According to Trump in the transcript of the phone call, “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike…I guess you have one of your wealth people…The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that who nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, and incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.” [Trump-Ukraine Phone Call Transcript accessed via Politico, 9/25/19]
Trump Pressed President Zelensky To Look Into Joe Biden With Attorney General Barr. According to Trump in the transcript of the phone call, “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me.” [Trump-Ukraine Phone Call Transcript accessed via Politico, 9/25/19]
Trump: “We Do A Lot For Ukraine…And I Wouldn’t Say That It’s Reciprocal.” According to Trump in the transcript of the phone call, “I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are […] A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it’s something you want to look at but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.” [Trump-Ukraine Phone Call Transcript accessed via Politico, 9/25/19]
Before The Call With Zelensky, Trump Ordered His Chief Of Staff To Hold $400 Million In Military Aid For Ukraine. According to the Washington Post, “President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials. Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They explained that the president had ‘concerns’ and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent.” [Washington Post, 9/23/19]
The Two Articles Of Impeachment Represented The Culmination Of Investigations Into Trump’s Campaign To Pressure Ukraine To Investigate His Political Rivals. According to CNBC, “The articles represent the culmination of months of investigation by the House into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. The probe, with which the Trump administration refused to cooperate in any way, included testimony from federal officials, documentary evidence and statements from the president himself. The articles also reveal a strategic decision by House Democratic leadership to keep their investigation sharply focused on events surrounding Trump’s campaign to pressure Ukraine into launching investigations into Trump’s political rivals, and not to broaden the impeachment probe to include alleged obstruction of justice by the president in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.” [CNBC, 12/10/19]
The Impeachment Inquiry Began With The Whistleblower Complaint Into Trump’s “Pitch Perfect” Call With Zelenskiy. According to CNBC, “But Pelosi herself announced the impeachment inquiry in September, on the heels of reporting about a bombshell whistleblower complaint raising alarms about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Trump in that call asked Zelenskiy to ‘look into’ unsubstantiated allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Trump also said Zelenskiy should investigate a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by Russia that suggests Ukraine, not the Kremlin, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” [CNBC, 12/10/19]
At A Campaign Rally In Ohio, Trump Lied About His 2019 Phone Call With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to CNN, “Former President Donald Trump told an entirely fictional story on Saturday about how he had supposedly outwitted his Democratic opponents by releasing ‘the tape’ of the 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that was a key factor in Trump’s first impeachment. Speaking at a Saturday campaign rally in Ohio, Trump claimed he let Democrats make ‘wilder and wilder’ claims about what he said to Zelensky, ‘and then we released the tape.’ Trump proceeded to claim that when Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who was then the speaker of the House, ‘heard’ this tape, she was angry that she had been deceived by her allies’ previous ‘false’ descriptions of the call; he claimed that Pelosi said to ‘her people’: ‘What the hell did you get me into? You hear this call? He didn’t do any of this stuff!’ Trump claimed that Pelosi was told, ‘Let’s just pretend he did and keep going forward.’ He continued, ‘After they made up the story and then after that they heard the tape, they died. They didn’t know that phone call was taped. That was one good case of a phone call being taped. And they were taped and they got caught.’” [CNN, 3/17/24]
Trump Made 2,500 False Or Misleading Claims About The Economy During His Presidency. According to the Washington Post, “One-fifth of his nearly 2,500 claims about the economy was the same falsehood — that he was responsible for creating the greatest economy in U.S. history. After the coronavirus outbreak tanked the economy, he amped up the rhetoric to say he had created the greatest economy in world history. Neither claim is true; under just about every metric, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton had more robust economies during their presidencies. Even before the pandemic, Trump’s economy was already faltering because of his trade wars, with the manufacturing sector in a technical recession.” [Washington Post, 1/23/21]
January 21, 2020: Trump Claimed That He Inherited An Economy That “Was In A Rather Dismal State.” According to remarks by Trump at the World Economic Forum, “When I took office three years ago, America’s economy was in a rather dismal state.” [Archived Trump White House, 1/21/20]
Obama Left Trump An Economy With An Unemployment Rate Standing At 4.7%, Far Better Than The Historical Average. According to FactCheck, “Obama also leaves Trump an unemployment rate that is well below the historical norm. Currently it stands at 4.7 percent. In all the months since 1948 the median jobless rate was 5.6 percent. Thus Trump has been dealt a far better hand than Obama, who took office when the jobless rate was 7.8 percent and rising. It hit a peak of 10 percent in October of Obama’s first year.” [FactCheck, 1/20/17]
When Trump Took Over, The Economy Had Already Added Nearly 2.2 Million Jobs And Had Been Gaining Jobs For 75 Straight Months. According to FactCheck, “The economy has added nearly 2.2 million jobs in the most recent 12 months. It has gained jobs for 75 straight months – the longest streak on record. President Barack Obama was not so fortunate. When he took office, the economy had already lost 4.4 million jobs in the preceding 12 months.” [FactCheck, 1/20/17]
Trump Entered The White House When The Median Income Was Rebounding After Years Of Stagnation. According to FactCheck, “Trump enters the White House at a time when incomes have begun to rebound after years of stagnation. In 2015 median household income jumped 5.2 percent — the largest one-year percentage increase since records began in 1967. At $56,516, the 2015 figure was 2 percent higher (in ‘real’ or inflation-adjusted terms) than the year before Obama took office.” [FactCheck, 1/20/17]
January 21, 2020: Trump Touted A “Blue-Collar Boom” Changing The American Economy. According to the Wall Street Journal, “President Trump touted what he described as a ‘blue-collar boom’ transforming the American economy and hailed the U.S. trade agreement with China in a speech to global business and government leaders, hours before his impeachment trial was set to begin.” [Wall Street Journal, 1/21/20]
February 5, 2020: Trump Claimed The U.S. Economy Was Going Through “A Blue-Collar Boom.” According to Trump’s remarks at the 2020 State Of The Union Address, “This is a blue-collar boom. (Applause.)” [Remarks at the 2020 State Of The Union Address - New York Times, 2/5/20]
Manufacturing Jobs Decreased Under The Trump Administration. According to Yahoo Finance, “Another measure is manufacturing jobs. Trump often touted his success in bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. That figure (seasonally adjusted) over the last four years also shows a decrease. There were 12.37 million manufacturing workers in 2017 and there are 12.31 million now.” [Yahoo Finance, 1/8/21]
Under Trump, Manufacturing And Construction Job Growth Took A Large Hit From The Trade War With China. According to Barrons, “Still, it’s worth noting that manufacturing has taken a big hit from the trade war with China and the sector has been in or near recession since August for the first time since the beginning of 2016. Moreover, manufacturing and construction job growth has slowed, says Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on low- and middle-income workers. Over the past six months, factories have created just 3,000 jobs. Data released on Friday from the Labor Department showed factories shed 12,000 workers in January. Construction hiring rose, thanks to mild weather, but that trend is cooling as builders report labor shortages.” [Barrons, 2/7/20]
December 4, 2018: Trump Tweeted About The Money America Is Making Off Tariffs, Exclaiming “MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN.” According to Trump on Twitter, “....I am a Tariff Man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN” [Twitter - @realDonaldTrump, 12/4/18]
The Cost Of Tariffs Was Passed Down To American Consumers, Not Foreign Exporters. According to NBC News, “Trump is misstating how tariffs work. Tariffs are a fee charged by the U.S. when a good is brought into the U.S. They're designed to make foreign made goods more expensive — thus boosting domestic producers — but that expense, charged to the importer, is typically passed down to American consumers.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
Trump Stated That, “We’ve Accomplished An Economic Turnaround Of Historic Proportions.” According to NBC News, “‘We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions,’ Trump said in a July 2018 Rose Garden press conference.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
The Economic Turnaround Trump Referred To Was Credited To His Predecessor, Obama. According to NBC News, “The economy wasn’t hurting when Trump took office, and it hasn’t turned around in just two short years. The economic turnaround Trump refers to is actually credited to his predecessor, President Barack Obama, who steered the country from a devastating recession into booming growth.Economists told NBC News that Trump might have given the economy a boost with the tax cuts and dampened it with the trade war, but he didn’t turn things around. Economies do not turn on a hair with a new presidency. While Obama can look back on his eight years and see his leadership play out, Trump's effect is still not yet known.” [NBC News, 12/26/18]
2019: Trump Made False And Misleading Claims About China And Tariffs At Least 108 Times. According to Yahoo Finance, “When President Trump sat before reporters in the Oval Office on Dec. 19 with Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the subject of the trade negotiations with China came up briefly. ‘They’re still paying tremendous amounts of tariffs,’ the president said. It was a notable comment only for its frequency of use. In fact, according to an analysis by Yahoo Finance, that was at least the 108th instance in 2019 that Trump falsely claimed China is ‘eating’ or ‘being charged’ or in some way ‘paying’ for the tariffs his administration has imposed on Chinese imports. Trump’s claim has been debunked by fact checkers again and again and again and again. Here’s how FactCheck.org put it: ‘Not true.’” [Yahoo Finance, 12/27/19]
February 28, 2019: In Remarks To State Governors Trump Falsely Claimed China Was Paying The U.S. “Billions And Billions Of Dollars Of Tariffs A Month.” According to remarks by Trump at the 2019 White House Business Session with our Nation’s Governors, “Now, China is paying us, right now, billions and billions of dollars of tariffs a month. Every month, billions of dollars. I love it. Personally, I love it. But they’re paying billions of dollars. And it’s hurting them; it’s not good for them.” [Archived Trump White House, 2/25/19]
The Increased Tariff Duties Are Not Paid By China Or Chinese Companies But By U.S. Importers. According to FactCheck.org, “But those increased tariff duties aren’t paid by China, or even by Chinese companies. Import duties are paid by U.S. importers, either directly or more commonly through customs brokers. The government’s ‘Guide for Commercial Importers’ advises those who use brokers to make out a separate check ‘payable to ‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection’ for those customs charges, which the broker will then deliver to CBP.’ And importers — including big retailers like Walmart and Target — face pressure to pass on those increased costs to consumers in the form of higher prices. The National Retail Federation calls Trump’s tariffs ‘a tax on American families.’” [FactCheck.org, 2/28/19]
Trump Claimed He Created “The Greatest” Economy Of All Time, Even Though His Economy Was Broadly Similar To Barack Obama’s According to PolitiFact, “Trump policies ‘created the greatest, strongest economy in the history of our country, probably in the history of the world.’ Economists have previously told PolitiFact that this is False. The strongest evidence in favor of this assertion, at least in the U.S. context, is the unemployment rate. On Trump’s watch, the unemployment rate fell to levels untouched since the early 1950s. However, the annual increases in gross domestic product — the sum of a country’s economic activity — were broadly similar under Trump to what they were during the final six years under his predecessor, Barack Obama. And GDP growth under Trump was well below that of previous presidents.” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed He Presided Over The Greatest Economy In The History Of The World. According to PolitiFact, “‘We had the greatest economy in the history of the planet.’ False. The strongest evidence to back this assertion in the U.S. context is the unemployment rate. On Trump’s watch, the unemployment rate fell to levels untouched since the early 1950s. But even on this statistic, the unemployment rate matched or fell even lower than its Trump-era marks under his successor, Biden. Meanwhile, the annual increases in gross domestic product — the sum of a country’s economic activity — were broadly similar under Trump to what they were during the final six years under his predecessor, Barack Obama. And GDP growth under Trump was well below that of previous presidents. Wage growth also didn’t set records under Trump. Adjusted for inflation, wages began rising during the Obama years and kept increasing under Trump. But these were modest compared with the 2% a year seen in the 1960s. And despite high inflation, real wages under Biden today are higher than they were just before the coronavirus pandemic, an event that upended economic statistics.” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
Despite Claiming He Had “The Best Job Numbers Ever,” Trump’s Economy Lost 2.7 Million Jobs, The Worst For Any President Since Truman. According to PolitiFact, “‘We had the best job numbers ever.’” This is inaccurate. During Trump’s entire presidency, the U.S. lost a net 2.7 million jobs. In comparison, every president since Harry Truman (who served from 1945 to 1953) has gained jobs during his tenure. When looking at job creation patterns under a president, timing matters. For Trump. the coronavirus pandemic emerged during his fourth year in office. The resulting rapid economic contraction wiped away all the employment gains on his watch, and then some. But even looking only at the prepandemic period, Trump’s job creation record wasn’t the best of the last five presidents, let alone all of them. During his first three years in office, Trump oversaw a 4.6% employment increase. Two other presidents — Joe Biden and Bill Clinton — saw significantly bigger increases, of about 10% and 8%, respectively.” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
Despite His Claims That His Tax Cuts Were The Largest In History And Helped Low-Income Americans, Trump’s Tax Cuts Were Not The Biggest And Did Not Benefit Low-Income People The Most. According to PolitiFact, “‘I gave the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country, bigger than the Ronald Reagan tax cuts (and the) people that benefited the most were low income people.’ Both parts of this statement are wrong. The part about the biggest tax cut is a falsehood that Trump shared repeatedly during his presidency. (Our colleagues at the Washington Post Fact Checker found that this was Trump’s second-most-commonly repeated false claim, shared 295 times during his presidency.) In inflation-adjusted dollars, the tax bill Trump signed was the fourth-largest since 1940, and as a percentage of GDP, it ranked seventh. Meanwhile, the part about low-income taxpayers benefiting more ‘is not correct,’ based on modeling from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center and other think tanks, John Buhl, the Tax Policy Center’s communications director, told PolitiFact earlier this month. The Tax Policy Center analysis found that the Trump-signed legislation would, on average, cut taxes for households in each income group, but that taxpayers in higher-income households would see the biggest benefits.” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed His Tax Cuts Were The Largest In History. According to the New York Times, “‘Our tax cuts, which are the biggest in history.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. The $1.5 trillion tax cut, enacted in December 2017, ranks below at least half a dozen others by several metrics. The 1981 tax cut enacted under President Ronald Reagan is the largest as a percentage of the economy and by its reduction to federal revenue. The 2012 cut enacted under President Barack Obama amounted to the largest cut in inflation-adjusted dollars: $321 billion a year.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
Trump Lied About Tim Walz Supporting Infanticide. According to the Associated Press, “TRUMP: ‘Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay.’ THE FACTS: Walz has said no such thing. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth. Abortion rights advocates say terms like ‘late-term abortions’ attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” [Associated Press, 9/11/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed Harris Wanted To “Take Away Your Guns.” According to the New York Times, “‘She wants to take away your guns.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. Ms. Harris, in 2019, said she supports a gun buyback program for assault weapons, not all guns. Her campaign told The New York Times recently that she no longer supports a buyback program.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed Harris Would Destroy Social Security. According to the New York Times, “‘They’re going to destroy Social Security.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have pledged not to make any cuts to America’s social safety net programs. Mr. Trump suggested this year that he was open to scaling back the programs when he said there was ‘a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting.’ He later walked back those comments and pledged to protect the programs. But if changes to the programs are not made, the programs’ benefits will automatically be reduced eventually. Government reports released earlier this year projected that the Social Security and disability insurance programs, if combined, would not have enough money to pay all of their obligations in 2035. Medicare will be unable to pay all its hospital bills starting in 2036.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed “Everyone” Would Be Forced To Buy An Electric Car. According to the New York Times, “‘Everybody is going to be forced to buy an electric car.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. While the Biden administration has enacted regulations designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032, the rules do not require consumers to buy electric vehicles.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed Gas Prices Hit $9 Under The Biden – Harris Administration. According to the New York Times, “‘They’re drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to seven, eight, nine dollars a barrel. The day after the election, if they won, you’re going to have fuel prices go through the roof.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. The price of gasoline reached a low of $1.98 per gallon in April 2020, when Mr. Trump was president, chiefly as a result of the drop in driving in the first months of the Covid pandemic. It rose to a peak of $5 per gallon in June 2022, but has since steadily dropped to $3.60 per gallon in July 2024. The United States has steadily increased its oil production over the last decade, becoming the world’s largest producer of oil in 2018, a status it still holds today.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed Democrats Like Harris Wanted Post-Birth Abortion. According to the New York Times, “‘Democrats are really the radical ones on this, because they’re allowed to do abortion on the eighth and ninth month, and even after birth.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. No state has passed a law allowing for the execution of a baby after it is born, which is infanticide. Moreover, abortions later in pregnancy are very rare: In 2021, less than 1 percent of abortions happened after 21 weeks’ gestation, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report based on data from state and other health agencies. More than 90 percent of abortions happened within 13 weeks of gestation.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
The Reality Of Trump’s Story About Nearly Dying In A Helicopter Crash With Willie Brown While Discussing Kamala Harris Actually Featured Neither Willie Brown Nor A Helicopter Crash Nor A Discussion Of Kamala Harris. According to the New York Times, “Former President Donald J. Trump told a jaw-dropping story on Thursday about nearly dying in a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, the former California politician and ex-boyfriend of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. There was only one problem with the story. Or maybe two. Or maybe three. It wasn’t the famous former San Francisco mayor on the helicopter flight at all. It was Gov. Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, who bears little resemblance to Willie Brown. There was also no emergency landing, and the helicopter’s passengers were never in any danger at all, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was also on the flight. Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, ‘There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.’” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
Trump Claimed That Harris Met With Putin Days Before The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Even Though The Meeting Never Happened. According to the Daily Beast, “Fox & Friends had no choice but to correct Donald Trump just seconds after an interview on the show Thursday morning in which he falsely claimed Kamala Harris met with Vladimir Putin just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Republican nominee—who also used his time on the air to complain that all Democrats do ‘is make up lies about me’—claimed President Joe Biden ‘sent comrade Kamala to see Putin in Russia three days before the attack.’ He described the incident as a ‘little known fact’ which the ‘press doesn’t want to talk about.’ Trump said Harris, in the imagined meeting with Putin, ‘gave her case’ but Putin still ‘attacked three days later’ anyway. ‘He laughed at her,’ Trump continued. ‘He thought she was a joke. Now he’s really laughing when he sees her. Can you imagine her negotiating with President Xi of China, with Kim Jong Un of North Korea? The whole thing is like we’re living in a fantasy land.’ When the interview ended around 20 minutes later, co-host Brian Kilmeade set the record straight. ‘Just as a quick clarification, we don’t have confirmation that the vice president went to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin,’ he said. ‘I know she went over to Europe right before the incursion when Russia invaded Ukraine, and it’s a war that’s still going on right now.’” [Daily Beast, 8/22/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed That Biden And Harris Have Never Visited The Border. According to the New York Times, “‘We’re going to make the governor’s job very easy,’ he said, suggesting that his immigration policies would remove the need for Mr. Abbott to handle the issue and claiming falsely that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had never visited the border.” [New York Times, 11/19/23]
Trump Falsely Claimed Vice President Harris Never Visited The Southern Border. According to PolitiFact, “Harris ‘She was put in charge of the U.S. border security at the border and she never showed up. She's never gone. She never went there once.’ False. In March 2021, Biden tasked Harris with working alongside Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — to address the root causes that make people migrate to the United States. […] In June 2021, Harris visited the border with Mayorkas. In a press gaggle, they differentiated their responsibilities — Harris said she was addressing ‘the root causes of migration, predominantly out of Central America,’ and Mayorkas said, ‘It is my responsibility as the Secretary of Homeland Security to address the security and management of our border.’” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
Trump Altered Newsweek Articles He Posted On His Social Media Account To Remove Negative Facts About Himself And Biden’s Electoral Win In 2020. According to the New Republic, “After spending years attacking what he calls the ‘fake news media,’ former president Donald Trump is now literally sharing fake news. In at least two instances, he has shared edited versions of Newsweek articles, quietly snipping away tidbits that he deems unnecessary. On Wednesday, the president shared a screenshot of a Newsweek story—though something was undeniably off about its contents. Trump’s version, shared on his TruthSocial account, omits a lede references the outcome of the 2020 election (which Joe Biden won), and cuts a line about to the ‘81-year-old’ Biden being seen as too old to run for president. Trump is 77 years old. And on Tuesday, MeidasTouch caught him altering another piece by the weekly news magazine, posting screenshots of an article titled ‘Donald Trump Poised to Be First Republican to Win Popular Vote in 20 Years,’ again failing to disclose that he had removed several sections from the original story that referenced Biden’s strengths as a candidate, Biden’s predicted wins, and Trump’s failures.” [New Republic, 2/14/24]
Trump Claimed Biden Was Using Cocaine To “Pump” Him Up For Speeches. According to Newsweek, “Former President Donald Trump has claimed that an unnamed ‘they’ are using cocaine to ‘pump’ President Joe Biden up for speeches. Following the recent revelation that a small amount of cocaine was found during a routine security sweep at the White House, Trump has repeatedly pushed evidence-free theories that the drug was ‘for’ the current president or his son Hunter Biden, who is a recovering cocaine addict. […] ‘You know, you watch Joe at the beginning of his speech and he's got a little life,’ Trump said. ‘Not much, but he's got a little life. By the end of the speech, he's a disaster. He can't even find his way off the stage. So there's something going on there.’” [Newsweek, 7/12/23]
Trump Claimed That Democrats Would Change The Name Of Pennsylvania If They Won The Election. According to the New Republic, “Donald Trump’s gaffes are becoming more frequent and more indecipherable by the day. At a National Rifle Association gathering in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Friday, Trump made plenty of strange blunders in front of his thousands of supporters, in his rambling, incoherent auctioneer style. ‘I didn’t need this—I had a very nice life—nice Saturday afternoon,’ Trump began the speech, apparently mixing up the days of the week. He went on to claim he won Pennsylvania twice (he didn’t win in 2020) and warned voters that Democrats plan to ‘change the name of Pennsylvania’ if Joe Biden wins this election. ‘We have to win in November, or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the name. They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania,’ Trump said.” [New Republic, 2/12/24]
While Trump Claimed Hundreds Or Thousands Of Americans Were Still In Afghanistan As “Hostages,” The Actual Number Was Two, And Both Returned To Afghanistan After The U.S. Withdrawal. According to NBC News, “When former President Donald Trump argues that President Joe Biden botched the 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan — a broad point that even some of Biden’s fellow Democrats will concede — he often laments what his campaign says are hundreds or thousands of U.S. citizens trapped in a country ruled by the Taliban. ‘For 18 months, we lost nobody in Afghanistan. And then we had that horrible, horrible withdrawal where we lost 13 soldiers, 38 horribly wounded, left Americans behind,’ Trump said in remarks after his Super Tuesday victories earlier this month. ‘You have Americans right now still behind,’ he continued. ‘Call them hostages, if you like.’ In a video his campaign released last week, Trump repeated the charge. ‘We have many American people still living in Afghanistan, probably as hostages,’ he said. But two senior Biden administration national security officials told NBC News that the Taliban is holding two Americans that the U.S. government would like to see released. Other Americans in Afghanistan are there of their own volition, they said. ‘Every American who wanted to leave has left,’ the first official said. ‘In fact, we didn’t leave a single person behind. And we are also getting Afghan allies out every month.’ […] ‘Both went to Afghanistan AFTER we left,’ the first official said in a text message.” [NBC News, 3/30/24]
Inflation Has Been Going Down Since Mid-2022. According to PolitiFact, “‘We have among the highest inflation we've ever had. … it's sticking. It's not going down at all.’ The first part of Trump’s talking point would have been valid in summer 2022, but that’s no longer so. The highest U.S. inflation rates were recorded in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the annual price increase sometimes hovered between 12% and 15%. The highest rate on Biden’s watch was around 9% in summer 2022. Since then, however, inflation has fallen. It was at 3.5% year over year in March 2024, the most recent month available.” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
Gas Was Not $6 In California, Much Less $7. According to PolitiFact, “‘In California (gasoline) sells for $7 a gallon.’ This is incorrect. The statewide average gasoline price in California is $5.23, which is higher than it is for the nation as a whole ($3.77). But that’s well short of $7. More to the point, not one of the 10,526 gas stations in California tracked by GasBuddy.com had gas costing $7 a gallon on the day Trump did the interview, according to data provided by GasBuddy gasoline price analyst Patrick DeHaan.” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
Trump Lied That Biden Referred To African-Americans As “Super Predators.” According to the Associated Press, “TRUMP: ‘What he’s done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them ‘super predators.’ … We can’t forget that - super predators … And they’ve taken great offense at it.’ THE FACTS: This oft-repeated claim by Trump dating back to the 2020 campaign is untrue. It was Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, who used the term ‘super predator’ to advocate for the 1994 crime bill that Biden co-authored more than thirty years ago. Biden did warn of ‘predators’ in a floor speech in support of his bill.” [Associated Press, 6/28/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed That Biden Wanted To Quadruple The Tax Rate. According to PolitiFact, “‘They want to increase your taxes four times.’ False. Biden proposed a tax increase of about 7% over the next decade, which is far lower than the 300% increase that Trump claimed. (Doubling would be a 100% increase; tripling would be a 200% increase.) About 83% of the proposed Biden tax increase would be borne by the top 1% of taxpayers, a level that starts at just under $1 million a year in income. Taxpayers earning up to $60,400 would see their yearly taxes decline on average, and taxpayers earning $60,400 to $107,300 would see an annual increase of $20 on average.” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed The Price Of Bacon Had Quadrupled. According to PolitiFact, “The price of bacon has ‘gone up four times’ False. Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that bacon’s price rose from $5.83 in January 2021, the month Biden took office, to $6.82 in May 2024. That’s a 17% increase over three and a half years. If bacon prices had risen by four times, as Trump said, that would have been a 300% increase. Even at their October 2022 peak, bacon cost $7.61, which would be a 31% increase. Today’s bacon price of $6.82 a pound is 7% higher than it was at its peak during Trump’s presidency, in September 2017.” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed Job Creation Under Biden Had Gone Exclusively To Migrants. According to PolitiFact, “Under Joe Biden, ‘109% of all net job creation over the last year has gone to migrants.’ False. Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.5 million. But over the same period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.8 million. (There are many more native-born Americans than foreign-born Americans, so, on a percentage basis, the increase for foreign-born Americans is about 22%, compared with 6% for native-born Americans.)” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
Trump Claimed His Net Worth Was Close To $9 Billion Including Valuing The Trump Brand At $3.3 Billion When He Was Running For President. According to NPR, “And with that, he brandished his answer: a one-page ‘Summary of Net Worth,’ which he said was produced by his accountants and a ‘big accounting firm, one of the most highly respected.’ The summary puts Trump's assets at $9.24 billion and his liabilities at just $503 million, giving him a net worth of just over $8.7 billion. [...] Then there's the value of the Trump brand. Trump's statement judges his "real estate licensing deals, brand and branded developments" to be worth $3.3 billion.” [NPR, 6/17/15]
Forbes Estimated Trump’s Net Worth To Be Around $4 Million. According to Forbes, “In announcing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination this morning, Donald Trump started with what Forbes believes is a whopper. He claimed his net worth was nearly $9 billion. We figure it’s closer to $4 billion -- $4.1 billion to be exact.” [Forbes, 6/16/15]
The Washington Post Questioned Whether Trump’s Advisers Were Inflating His Property Valuations. According to the Washington Post, “That raises the question of who's doing the valuation. The Post reported that it was Trump's longtime advisers who were putting the figures together. If Trump's goal is to demonstrate his vast wealth, he has an incentive to have them err on the side of more value in his properties. Osborne notes that the numbers will be released publicly and, therefore, be subject to scrutiny, providing a disincentive to inflate too much. As Milad Taghehchian of Pioneer Wealth put it in an e-mail, ‘Any financial analyst or accountant will tell you it is easy to manipulate numbers. The roll of analysts is to dig through accounting to determine the real numbers.’” [Washington Post, 6/16/15]
The New York Attorney General Alleged That Trump Exaggerated His Net Worth By $3.6 Billion In Official Banking Documents. According to Business Insider, “Donald Trump's exaggerations of his net worth in official banking filings were far worse than New York officials have previously claimed, totaling some $3.6 billion in a single year, a new filing by the state attorney general alleges. And that $3.6 billion ‘is still a conservative estimate of the extent of the inflation,’ lawyers for Attorney General Letitia James claim in the filing.” [Business Insider, 9/8/23]
Assistant Commissioner David Cerron Testified That Trump Claimed He Was Worth $3 Billion When He Received The Rights To Operate Ferry Point In 2010 When At Most He Was Worth $2.1 Billion. According to New York Post, “The second witness on Monday, David Cerron — an assistant commissioner in the New York City Parks and Recreation Department — also testified that when the agency awarded the Trump Organization the rights to run a city golf course in Ferry Point Park in 2010, Trump had declared his net worth at $3 billion and said he had $200 million of cash on hand, ABC News reported. Trump had to continue to tell the Parks Department what his worth was for the next decade so that city officials felt confident it would remain solvent — and one year, he claimed it was as much as $4.9 billion, according to evidence shown in court. The AG’s office has claimed that Trump never had more than $2.1 billion during this time period.” [New York Post, 10/30/23]
A Judge Ruled That Trump Repeatedly Lied To Banks And Insurers By Exaggerating His Net Worth To Benefit Himself. According to NBC News, “A New York judge ruled in the state attorney general's $250 million lawsuit against Donald Trump and his company Tuesday that the former president committed repeated acts of fraud for years. According to the ruling, which allows the civil trial to begin next week, Trump lied to banks and insurers by both overvaluing and undervaluing his assets when it was to his benefit while exaggerating his net worth to the tune of billions of dollars.” [NBC News, 9/26/23]
Trump Claimed That The Chinese Stock Market Crashed Due To His Victory In The Iowa Caucus. According to Bloomberg, “Donald Trump signaled he would again make his stance on China a key part of his US presidential campaign strategy, drawing an unsubstantiated correlation between turbulence in the nation’s equity markets and his runaway Iowa Republican caucus victory. […] ‘I felt very badly for them. China had a crash yesterday in their stock market. You know why? Because I won Iowa,’ Trump said Tuesday night while campaigning in New Hampshire, the next state in the Republican nomination calendar. ‘Literally, as soon as those numbers started coming in yesterday, they had a crash — of big — one of the worst numbers that they’ve had in years.’” [Bloomberg, 1/17/24]
Chinese Stocks Were Mixed The Day After The Caucus. According to Bloomberg, “While a gauge of US-listed Chinese stocks retreated Tuesday, shares traded in mainland China rose. Recent weakness in the country’s markets has more to do with domestic concerns than Trump, according to Willer Chen, an analyst at Forsyth Barr Asia Ltd.” [Bloomberg, 1/17/24]
Trump Complained About Paying $300 Million In Taxes, Though There Was No Evidence He’s Actually Paid That Much In Taxes. According to Raw Story, “Former President Donald Trump used a New York Daily News article about a subway worker stabbed in the neck to bemoan the plight of a tragic victim: himself, a taxpayer made to cough up $300 million. ‘But they go after TRUMP, who paid $300,000,000 plus in Taxes,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday. ‘Businesses are FLEEING New York because of the TRUMP PERSECUTION.’ The subway worker is expected to survive his injuries, which might explain why Trump feels he is the New Yorker to be pitied. But his angry social media leaves one outstanding question — what $300 million? The New York Times famously reported in 2022, after years of Trump refusing to hand over his tax returns, that he had paid $1.1 million during the first three years of his presidency, but just $750 in federal income tax in 2017 and no tax in 2020.” [Raw Story, 3/6/24]
Trump Repeated A Lie That Haitian Immigrants Were Abducting And Eating Pets In Springfield, Ohio. According to the Associated Press, “Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets, repeating during a televised debate the type of inflammatory and anti-immigrant rhetoric he has promoted throughout his campaigns. There is no evidence that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio community are doing that, officials say. But during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump specifically mentioned Springfield, Ohio, the town at the center of the claims, saying that immigrants were taking over the city. ‘They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,’ he said. Harris called Trump ‘extreme’ and laughed after his comment. Debate moderators pointed out that city officials have said the claims are not true.” [Associated Press, 9/10/24]
Trump Repeatedly Claimed That “Migrants” Were The Cause Of Increasing Crime Rates In Cities Such As New York. According to NBC News, “When Donald Trump speaks at the southern border in Texas on Thursday, you can expect to hear him talk about ‘migrant crime,’ a category he has coined and defined as a terrifying binge of criminal activity committed by undocumented immigrants spreading across the country. ‘You know, in New York, what’s happening with crime is it’s through the roof, and it’s called ‘migrant,’’ the former president said at a rally in Michigan earlier this month. ‘They beat up police officers. You’ve seen that they go in, they stab people, hurt people, shoot people. It’s a whole new form, and they have gangs now that are making our gangs look like small potatoes.’” [NBC News, 2/29/24]
Despite Trump’s Claims, Crime Has Decreased In Cities That Have Received The Most Migrants. According to NBC News, “When Donald Trump speaks at the southern border in Texas on Thursday, you can expect to hear him talk about ‘migrant crime,’ a category he has coined and defined as a terrifying binge of criminal activity committed by undocumented immigrants spreading across the country. ‘You know, in New York, what’s happening with crime is it’s through the roof, and it’s called ‘migrant,’’ the former president said at a rally in Michigan earlier this month. ‘They beat up police officers. You’ve seen that they go in, they stab people, hurt people, shoot people. It’s a whole new form, and they have gangs now that are making our gangs look like small potatoes.’ […] An NBC News review of available 2024 crime data from the cities targeted by Texas’ ‘Operation Lone Star,’ which buses or flies migrants from the border to major cities in the interior — shows overall crime levels dropping in those cities that have received the most migrants. Overall crime is down year over year in Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, New York and Los Angeles. Crime has risen in Washington, D.C., but local officials do not attribute the spike to migrants.” [NBC News, 2/29/24]
Trump Incorrectly Said Violent Crime Was At An All-Time High In New York City. According to CNN, “Before entering the courtroom Trump denounced the hush money case against him and said, ‘This is not a crime. And when you look what’s going on outside [inaudible; in or on] the streets, where violent crime is at an all-time high, I think it’s a very, very – it’s a great double standard.’ Trump has made similar claims about crime levels in New York City on various previous occasions while attacking the cases he faces in New York – and CNN has repeatedly debunked them.” [CNN, 2/15/24]
Violent Crime In New York City Was Down As Much As 86% From Its Peak In 1990. According to CNN, “Facts First: Trump’s claim remains false. Violent crime is nowhere near a record high in either Manhattan in particular or New York City as a whole. Both Manhattan and New York City have experienced massive declines in crime since the record levels of the early 1990s. New York City publishes crime statistics on its website, so the facts are easy to find. In 1990, when the city set its all-time record for murders, there were 503 recorded murders in Manhattan, which is one of the city’s five boroughs. In 2023, Manhattan recorded 73 murders – a decline of about 85% from 1990. Manhattan is also way below record levels for other kinds of violent crime. For example, Manhattan recorded 252 rapes in 2023, down about 63% from the 689 in 1990, and 3,841 robberies in 2023, down about 86% from the 26,907 in 1990. The declines are similarly large for New York City as a whole. The city recorded 391 murders in 2023, down about 83% from the 2,262 in 1990; 1,455 rapes in 2023, down about 53% from the 3,126 in 1990; and 16,910 robberies in 2023, down about 83% from the 100,280 in 1990.” [CNN, 2/15/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed Venezuela’s Crime Was Down Because They Sent Their Criminals To The U.S. According to PolitiFact, “Venezuela ‘their crime is down 72% because they've sent all of their drug dealers, their criminals and most of their prisoners into our country.’ False. Venezuela’s government doesn’t publish reliable crime data. However, some data from independent organizations show violent deaths have recently decreased, but not by 72%. From 2022 to 2023, violent deaths dropped by 25%, the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence reported. Criminologists attribute this decline to Venezuela’s poor economy and the government’s extrajudicial killings. So many people have left Venezuela that criminals also have fewer people to assault, experts told PolitiFact. Criminologists said there is no evidence that Venezuela’s government is emptying its prisons and sending criminals to the United States.” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
On Multiple Occasions, Trump Has Told Audiences That South American Countries Are Emptying Their “Insane Asylums” To Send To The United States. According to CNN, “On at least three occasions over the last two months, former President Donald Trump has claimed that the leaders of unnamed South American countries are deliberately emptying their ‘insane asylums’ and ‘mental institutions’ to send the patients to the United States as migrants. In each version of the dramatic story, Trump has claimed he recently read about a doctor at a South American mental institution who said he used to be busy but now has no work to do because all of his patients have been released into the US. In a mid-April speech to the National Rifle Association, Trump said: ‘I read a story not long ago where a man who takes care of a large segment of people in a mental institution in a South American country, a doctor, sounded like a great man actually – he said he no longer has anything to do. He used to work 24-hour days. He said, ‘All of our patients have been released into the United States of America.’’ Trump added more color to the story in a Thursday campaign speech in New Hampshire: ‘There was a story recently about a psychologist. Or psychiatrist. But a psychologist. Who worked in mental wards in South America. And he said, ‘I worked 24…’ – a good man – he worked 24 hours a day taking care of very mentally ill people. And he was sitting there reading a newspaper and they asked him, what – what’s he doing? He said, ‘I have no more work. The people have all been let go into the United States.’ Can you believe? This is what we’re doing.’” [CNN, 4/29/23]
No Evidence Of This Story Was Provided By The Trump Campaign And None Was Found. According to CNN, “Facts First: Trump’s campaign was unable to provide any evidence of the existence of a news story about a no-longer-busy doctor at a South American mental institution – and the campaign also failed to provide any evidence that South American countries are emptying mental health facilities to somehow send patients into the US. Representatives for two anti-immigration organizations told us they had not heard of anything that would corroborate any of Trump’s story, as did three experts at organizations favorable toward immigration. CNN’s own search did not produce any evidence. The website FactCheck.org also found nothing.” [CNN, 4/29/23]
The Sister Of Ruby Garcia Said Trump Never Reached Out To The Family Despite His Public Claims Of Doing So. According to Axios, “Former President Trump highlighted the killing of Ruby Garcia during a campaign rally in Michigan on Tuesday, where he used violent rhetoric to criticize President Biden's border policies. Why it matters: Trump said at a news conference that he had spoken with her family about the shooting that authorities said was carried out by someone who had been in the U.S. illegally, but her sister said that did not happen. ‘He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV,’ Mavi Garcia said told local news station Target 8. Driving the news: ‘She lit up that room, and I've heard that from so many people,’ Trump, speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the 25-year-old was shot last month, said. ‘I spoke to some of her family.’
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment on Mavi Garcia's remarks. Zoom in: Mavi Garcia told Target 8 that ‘it was shocking’ and she criticized Trump and other lawmakers who have made her sister's death political. ‘It's always been about illegal immigrants,’ she said. ‘Nobody really speaks about when Americans do heinous crimes, and it's kind of shocking why he would just bring up illegals. What about Americans who do heinous crimes like that?’” [Axios, 4/2/24]
Trump’s Campaign Refused To Say Who They Talked With After The Family Of Ruby Garcia Said Trump Never Spoke To Them. According to the Daily Beast, “Donald Trump claimed at a campaign rally on Tuesday that he had been in touch with the family of a young woman murdered last month by an undocumented Mexican immigrant, much to the surprise of the victim’s actual relatives. But as the family denies any outreach from the former president, Trump’s team is refusing to say who, if anyone, they spoke to. ‘They said she just had just this most contagious laughter, and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room,’ Trump told a crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where 25-year-old Ruby Garcia was shot dead by a friend, Brandon Ortiz-Vite. ‘And I’ve heard that from so many people—I spoke to some of her family.’ Garcia’s sister Mavi quickly rebutted the assertion, telling local NBC affiliate WOOD-TV8 that Trump hadn’t in fact contacted anyone in the immediate family. ‘He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV,’ Mavi Garcia, who did not respond to multiple interview requests on Wednesday from The Daily Beast, told the outlet. Asked to explain the apparent inconsistency in his tale, a source close to Trump on Wednesday told The Daily Beast the campaign wanted to ‘keep the details of who we spoke with and what was said private.’ The Trump campaign refused to comment on the record and did not acknowledge follow-up questions about Trump’s assertion.” [Daily Beast, 4/3/24]
Trump’s Claim At His Grand Rapids Rally That “Three Illegal Alien Migrants” Had Been Recently Arrested For “Soliciting Sex From Children” Was Wrong. According to the Detroit News, “A day after former President Donald Trump touted a claim that ‘three illegal alien migrants’ had been recently arrested in Michigan for ‘soliciting sex from children,’ the sheriff who ignited the viral story acknowledged Wednesday it was inaccurate. ‘It was kind of misinformation,’ Shiawassee County Sheriff Doug Chapman told The Detroit News in a phone interview.” [Detroit News, 4/4/24]
Only One Of The Three Men Was In The Country Illegally. According to the Detroit News, “Chapman eventually told The News he had received inaccurate details from the Shiawassee Human Oppression Team, a group that's led by the sheriff's office and that handled the arrests. The sheriff acknowledged that only one of the three individuals he had referenced was definitely in the country without legal authorization. In the cases of the other two individuals, the sheriff's office was uncertain about whether they were in the United States legally, Chapman admitted.” [Detroit News, 4/4/24]
There Were No Minors Involved In At Least Two Of The Arrests. According to the Detroit News, “It also appears that in at least two of the three cases, there were no actual minors involved. Instead, the arrests were based on sting operations where law enforcement officials posed as children online. In a radio interview on Tuesday, Bondy said the three individuals were communicating with decoys posing as children.” [Detroit News, 4/4/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed No Terrorists Entered The U.S. In 2019. According to PolitiFact, “‘Zero terrorists came in 2019.’ False. In fiscal year 2019 U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered people on the terrorist watchlist 541 times. CBP tracks the number of times immigration officers encounter people on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist — a database of people who are known or suspected terrorists. Just because people are encountered does not mean they’re let into the country.” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed That Undocumented Migrants Were Going On Social Security And Medicare. According to PolitiFact, “Biden is ‘allowing these people to come in to go on Social Security and Medicare.’ False. Most immigrants in the U.S. illegally are ineligible for Social Security. Some people who entered the U.S. illegally and were granted humanitarian parole — a temporary permission to stay in the country — for more than one year, may be eligible for Social Security for up to seven years, the Congressional Research Service said. Immigrants in the U.S. illegally also are generally ineligible to enroll in federally funded health care coverage such as Medicare and Medicaid. (Some states provide Medicaid coverage under state-funded programs regardless of immigration status. Immigrants are eligible for emergency Medicaid regardless of status.)” [PolitiFact, 7/10/24]
Trump Accused NY Attorney General Letitia James Of Driving Exxon Out Of New York, Which Occurred In 1989. According to Forbes, “Former President Donald Trump blamed New York Attorney General Letitia James for driving Exxon out of New York while speaking to reporters outside of his Manhattan civil fraud trial Thursday—even though the company moved its headquarters out of New York City more than 30 years ago. Trump equated James’ lawsuit alleging he lied about his net worth to secure more favorable business deals to Exxon’s departure from Manhattan in 1989, telling reporters ‘she should be criminally liable for this, she did this to Exxon, and they drove Exxon out of New York.’ Exxon moved its headquarters from Manhattan to Dallas in 1989, the year James received her law license.” [Forbes, 1/11/24]
Trump Lied In A Court Document By Claiming He Was Not The President Of The Trump Organization While President Even Though He Previously Testified That He Was. According to the Daily Beast, “Former President Donald Trump appears to have lied in sworn court records, opening him up to severe sanctions by a New York judge who has already lost his patience and threatened to punish him before. Trump claimed he wasn’t the president of the Trump Organization during his four years at the White House, despite previously testifying that he was an ‘inactive president.’ And he claimed that he didn’t have a financial stake in a partnership with the real estate company Vornado, even though he previously testified that he did.” [Daily Beast, 1/31/23]
Trump Lied In A Court Document By Claiming He Did Not Have A Financial Stake In The Real Estate Company Vornado, Even Though He Previously Testified That He Did. According to the Daily Beast, “Former President Donald Trump appears to have lied in sworn court records, opening him up to severe sanctions by a New York judge who has already lost his patience and threatened to punish him before. Trump claimed he wasn’t the president of the Trump Organization during his four years at the White House, despite previously testifying that he was an ‘inactive president.’ And he claimed that he didn’t have a financial stake in a partnership with the real estate company Vornado, even though he previously testified that he did.” [Daily Beast, 1/31/23]
The NYAG’s Office Accused Trump Of Denying Facts They Previously Admitted, Denied Knowing Things They Should Have Known, And Used Defenses Previously Rejected By The Court. According to Politico, “Both the former president his children ‘falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings,’ deny knowing things ‘that are plainly within their knowledge,’ and use defenses ‘repeatedly rejected by this Court as frivolous and without merit,’ Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel in the Attorney General’s office, said in a letter to New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.” [Politico, 1/31/23]
The NYAG’s Office Asked Judge Engoron To Sanction Trump And His Attorneys. According to CNN, “The attorney general asked Judge Arthur Engoron, who previously considered sanctioning the Trump attorneys for repeating legal arguments he already rejected, to hold a hearing, accept as admissions some of the responses they say are ‘improper’, reject some of their defenses and sanction the defendants and their attorneys. ‘A cursory review of the Verified Answers reveals that a number of the denials are demonstrably false and actually contradict sworn statements by the Defendants in other proceedings,’ lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote.” [CNN, 1/31/23]
Trump Denied Sidney Powell Was Ever His Attorney After She Pled Guilty In The Georgia Election Interference Case. According to CNN, “Former President Donald Trump claimed Sidney Powell was ‘never’ his attorney in a social media post Sunday, three days after she pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case. […] ‘Sidney Powell was one of millions and millions of people who thought, and in ever increasing numbers still think, correctly, that the 2020 Presidential Election was RIGGED & STOLLEN, AND OUR COUNTRY IS BEING ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED BECAUSE OF IT!!! MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS. In fact, she would have been conflicted,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.” [CNN, 10/22/23]
Powell Was A Member Of Trump’s Legal Team In 2020, An Announcement Made By Trump Himself. According to CNN, “Despite Trump’s claims, Powell was briefly an official member of Trump’s legal team in 2020, and Trump stayed in contact with her on election-related matters even after she was ousted from his campaign. […] Trump publicly announced on November 15, 2020, that he ‘added’ Powell to his ‘truly great team’ of lawyers working on the election. She participated in a notorious Trump campaign press conference, alongside fellow Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, where she peddled unfounded conspiracy theories about an international vote-rigging plot to flip millions of votes from Trump to Joe Biden. The Trump campaign soon dropped her from the legal team and insisted that she was ‘practicing law on her own.’” [CNN, 10/22/23]
Trump Claimed That Obama, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, And George W. Bush Had Mishandled Documents After Their Presidency. According to CNN, “First, former President Donald Trump tried a false claim about the document-handling practices of former President Barack Obama. Now, Trump is making the same false claim about other former presidents. In August, after the FBI recovered classified documents and numerous other presidential records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort in Florida, Trump declared that Obama had taken millions of presidential documents to Chicago. The National Archives and Records Administration quickly debunked his assertion, explaining it was NARA itself, not Obama, that took the documents to a NARA-managed facility in the Chicago area. Then, at rallies in Nevada and Arizona this weekend, Trump not only repeated the false claim about Obama but added near-identical dishonesty about previous presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Most dramatically, Trump said, ‘George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant; where they combined them. So they’re in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant.’ Trump added, ‘A Chinese restaurant and a bowling alley. With no security and a broken front door.’ Trump also claimed that ‘Bill Clinton took millions of documents from the White House to a former car dealership in Arkansas’ and that ‘George W. Bush stored 68 million pages in a warehouse in Texas.’” [CNN, 10/11/22]
CNN Rated Trump’s Accusations As False And Explained That The Documents Trump Was Referring To Were Held In National Archives Owned Sites Before The Presidential Libraries Of Their Owners Were Built. According to CNN, “Facts First: All of these Trump claims are false. George H.W. Bush did not take millions of documents to a former bowling alley and Chinese restaurant. Rather, the National Archives and Records Administration took Bush’s presidential documents to this facility prior to the opening of the Bush presidential library in the same city. Trump’s claims about Clinton and George W. Bush are inaccurate in precisely the same way: NARA, not the former presidents themselves, put the documents in temporary storage at NARA-managed facilities at the former car dealership in Arkansas and the warehouse in Texas. And Trump was also wrong that there was ‘no security’ at the facility where the elder Bush’s documents were housed: the facility was heavily secured, according to a news report at the time.” [CNN, 10/11/22]
In Trump’s Case The Documents Were Found In His Personal Possession After Multiple Attempts By The NARA And Department Of Justice To Get Them Back. According to CNN, “So there is no equivalence between Trump’s handling of presidential documents and those of his predecessors. In the others’ cases, the presidential documents were in NARA’s possession and stored securely and professionally. In Trump’s case, the presidential documents found in haphazard amateur storage at Mar-a-Lago were in Trump’s own possession, despite numerous attempts by both NARA and the Justice Department to get them back.” [CNN, 10/11/22]
The National Archives Sent CNN A Statement That Said Trump’s Claims About Former Presidents Were False And That The NARA Was In Possession Of All Obama, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, George W Bush, And Reagan’s Presidential Records. According to CNN, “NARA sent CNN a statement on Tuesday, after the initial publication of this article, confirming that Trump’s claims are false. The statement said that NARA had possession of Bush, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Ronald Reagan presidential records after those presidents left office and that NARA moved the records to temporary facilities NARA leased near the locations of their future presidential libraries. The statement continued: ‘All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees. Reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading.’” [CNN, 10/11/22]
Trump Claimed That George H.W. Bush Took Millions Of Documents To A Chinese Restaurant/Bowling Alley With Poor Security And A Broken Front Door And Called For An Investigation. According to CNN, “Most dramatically, Trump said, ‘George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant; where they combined them. So they’re in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant.’ Trump added, ‘A Chinese restaurant and a bowling alley. With no security and a broken front door.’ […] Trump urged the authorities to ‘look into what took place’ with George H.W. Bush and presidential documents.” [CNN, 10/11/22]
The Documents Were Stored In A Converted Bowling Ally But It Was Well Secured And The National Archives Were Forthright About Using The Building Since The 1990s. According to CNN, “But there is nothing of substance to investigate: the National Archives and Records Administration has been forthright since the 1990s about where it temporarily stored Bush documents before his permanent library opened. In fact, the NARA official who was in charge of the transition of the Bush documents to the permanent library publicly joked about the temporary facility at the time. ‘I’ve told reporters this for the last four years: It’s not just a bowling alley; it’s a bowling alley and a Chinese restaurant,’ David Alsobrook said. While the temporary College Station, Texas, location made for a fun story, there was nothing unusual about NARA’s use of such a building. NARA needs lots of space to house presidential documents before presidents’ permanent libraries are built, so it finds and modifies large nearby facilities that often have formerly housed other activities. Someone listening to Trump’s rally comments might have pictured documents from the first Bush administration being scattered carelessly in bowling lanes. But that’s not what happened. The Washington Post reported in 1993: ‘There aren’t any lanes anymore. No gutters, no pins, no beer. Thanks to a rush remodeling job after last November’s election, there are a few simple offices, a massive, fire-resistant vault and row after row of steel shelves filled with cardboard boxes and wooden crates.’ As NARA’s Tuesday statement said, there was also extensive security. The Associated Press reported in 1994: ‘Uniformed guards patrol the premises. There are closed-circuit television monitors and sophisticated electronic detectors along walls and doors. Some printed material is classified and will remain so for years; it is open only to those with top-secret clearances.’” [CNN, 10/11/22]
Trump Claimed Clinton And George W. Bush Improperly Stored Documents However Their Documents Were Held At NARA-Managed Facilitates Waiting To Be Placed In A Presidential Libraries To Open. According to CNN, “Trump’s rally claims about former presidents Clinton and George W. Bush are false for the exact same reason as Trump’s claims about Obama and the elder Bush are false. That former Balch Motor Company building in Little Rock, Arkansas, where millions of Clinton presidential documents were stored? Again, it was the National Archives and Records Administration that took the documents to this facility, which NARA managed, in advance of the opening of Clinton’s library in the same city. That warehouse in Lewisville, Texas where millions of the younger Bush’s presidential documents were stored? It was a NARA-managed facility, used to store documents while Bush’s permanent library was being readied in nearby Dallas.” [CNN, 10/11/22]
Trump Claimed The Federal Elections Commission “Threw Away” The Campaign Finance Violations Case Resulting From The Stormy Daniels Hush Money Payment. According to PolitiFact, “In remarks to reporters after court May 6, Trump also singled out the actions of the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. attorney’s office in New York’s southern district. ‘The FEC said they threw it away,’ Trump said, referring to the Federal Elections Commission. ‘They said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Southern district didn’t bring the case. Nobody brought the case and then Alvin Bragg brought the case.’” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
The FEC’s Office Of General Counsel Concluded That Trump Did Violate Campaign Finance Laws. According to PolitiFact, “Trump’s statement that the FEC ‘threw away’ the case and replied ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ could be interpreted to mean the agency tossed the case quickly. That’s not what happened. The complaints were filed with the agency early in 2018 and not closed until three years later. The FEC investigated complaints against Trump; his lawyer Michael Cohen, who handled the payoff to Daniels; Trump’s campaign; and a few other people and entities. The complaints alleged that Cohen, Trump and others violated the Federal Election Campaign Act, the federal law regulating political campaign fundraising and spending, at Trump’s direction to influence the 2016 election. In a 70-page report released in December 2020, the commission’s Office of General Counsel determined that there was reason to believe that the contributions were illegal and went unreported. ‘The available information indicates that Michael Cohen paid Stephanie Clifford $130,000 … with Trump’s express promise of repayment, for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election’ by preventing Clifford from publicizing the allegation, it said.” [PolitiFact, 5/8/24]
Trump Complained That He Could Not Offer A “Reliance On Counsel” Defense Despite His Lawyers Telling The Judge He Would Not Offer One. According to Rolling Stone, “‘THE GREATEST CASE I’VE EVER SEEN FOR RELIANCE ON COUNSEL, AND JUDGE MERCHAN WILL NOT, FOR WHATEVER REASON, LET ME USE THAT AS A DEFENSE IN THIS RIGGED TRIAL. ANOTHER TERM, ADVICE OF COUNSEL DEFENSE!,’ he added in another post. Trump’s attorneys were not actually barred from using the argument and made a point in March to inform the judge that they would not pursue ‘advice of counsel’ as their defense strategy.” [Rolling Stone, 5/29/24]
A Trump Campaign Email Claimed He Was “Tortured” In Fulton County Jail. According to The Hill, “Former President Trump’s campaign in a Monday fundraising email criticized his treatment at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia, saying he was ‘tortured’ while getting his historic mug shot at the jail. Trump has frequently sought to raise funds from the mug shot, and the email that mentioned the torture was sent out to promote coffee mugs featuring Trump’s mug shot. ‘I want you to remember what they did to me. They tortured me in the Fulton County Jail, and TOOK MY MUGSHOT. So guess what? I put it on a mug for the WHOLE WORLD TO SEE!’ the fundraising email said. Trump surrendered last August to the Fulton County Jail, a stipulation of his criminal indictment in Georgia, where he faces 13 counts stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Upon arriving to the jail in a presidential-style motorcade, Trump was booked, fingerprinted and photographed for a mug shot. The process took about 20 minutes and made Trump the first U.S. president in history, past or present, known to have their mug shot taken.” [The Hill, 6/24/24]
Trump Claimed He Knew Nothing About Project 2025. According to the London Financial Times, “Donald Trump has sought to distance himself from a group of influential right-wing policy wonks who have offered a controversial blueprint for the former Republican president should he secure another four years in the White House. ‘I know nothing about Project 2025,’ Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform on Friday. The former president and presumptive Republican nominee for the White House was referencing a sweeping platform drawn up by the right-wing Heritage Foundation think-tank, intended to provide a policy framework for a future Trump administration.” [London Financial Times, 7/5/24]
Trump Claimed He Had “No Idea Who Is Behind” Project 2025. According to the London Financial Times, “‘I have no idea who is behind it,’ Trump added. ‘I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.’” [London Financial Times, 7/5/24]
Several People Involved In Project 2025 Are Trump Allies And Former Trump White House Officials. According to the London Financial Times, “Several people involved in Project 2025 are prominent Trump allies and former White House officials, including Russ Vought, who was director of the Office of Management and Budget in his administration.” [London Financial Times, 7/5/24]
Russ Vought, A Trump Ally Who Was Policy Director For The Republican Platform Committee, Was Also Part Of Project 2025. According to the Associated Press, “Trump ally Russ Vought is serving as the policy director of the Republican Party’s platform writing committee while also leading the effort to draft the 180-day agenda for Project 2025, a sweeping proposal for remaking government that Trump said Friday he knew nothing about despite having several former aides involved.” [Associated Press, 7/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed That He Was Supported By The Vast Majority Of The Country. According to the New York Times, “‘The vast majority of the country does support me.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. Mr. Trump never won a majority of the popular vote in either of the elections he ran in and never had the approval of a majority of Americans in a single day of Gallup polling during his presidency. An average of polls by FiveThirtyEight.com shows that he is viewed favorably by just 43 percent of Americans today and has the same level of support in a matchup against Vice President Kamala Harris.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]
Trump Falsely Claimed The Taliban Did Not Kill Any American Soldiers After His Meeting With The Head Of The Taliban. According to the New York Times, “‘If you go back and check your records for 18 months, I had a talk with Abdul. Abdul was the leader of the Taliban still is, but had a strong talk with him. For 18 months. Not one American soldier was shot at or killed, but not even shot at 18 months.’ — Former President Donald J. Trump False. Mr. Trump spoke with a leader of the Taliban in March 2020. In the 18 months that followed, from April 2020 to October 2021, 13 soldiers died in hostile action in Afghanistan.” [New York Times, 8/8/24]