Trump’s falsehoods get deeper by the dozen
WASHINGTON— U.S. President Donald Trump is travelling the country doing campaign rally after campaign rally: 10 more, his campaign says, in the 12 days before the midterm elections on Nov. 6.
And he is telling the same lies over and over.
We’re sometimes asked how we can immediately fact-check Trump’s claims the president makes at these events. The answer is that he repeats the same things at rally after rally, only occasionally mixing in some new bit of nonsense.
To help you wade through the blizzard, here is a guide to the most common false claims — some exaggerations, many outright fabrications — Trump has made most frequently at his rallies in 2018. 1) 19 times — The border wall is under construction
Sample quote: “So we’ve already started the wall. We got $1.6 billion. The wall has been started.”
Why it’s wrong: Construction on Trump’s border wall has not started, and he has not received money for it. The $1.6 billion in congressional funding is to build some new fencing and replace some existing fencing, not build the giant new barrier he has proposed.
2) 13 times — The U.S. trade deficit with China was $500 billion
Sample quote: “China has been taking out $500 billion, yet people have no idea what that is. Five hundred billion. We have rebuilt China.”
Why it’s wrong: The U.S. has never once had a $500-billion trade deficit with China. (Economists disagree with Trump’s use of phrases such as “taking out” and “losing” to describe trade deficits, but that’s another issue.) The deficit was $337 billion in 2017. 3) 13 times — Asian-American unemployment is at an all-time low
Sample quote: “Hispanic Americans and Asian-Americans likewise have the lowest unemployment in the history of our country.”
Why it’s wrong: In May, the unemployment rate for Asian-Americans did hit a new record low: 2.0 per cent. But then it immediately jumped back up to a nonrecord, and it is now at the non-record of 3.5 per cent, which is 0.9 percentage points higher than the 2.6 per cent rate in the last full month of Barack Obama’s term in December 2016. 4) 12 times — The Veterans Choice health-care program couldn’t get passed for 44 years before Trump came along
Sample quote: “We also passed Veterans Choice, giving our veterans the right to see a private doctor. Big thing. Fortyfour years. Forty-four years, they’ve tried to get it passed. People are waiting on line for 12 days, for 20 days, for 28 days. I thought it was my idea, but then I came back and I said — what a great idea. They said, we’ve been trying to get it passed for 44 years. I mean, how simple? Right? Forty-four years.”
Why it’s wrong: The Veterans Choice program was passed four years ago. In 2014, it was passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama. The program allows certain veterans to see private doctors rather than face long wait times in the Veterans Health Administration system. The bill Trump signed into law in June 2018, the VA Mission Act, merely makes changes to the Choice program.
5) 12 times — Trump’s military budgets are record-setting
Sample quote: “And just last week, I signed a record $716-billion funding bill for our military.” Why it’s wrong: Obama signed a $725-billion version of the same bill in 2011. In other words, Trump’s spending is not a record even if you ignore inflation.
6) 9 times — Pollsters are fraudulently manipulating their numbers to dampen the enthusiasm of Trump voters
Sample quote: “Even Gallup, Gallup, who treats me horribly, polls are fake news also. What they do is called suppression. They put out these horrible polls and then they hope that everyone’s going to say, ‘Hey, look, I like Trump, but he’s got no chance of winning.’ Suppression, it should be illegal actually.”
Why it’s wrong: There is simply no evidence pollsters have done this. 7) 9 times — The Trump administration has created almost 600,000 manufacturing jobs
Sample quote: “We’ve added nearly 600,000 manufacturing jobs.”
Why it’s wrong: The economy added 378,000 manufacturing jobs between January 2017, when Trump took office, and September 2018, the last month for which there is official data. Even if you start counting from the month he got elected, November 2016, it’s only 408,000 manufacturing jobs. (Note: Including in these nine false claims are some in which Trump used different inaccurate figures about the number of manufacturing jobs added, not only ones in which he claimed it was “nearly 600,000.”) 8) 9 times — The Obama administration gave Iran $150 billion as part of their nuclear deal
Sample quote: “It’s like the Iran Deal, we’re so bad, we paid $150 billion to sign a horrible agreement …”
Why it’s wrong: The nuclear deal did not involve a $150-billion payment from the U.S. government to Iran. Rather, the deal unfroze a certain quantity of Iran’s own assets — and even that wasn’t $150 billion. Experts said Iran had about $100 billion in worldwide assets at the time, and that the deal allowed Iran to access a certain percentage of it, not all of it. PolitiFact reported: “The actual amount available to Iran is about $60 billion, estimates Garbis Iradian, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew pinned it at $56 billion, while Iranian officials say $35 billion, according to Richard Nephew, an expert on economic sanctions at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.”
9) 8 times — U.S. Steel is opening six, seven, eight or nine new plants
Sample quote: “But you have to see what’s happening with the steel industry. You don’t get it. I mean, they don’t tell you about it. Jobs are being produced. Plants are opening. U.S. Steel is opening up at least eight new plants.”
Why it’s wrong: U.S. Steel has announced major investments in only two plants – existing facilities in Granite City, Ill., and Gary, Ind., not new ones – since Trump announced his steel tariffs. While the company has refused to explicitly deny Trump’s claim, it has told the Washington Post: “We post all of our major operational announcements to our website and report them on earnings calls.” That website and those calls have not included anything about opening six, seven, eight or nine plants, as Trump has claimed at various times. 10) 8 times — Obama said there would be no more manufacturing jobs
Sample quote: “We’ve created more than 400,000 — that’s very soon going to be 600,000 manufacturing jobs since my election. Well, president Obama said you won’t have manufacturing jobs anymore…”
Why it’s wrong: Obama never said that; Trump is twisting his words. At a televised 2016 PBS town hall in Elkhart, Ind., Obama said that certain manufacturing jobs — “some of those jobs of the past” — “are just not going to come back,” and mocked Trump for claiming he would bring “all these jobs back.” But Obama did not say all manufacturing jobs would vanish, nor that none could be created. In fact, he boasted about the creation of jobs during his presidency: he said “we’ve seen more manufacturing jobs created since I’ve been president than any time since the 1990s,” and “we actually make more stuff, have a bigger manufacturing base today, than we’ve had in most of our history.” 11) 8 times — The Democrats have a platform of abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Sample quote: “The new platform of the Democrat Party is to abolish ICE and let’s not worry about crime.”
Why it’s wrong: Not only is abolishing ICE not part of the party’s official platform, that policy is not supported by the party’s leadership and has not been endorsed by most of its members of Congress. Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters: “Look, ICE does some functions that are very much needed. Reform ICE? Yes. That’s what I think we should do. It needs reform.” Trump could accurately say that some prominent Democrats have called for abolition, including possible 2020 presidential candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. 12) 8 times — This is the first time wages have increased in 18, 19, 20, 21 or 22 years
Sample quote: “And now, for the first time in 22 years, wages are rising again.”
Why it’s wrong: Depending on how you measure, wages have been rising steadily since at least 2014.