Where he made the biggest numbers: Trump made 26 false claims at his campaign rally in Cincinnati, 13 more in various exchanges with the media, seven on Twitter, five in an interview with C-SPAN.
Top categories: Eighteen false claims were about the economy or trade; 10 were about Trump’s popularity, his crowds or others’ crowds; 10 were about immigration; eight were about former President Barack Obama’s record.
Last week, as he faced accusations of racism for his attack on Baltimore as “disgusting, rat and rodent infested” and unfit for human habitation, he turned the black community into a validator.
“What I’ve done for African Americans, no president, I would say, has done,” he told reporters, citing his criminal justice legislation, the low black unemployment rate and the criticism of Baltimore itself. “Now, I’ll say this: They are so happy, because I get the calls.”
The most revealing false claim: A Veterans Choice fable
Most of the time Trump talks about Veterans Choice, he simply asserts that he was the one responsible for doing what previous presidents couldn’t. Sometimes, like at his rally last week, he invents an entire elaborate story.
He said he was thinking about the problem of veterans’ health care “during the campaign,” and he approached “experts” with a “great idea” he thought made him “the smartest guy”: Veterans, he had decided, should be allowed to see private doctors if they are facing long waits in the VA system. (Note: That is what the Obama program already allowed them to do.) As it turned out, he said, the “experts” had something remarkable to tell him: They had this same idea long before, but could never get it implemented.
“Sir,” Trump said the experts told him, “we’ve known about it for about 40 years, but we’ve never been able.”
The most absurd false claim: Hot air on wind
When Trump uses his campaign rallies to rile up his supporters over issues like immigration, we say he is throwing them red meat.
We need a phrase for when he uses his rallies to rant about a personal grievance that his supporters don’t seem to be interested in at all. Green meat?
Not true, studies show.
Here is this week’s full list of 56:
Crowds and popularity
Empty seats
Facts First: There have been empty seats at various Trump events, including a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, just two weeks prior to these remarks.
Support among religious voters
Trump might have been referring imprecisely to his level of support from white evangelical Christians. Exit polls found 80% of that particular group voted for Trump.
Support among African Americans
Facts First: African Americans are overwhelmingly unhappy with Trump’s job performance, polls have consistently shown.
‘Morning Joe’
Facts First: The ratings for the MSNBC show “Morning Joe” have not “crashed.” The show’s viewership in the second quarter of 2019 was nearly identical to its viewership in the second quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2017 — and significantly higher than its ratings in the second quarter of 2016, during the presidential election.
Joe Biden’s crowd size
“I saw Biden’s opening, where he couldn’t get 150 people to an opening in a little basketball, high school gymnasium.” — July 30 interview with C-SPAN
Facts First: About 600 people attended Biden’s first speech after he announced his candidacy — which was held at a union hall, not a high school gymnasium.
The crowd in Cincinnati
“l’ll tell you what: This is some crowd, some turnout. We’ve sold tens of thousands of tickets, and you know, at the sale prices, we keep it nice and low, but keep it nice and low.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnat
It’s possible Trump was making a joke, but that wasn’t clear.
The 2016 election
“I say it all the time: never happened before. There’s never been a movement like this. They’ve had movements, they never went — they won a state, they did well in a state. We won 32 states, there’s never been anything like it.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Ohio in 2016
“We ended up winning Ohio by close to 9 points, which is unheard-of. …” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon all won the state by 20 points or more.
Florida in 2016
“So we have a great governor in the state of Florida. Ron DeSantis. Calls me up — doing a great job, Ron DeSantis. He was at 3 and he went to 70. That’s a pretty good increase.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: DeSantis did experience a spike in support after Trump endorsed him, but he never came close to 70% in the polls. He won the Republican primary with 56.5% of the vote.
Immigration
Immigration judges
Facts First: The US is far from the only country to grant asylum claimants the right to a legal process.
“This statement is patently false,” James Hathaway, law professor and director of the program in refugee and asylum law at the University of Michigan, said in an email in response to a previous version of Trump’s claim. “It is completely routine in other countries that, like the U.S., have signed the UN refugee treaties for asylum-seekers to have access to the domestic legal system to make a protection claim (and to be allowed in while the claim is pending).”
Democrats and the border
“But I watched (the Democratic debates) and I guess it’s probably four or five (contenders). It’s down to four or five. I can’t imagine somebody else coming up. But I don’t think it’s what our country represents, number one. And when you look at open borders, how about the open borders, where everybody can just come in. … But I’m just watching, and it’s incredible to think people come up — many of these people are not good people. They’re convicted of lots of bad crimes, and they want open borders where they just flow into our country.” — August 1 interview with Bill Cunningham of 700WLW Cincinnati
Facts First: Some Democrats, including presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Julián Castro, have advocated a significant loosening of immigration law, including a decriminalization of the act of illegally crossing the border. But none of them have proposed literally opening the border to unrestricted migration.
Family separation
Facts First: Trump was correct that Obama’s administration built chain-link “cages” to detain migrants. But Trump did not inherit an Obama policy of routinely separating migrant children from their parents. Separations were rare under Obama; Trump made them standard.
The wall
“We’re building the wall faster and better than ever.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: Nothing resembling the wall Trump campaigned on has been built at any speed. Zero additional miles of border barriers had been erected as of mid-June.
About 50 miles have been built over his two-and-a-half years in office, but all of them are replacement barriers rather than additional miles.
Trump has started arguing since this spring that replacement fencing should be counted by the media as his “wall,” since he is replacing ineffective old barriers with effective modern ones. This is subjective, but we think it’s fair to focus on the new barriers he promised during his campaign.
Lottery system
“We’re replacing random migration and we’re replacing the lottery system. How about the lottery system? How about lotteries? This was Chuck Schumer: You put the name in a basket. The country puts the name in the basket. And you pick people out of the lottery. ‘Well, let’s see, this one’s a murderer. This one robbed four banks, this one … I’d better not say … this one, another murderer, ladies and gentlemen, another murderer.’ ” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: Almost everything Trump said here was inaccurate. Foreign countries don’t enter people into the green card lottery conducted by the State Department, let alone deliberately enter their criminals and problem citizens. Individuals enter on their own because they want to immigrate.
Court hearings
“It’s time for Democrats to end sanctuary cities, end catch and release. You know what you do: You catch ’em and then you release ’em and you say, ‘Would you please report back in four years from now?’ But only 2% come back.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
In 2017, 89% of asylum seekers appeared in court to receive decisions on their cases. Among all kinds of migrants, 72% appeared in court.
Foreign affairs
China and nuclear arms
Reif told CNN: “The Chinese reaction is not surprising. China, which is estimated to possess a total of about 300 nuclear warheads, has never been party to any agreement limiting the size and configuration of its nuclear arsenal. Beijing is highly unlikely to engage in any such talks until the United States and Russia further cut their far larger arsenals, estimated at over 6,000 warheads each.”
The European Union
Facts First: Competing with the United States economically was not a key reason for the formation of the European Union.
“The President’s claims are preposterous. The European Communities (forerunner of the EU) were formed in the 1950s as part of a joint US-Western European plan to stabilize and secure Western Europe and promote prosperity, by means of trade liberalization and economic growth, throughout the shared transatlantic space,” Desmond Dinan, a public policy professor at George Mason University who is an expert in the history of European integration, said in response to a previous version of this claim.
US presidents have consistently supported European integration efforts.
“The EU was launched in 1993, on the shoulders of the European Communities, to promote peace and prosperity in the post-Cold War era, an era also of rapid globalization. American officials may have had their doubts about the feasibility of monetary union, and about the possibility of a Common (European) Security and Defense Policy, but the US Administration strongly supported further European integration in the 1990s,” Dinan said.
The war in Afghanistan
“With respect to Afghanistan, we’ve made a lot of progress. We’re talking, but we’ve also made a lot of progress. We’re reducing it. We’ve been there for 19 years. ” — August 2 exchange with reporters
Facts First: This was a small exaggeration. The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 — less than 18 years ago, though Trump habitually says “19 years.”
Iran
“To protect America’s security I withdrew the United States from the horrible Iran nuclear deal, a horrible stupid deal. We gave Iran $150 billion.” Trump went on to claim that the US also gave Iran $1.8 billion “in cash.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: The second figure is roughly correct, but the first is exaggerated.
The Iran nuclear deal allowed the country to access tens of billions in its own assets that had been frozen in foreign financial institutions because of sanctions; experts say the total was significantly lower than $150 billion.
Trump did not invent the $150 billion figure out of thin air: Obama himself mused in a 2015 interview about Iran having “$150 billion parked outside the country.” But experts on Iran policy, and Obama’s own administration, said that the quantity of assets the agreement actually made available to Iran was much lower.
The Russia investigation
“Treason”
Facts First: Nothing about the Russia investigation comes close to meeting the definition of treason.
Under the Constitution, treason is narrowly defined: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed and supervised by a Republican whom Trump appointed as deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. There is no evidence of any behavior that could even possibly qualify as treason.
Mueller and obstruction
“Well, I watched Mueller. I’m not sure Mueller knows what’s going on, if you want to know the truth. But all I do know is he said, ‘No collusion with us. No collusion,’ and ultimately ‘no obstruction,’ because it led to no obstruction by a very smart group of people, including our attorney general. ” — August 1 exchange with reporters
Facts First: Mueller’s report did not say “no obstruction” in any way.
Mueller laid out a case that Trump may have committed obstruction, but he explained that he would abide by a Justice Department policy that holds that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
“… If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the report said.
As Trump said, Attorney General William Barr then determined that the evidence laid out by Mueller was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” So Trump was basically correct when he described what Barr concluded — but he was incorrect in suggesting that Mueller himself had said “no obstruction.”
Mueller also did not use the words “no collusion”; his report explained that he was investigating the issue of conspiracy, since collusion does not have a precise legal meaning. With that said, “no collusion” is a much fairer paraphrase of Mueller’s findings than “no obstruction” is.
The economy and trade
Steel plants before the tariffs
After listing recent plant investments by American steel companies, Trump said, “And this was unthinkable, because four years ago, steel plants were closing, they weren’t expanding and they weren’t building.”
Facts First: While some steel plants were closing, being idled or otherwise doing poorly four years ago, some other plants were being built or expanding at the time. Investment was not “unthinkable.”
There were also multiple stories about US Steel and other companies idling plants and laying off workers at the time. But it’s not true that it was “unthinkable” four years ago for plants to be built or expanded.
Steel companies before the tariffs
“… but they were dumping tremendous quantities of steel, and what was happening is United States Steel and all of our companies were going virtually out of business, and I stopped it. I put on a 25% tariff.”
Unemployment, part 1
“We need good people. We’re down to 3.5% unemployment.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
The rate has not hit 3.5% at any point in Trump’s presidency. It was 3.6% in April and May. So Trump was close, but this is not a figure that is usually rounded to the nearest half-point.
Unemployment, part 2
“Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in over half a century.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: This was close to true, but Trump was exaggerating. The unemployment rate over this spring and summer — 3.7% each month in July and June, 3.6% each month in May and April — has been the lowest since December 1969, slightly less than 50 years ago.
Employment in Ohio
“One hundred and twenty three thousand more Ohio workers are employed today than when I was elected.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Who is paying for tariffs on Chinese products
“We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars from China in the form of tariffs. Our people are not paying for it.” — July 30 exchange with reporters
“And it’s been proven that our people are not paying for those tariffs.” And: “They’re paying for these tariffs; we’re not.” — August 1 exchange with reporters
“And don’t let them tell you — the fact is, China devalues their currency. They pour money into their system, they pour it in and because they do that you’re not paying for those tariffs, China’s paying for those tariffs.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
“The tariffs are not being paid for by our people; it’s being paid for by China because of devaluation and because they’re pumping money in.” — August 2 exchange with reporters
Facts First: American importers make the actual tariff payments, and economic studies have found that Americans, not people and companies in China, have borne most of the cost.
Some Chinese suppliers might take on some of the burden of the tariff by reducing their prices to maintain a market in the United States, but these studies show that the burden heavily falls on US consumers and companies.
The history of tariffs on China
“Remember this: Our country is taking in billions and billions of dollars from China. We never took in 10 cents from China.” — August 2 exchange with reporters
Facts First: The US government has been charging tariffs on imported Chinese goods for more than two centuries, and it took in hefty sums from such tariffs long before Trump’s own tariffs. (Again, it is US importers, not China, who have paid these tariffs.)
Highest agricultural spending by China
“And I will say that the farmers are very grateful. The most they’ve ever spent on agricultural product is $16 billion. So when they pulled out, I took just a small part of the money that China is paying us, and I gave it toward the farmers and the farmers are very happy.” — July 30 exchange with reporters
Facts First: Sixteen billion dollars is not the most China has ever spent on US agricultural products in a year. As we noted above, studies have found that Americans, not China, are bearing the majority of the cost of the tariffs. And Trump’s aid to affected farmers has required much more than “a small part” of the tariff revenue.
Baltimore
Baltimore and corruption
“What Elijah Cummings should do is he should take his Oversight Committee, bring them down to Baltimore, and invest all of it, and really study the billions and billions of dollars that’s been stolen. It’s been wasted; it’s been stolen.” And: “But the people of Baltimore are very thankful — they have let us know by the thousands of people — because of the fact that finally somebody is pointing out how corrupt Baltimore is, how billions and billions of dollars have been stolen.” — July 30 exchange with reporters
Facts First: Though Baltimore has had a series of corruption scandals in recent years, there is no evidence that anywhere near “billions and billions” has been “stolen.”
We can’t definitively fact-check Trump’s claim that billions have been “wasted”; he is entitled to his opinion on the effectiveness of spending. But an allegation of billions in actual theft requires proof, and Trump has not provided any.
Corruption convictions or cases involving alleged corruption in Baltimore have tended to involve sums of money much smaller than “billions.”
Baltimore’s economy
“Baltimore’s numbers are the worst in the United States on Crime and the Economy. Billions of dollars have been pumped in over the years, but to no avail. The money was stolen or wasted. Ask Elijah Cummings where it went. He should investigate himself with his Oversight Committee!” — July 29 tweet
Facts First: Baltimore does not have the worst economic numbers in the United States, though it does rank poorly by several measures.
Obama’s record
Obama and energy
“The previous administration tried to shut down American energy…” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: Obama did encourage the use of renewable energy sources rather than fossil fuels, but he didn’t try to “shut down” fossil fuel production — which increased significantly during his tenure.
Coal
Trump said the Obama administration tried to end the use of “American, clean, beautiful coal.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: Obama did try to reduce the use of coal — but nothing about coal is “clean.“
Manufacturing
While criticizing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, from which he withdrew the US, Trump claimed Obama had said that “you can’t produce manufacturing jobs anymore in the United States.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
“President Obama said that manufacturing jobs are gone.” — August 1 interview with Bill Cunningham of 700WLW Cincinnati
Obama mocked Trump for not specifying how he would bring back the jobs that had been lost to other countries. But Obama was not saying that it was impossible to produce manufacturing jobs at all. He said: “Well, in fact, we’ve seen more manufacturing jobs created since I’ve been President than any time since the 1990s. That’s a fact. And you know, if you look at just the auto industry as an example, they’ve had record sales and they’ve hired back more people over the last five years than they have for a very long, long time. We actually make more stuff, have a bigger manufacturing base today than we’ve had in most of our history.”
His tweet about Obama
Talking about his tweeting habits, Trump said, “I sent the one about the ‘wiretapping’ in quotes, and that turned out to be true. Remember the big deal that was? I heard like about a minute after I sent that, I was called by my people, ‘Sir, did you say –‘ I said, ‘Yeah, I did, what’s the big deal?’ And the reason it was such a big deal is it turned out to be true.” — July 30 interview with C-SPAN
Facts First: Trump’s tweet about Obama allegedly wiretapping his phones has not been proved true.
But a wiretap of someone living in Trump’s apartment building is not the same as a wiretap of Trump himself. And there remains no public evidence that Obama was personally involved even in the Manafort wiretaps.
Wind turbines
“The previous administration, they liked windmills. You know windmills: If a windmill is within 2 miles of your house, your house is practically worthless.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Judicial vacancies
Trump said of vacancies on federal courts: “And I came in, I had 148 openings. I said — you’re supposed to have none. I said, ‘How many do we have?’ ‘148.’ I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ ” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: Trump did not enter office with 148 judicial vacancies, and it is not normal for incoming presidents to be told they have “none.”
Like Trump, his predecessors entered office with dozens of vacancies. According to Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution who tracks judicial appointments, there were 103 vacancies on district and appeals courts on Jan. 1, 2017, just before Trump took office; 53 vacancies on Jan. 1, 2009, just before Barack Obama took office; 80 vacancies on Jan. 1, 2001, just before George W. Bush took office; 107 vacancies on Jan. 1, 1993, just before Bill Clinton took office. So Trump had the most judges to appoint since Clinton, but, clearly, other presidents also had appointing to do.
Promises and accomplishments
Veterans Choice
“We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability on behalf of our great veterans. They’ve been trying to pass VA Choice for four decades. They couldn’t get it done, we got it done, we got it.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
“But with all of the things that we’ve got — I mean think of VA Choice, think of all of the things that we’ve got, you would think that that would make people happy.” — July 30 interview with C-SPAN
What Veterans Choice does
“Trump contrasted the Choice program with the previous situation, in which he noted that veterans had to wait for health care for “three, four, five, six days, for three weeks, for five weeks.”
Trump suggested that this is no longer the case, saying that he had the idea to “let them go outside, go to a private doctor. We’ll pay the bill, they’ll be fixed up all perfect and they can do it immediately.'” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: Neither the Obama version nor the Trump version of this program allows veterans to avoid waiting days or weeks to see a VA doctor. At present, most veterans can get reimbursed for private care only if they are facing waits of more than 20 days at the VA.
As we noted in the previous fact check, the program was not Trump’s idea. It was created in 2014 under Obama.
Firing people at the VA
“You couldn’t fire anybody. If they were treating our vets badly, you couldn’t fire him for anything. People could steal, they could be sadistic to our vets. … You couldn’t fire anybody for almost anything.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: While Trump might have been exaggerating here for effect, it’s not true that “you couldn’t fire anybody” prior to the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act he signed into law in 2017.
Confirmed judges
“You know we’ve been doing very well in the courts, by the way. … We’ve been winning a lot of cases, a lot of cases, we really have. We really have been. You know, we’ve now appointed 148, think of this, federal judges, 148.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: This was a slight exaggeration. There were 144 judges confirmed during the Trump presidency as of the day Trump made this statement, said Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution who tracks judicial appointments.
It was 99 district court judges, 43 appeals court judges and two Supreme Court justices, Wheeler said.
Debt and spending
Asked about the increase in debt during his tenure, and told that spending under his watch has been higher than spending under Obama, Trump said, “Sure, but the difference is, he wasn’t building up the military. The military was getting depleted. I have to build it up, and I have to build it up from both Bush and from Obama, because with Bush, you know we were in these wars all over the place, and with Obama the same thing, they just never ended.” — July 30 interview with C-SPAN
Facts First: Military spending is not the primary contributor to the increase in debt under Trump.
Trump’s tax cuts are responsible for a much bigger share of the $4.1 trillion: about $1.8 trillion.
“There’s been across-the board-increases in the deficit, and defense is certainly a piece of it. But to use it as an excuse for the other three-quarters doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Goldwein said.
Drug prices
“Last year was the first time in 51 years that drug pricing for prescription drugs actually came down.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: This was a slight exaggeration. Prescription drug prices declined last year for the first time in 46 years, according to one of several measures.
Preexisting conditions
“… We will always protect patients with preexisting conditions, always.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: This claim is undercut by Trump’s actions and those of congressional Republicans during his presidency.
Right to Try
“They had no hope. For 44 years, they’ve been trying to get Right to Try. … I got it approved, and it wasn’t easy.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: There had not been a 44-year push for a federal Right to Try law, experts said.
The law tries to make it easier for terminally ill patients to access experimental medications that have not received Food and Drug Administration approval for widespread use. Similar laws have been passed at the state level only since 2014, after the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank, began pushing for them.
“I have no idea what ‘they’ve been trying to get’ for 44 years. The Right to Try law was a creation of the Goldwater Institute, and it first became state law in 2014 (in Colorado), relatively soon after it was first conceived of,” said Alison Bateman-House, assistant professor of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Health.
Before Right to Try
Trump said that, before the Right to Try program came into effect, terminally ill patients “couldn’t get medicine.” He said, “They couldn’t get anything — they’d travel to Asia, if they had money. They’d travel to Europe, they’d travel all over the world hoping for a cure. If they had no money, they’d just go home, they’d die. They had no hope.” — August 1 rally in Cincinnati
Facts First: It is not true that terminally ill patients “couldn’t get anything” or would simply have to go home and die until Trump signed the Right to Try law in 2018. Prior to the law, patients did have to ask the federal government for permission to access experimental medications — but the government almost always said yes.
CNN’s Holmes Lybrand, Kevin Liptak, Maegan Vazquez and Nicole Gaouette contributed to this article.
Source : CNN