THIRTY ONE, “FOUR PINOCCHIO” LIES FROM DONALD TRUMP
…Four of these is the highest
level of “falseness” that any statement can have
This is the latest list
of false statements from “The Donald”, but stay tuned.
Donald Trump’s false comments connecting
Mexican immigrants and crime
Donald
Trump repeatedly defended his claim that the Mexican government is sending
criminals and rapists to the United States. But a range of studies shows
there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans.
Moreover, the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants in prison do not
belong in the category that fit Trump’s description: aggravated
felons, whose crimes include murder, drug trafficking or illegal trafficking of
firearms.
Trump’s bogus claim that he never said ‘some
of the things’ claimed by Megyn Kelly
Fox News host
Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump a pointed question about his verbal
treatment of women. On the Sunday shows, Trump refused to apologize — and
further asserted that Kelly lists things he did not say. But there is ample
evidence for each of the slurs against women uttered or tweeted by Trump. He
had a small point that he attacks once he is provoked, but there is little
doubt that the over-the-top language cited by Kelly was correct.
Trump’s zombie claim that Obama spent $4
million to conceal school and passport records
Trump, one of
the most high-profile “birthers” during the 2012 presidential campaign, resurfaced
this zombie claim that President Obama spent $4 million in legal fees to
conceal records that would indicate his true citizenship. There is no proof
that Obama spent $4 million in legal fees (personally or through his campaign)
to keep his school application or passport application records away from the
public. Federal campaign finance records show from 2008 through 2012, the Obama
for America campaign paid more than $4 million in legal services to Perkins
Coie, the law firm that defended the campaign in some of the eligibility
lawsuits. But campaigns have in-house and outside counsel to vet a wide range
of issues, not just those related to lawsuits.
Trump’s absurd claim that the ‘real’
unemployment rate is 42%
Trump’s made a
ridiculous leap in logic to come up with his claim that the “real” unemployment
rate was 42 percent — at a time when the official rate was 5.3%. He took an
estimate for the number of people not working — 93 million — and assumed they
were all unemployed. But the vast majority of those people do not want to work.
Most are retired or simply not interested in working, such as stay-at-home
parents. Even a President Trump would be unable to make much of a dent in this
supposed 42% unemployment rate, given that most of the Americans he is counting
as “unemployed” are not in the labor force by choice.
Trump’s tax plan and his claim that ‘it’s going to cost me a fortune’
Trump pitched
his tax plan as being tough on the wealthy, saying “it’s going to cost me a
fortune.” Trump has not released his tax forms — though he claims he made $604
million in 2014. In going through the details of his plan, it appears clear
that it would significantly reduce his taxes — and the taxes of his heirs.
This was later confirmed by an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Trump’s repeated claim that Obama is
accepting 200,000 Syrian refugees
Like a broken
record, businessman Donald J. Trump keeps repeating a statistic with little
basis in fact — that the Obama administration wants to accept 200,000 refugees
from Syria. It appears to be based on a misunderstanding — the Obama
administration says it planned to admit 185,000 refugees over two years from
all countries. For Syria, Obama has only directed the United States
to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year. Ironically,
that’s a number that Trump indicated was fine.
Trump’s baseless claim that the Bush White
House tried to ‘silence’ his Iraq War opposition in 2003
Trump brags that
he had the vision and foresight to oppose the Iraq War ahead of the invasion in
2003. He says his opposition was so vocal, and his reach so great, that the
White House approached him and asked him to tone it down. There is scant media
coverage of his supposed opposition ahead of the Iraq War. (We later compiled a
complete
timeline of Trump’s comments in 2002 and 2003 about the Iraq
invasion, which showed he was not vocal about his opposition prior to the
invasion, and they didn’t make headlines.) Trump ignored our request for the
names of White House officials he supposedly met with, so we checked with
former senior White House officials. None of the dozen people we contacted
directly or through former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer could
recall a meeting with Trump, concerns about his opposition, or even Trump’s
views being on their radar prior to 2004.
Repeat after me: Obama is not admitting
100,000, 200,000 or 250,000 Syrian refugees
Trump had
previously earned Four Pinocchios for falsely claiming President Obama was
planning to admit 200,000 refugees from war-torn Syria. (The real number is
10,000; a total of 180,000 refugees from around the world will be admitted in
2016 and 2017.) Undeterred, Trump upped the number to 250,000 — and fellow
novice politicians Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson followed up with claims of
100,000 refugees from Syria. All three earned Four Pinocchios.
Trump’s outrageous claim that ‘thousands’ of
New Jersey Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks
GOP
presidential hopeful Trump falsely and repeatedly asserted that he saw TV clips
of “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse
of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. Despite an army of fact
checks, including ours, and repeated debunking, Trump continued to assert he
was correct, even though he could produce no evidence except a handful of news
stories that made brief mentions of alleged celebrations — which never could be
confirmed. He earned Four Pinocchios. Ben Carson, another GOP aspirant, briefly
said he, too, had seen such a video. But to his credit, he withdrew the
statement after realizing it was of Palestinians in Gaza, not New Jersey.
Trump’s false claim that the 9/11 hijackers’
wives ‘knew exactly what was going to happen’
In the wake of
the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., involving a Muslim couple, Trump has
emerged with the claim that the 9/11 hijackers sent their wives home before the
attacks — and those wives knew “exactly what was going to happen.” But there is
no support for Trump’s claims, as the exhaustive 9/11 Commission report states
that virtually all of the hijackers were unmarried. The report includes a
number of references to the hijackers cutting off communication with their
families: “The other operatives had broken off regular contact with their
families. …The majority of these Saudi recruits began to break with their
families in late 1999 and early 2000. …[The ringleader] complained that some of
the hijackers wanted to contact their families to say goodbye, something he had
forbidden.”
Trump’s claim that he ‘predicted Osama bin
Laden’
In various
speeches and interviews, Trump has claimed that two years before the 9/11
attacks, he warned that Osama bin Laden was a threat — going to “do damage” to
the United States — and even predicted the rise of terrorism. This claim rests
on some vague references in a book he published in 2000. The references have
little relationship to how Trump portrays them now — and he ignores the fact
that well before 9/11, experts, news organizations and even bin Laden himself
said he planned to attack the United States.
Trump’s claim that the unemployment rate is
23%
After falsely
asserting the “real” unemployment rate was 42%, Trump suddenly tossed out a new
estimate of “22 to 23%.” But this was also wrong. His figure is still more than
double the most expansive rate published by the U.S. government, which at the
time was 9.9%. That means there are about 35 million “unemployed” who Trump has
not accounted for — and as usual the Trump campaign refused to explain how he
came up with his estimate.
Trump’s dubious claim that his border wall
would cost $8 billion
After Trump
put a price tag on the wall he wants to build on the 2,000-mile border with
Mexico — $8 billion — we investigated whether this figure was in the
realm of possibility. We concluded it was not — and after the fact check
appeared, Trump increased the projected cost to $12 billion. That’s still too
low. A reasonable estimate is $25 billion.
Trump’s truly absurd claim he would save $300
billion a year on prescription drugs
Trump said
that he would allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies, thus
saving $300 billion a year. This made little sense, given that the prescription
drug portion of the Medicare program costs only $78 billion a year. Total
annual spending on prescription drugs in the United States is between $298
and $423 billion, which suggests Trump thinks he can eliminate virtually any
cost to prescription drugs. Once again, we are confronted with a nonsense
figure from the mouth of Donald Trump.
A trio of truthful attack ads about Trump
University
This is in
effect a reverse Four-Pinocchio rating, as we presented a rare Geppetto
Checkmark to three ads attacking
Trump’s involvement with Trump University. We concluded that Trump University
appears to have been a classic bait-and-switch operation, designed to lure
people into paying increasing sums of money. We also examined Trump’s false
claim that Trump University received an “A” rating from the Better Business
Bureau, when in fact its rating was D- before it started winding down. The BBB
even felt compelled to dispute Trump after he made this claim again during a
debate.
Trump’s false claim he built his empire with
a ‘small loan’ from his father
Trump often
says he started his business empire with just a $1 million loan from his
father. But that is simply not credible. He appears to have inherited about $40
million. He also benefited from numerous loans and loan guarantees, as well as
his father’s connections, to make the move into Manhattan. His father set up
lucrative trusts to provide steady income. When Trump became overextended
in the casino business, his father bailed him out with a shady casino-chip loan
— and Trump also borrowed $9 million against his future inheritance. While
Trump asserts “it has not been easy for me,” he glosses over the fact that his
father paved the way for his success — and that his father bailed him out when
he got into trouble.
Trump’s false claim that John Kasich ‘helped’
Lehman Brothers ‘destroy the world economy’
Trump blamed
Ohio Gov. John Kasich for the collapse of the investment banking firm and
helping start a global financial crisis, but it was a preposterous claim.
Kasich was one of about 700 managing directors at Lehman Brothers and largely
played a facilitator role, using his experience in government regulations and
contacts in various sectors. He gave strategic financial advice to other
companies and generated business by using his contacts in various sectors
— not making risky mortgage investments. Kasich’s former boss at Lehman
equated this attack by Trump to blaming a pilot for the failure of Trump
Airlines.
Trump’s trade rhetoric, stuck in a time warp
We examined a
series of Trump statements on trade, manufacturing and currency manipulation,
in essence fact checking the economic world that he depicts in his speeches — a
world in which the United States never wins at trade and is flooded by imports
because China and Japan keep their currencies low, a world in which high
tariffs would bring manufacturing back to Michigan and other states. We
concluded that Trump appears to have little understanding of the economic
reality of today’s interconnected world.
Trump’s smear of Time magazine as the source
for his ‘facts’
In a
contentious interview with a conservative radio host, Trump was quizzed on
claims he made about Wisconsin at a time when Gov. Scott Walker (R) was still a
presidential contender, in particular the false claim that under Walker the
state had gone from a $1 billion surplus to a $2.2 billion deficit. Trump
refused to apologize, saying the blame should be placed on Time Magazine; he
claimed he was simply quoting the magazine. But we could find little evidence
for Trump’s claim. While Time at one point has mentioned a $2 billion budget
“shortfall,” that was different than Trump’s phrasing. Moreover, the budget
issue had already been resolved two weeks before Trump started making the
claim—and he didn’t change it even after being called out by fact checkers.
Trump’s nonsensical claim he can eliminate
$19 trillion in debt in eight years
In an
interview with The Washington Post, Trump asserted he could eliminate the
nation’s $19 trillion in debt in just eight years, apparently through
renegotiating trade deals. Using federal budget data, we demonstrated why
Trump’s pledge is mathematically impossible. First, he has to eliminate the
deficit that is adding to the debt year after year. (That is projected to add
another $7 trillion in debt by 2024.) Even if Trump eliminated every government
function and shut down every Cabinet agency, he’d still be $16 trillion short.
Unfortunately, we only had Four Pinocchios to give for this whopper.
Donald Trump’s false claim that there have
been no negative ads against Kasich
It’s fine to
say far more ads have aired attacking Trump than John Kasich, but Trump went
even further to say that no ads have attacked Kasich. That’s just not
true. In fact, his own campaign has run an ad attacking Kasich. Attack ads
sponsored by candidate committees and outside groups were fairly consistent
earlier in the primary cycle, especially ones contrasting his record to other
governors in the race.
Trump’s false claim that the Islamic State is
‘making a fortune’ on Libyan oil
Trump asserted
that the Islamic State terror group had seized the oil in Libya and “is making
a fortune now” in the country. But analysts said this is completely false. ISIS
has attacked oil fields and destroyed equipment but it has not captured any –
or even sought to control the fields. At best one can say ISIS has
disrupted the flow of oil. But it is certainly not making any money from such
tactics.
Trump’s claim that no foreign leader greeting
Obama was ‘without precedent’
Trump claimed
that the fact that President Obama traveled to Saudi Arabia and Cuba and was
not greeted at the airport by the country’s leader was “without precedent.’ But
we found numerous examples of this happening under Obama – and previous
presidents. We don’t know where Trump comes up with this stuff, but once again
he’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
Trump’s false claim that ‘scores of recent
migrants’ in the U.S. are charged with terrorism
It’s unclear
where Trump is getting this information but it appears to be a bungled
reference to a list issued by a Senate office concerning 30 foreign-born
individuals who were arrested on charges relating to terrorism in recent years.
But the majority of the 30 cases involved naturalized U.S. citizens — people
who came to the U.S. as children or had arrived before 2011. There is no
evidence that “scores” of “recent migrants” are charged with terrorism.
No, Putin did not call Donald Trump ‘a
genius’
Trump likes to
brag that Russian president Vladmir Putin has “called me a genius.” But Putin
said no such thing. The Russian president used a Russian word that means
“colorful” or “lively” or even “flamboyant.” A handful of news organizations
used the word “bright,” but not in the sense of intelligent. As usual, Trump
stretched the meaning even further.
Trump’s false claim that the National
Enquirer story on Cruz’s father was not denied
Donald Trump
refused to apologize for citing a thinly sourced National Enquirer article
alleging that Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael, worked with Lee Harvey Oswald, the
assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Part of the reason, he said, was because
it had not been denied. But actually, Cruz himself denounced Trump’s claim,
calling the businessman a “pathological liar.” The Cruz campaign also dismissed
the story as “garbage” and “false” when the Miami Herald published an article
on it on April 22 — 11 days before Trump gave it national currency on Fox
News. Meanwhile, reports in The Washington Post, PolitiFact, FactCheck.Org
and CNN all had concluded the story was hogwash.
Donald Trump’s ridiculous claim that Hillary
Clinton started the birther movement
On the day
Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, he resurrected a zombie
claim that has previously been debunked by fact checkers. The allegation that
Clinton was the first, or even one of the first, to question President Obama’s
birth certificate is simply false. Trump would be on safer ground if he blamed
her supporters for stoking the birther rumors, since in spring 2008, some of
Clinton’s supporters began circulating anonymous emails questioning Obama’s
citizenship. But there’s no evidence that Clinton or her campaign questioned
Obama’s birth certificate.
Trump’s false claim that ‘there’s nothing to
learn’ from his tax returns
In refusing to
release his tax returns—becoming the first major candidate in 40 years to do
so—Trump claimed that there is “nothing to learn” from them. Actually, tax
returns would reveal a lot about Trump’s finances—and whether he is as rich as
he claims. That could be a reason why he has repeatedly failed to honor
promises to release his tax returns.
Donald Trump’s unsupported claim that crime
is ‘through the roof’ because of illegal immigration
Trump blamed
illegal immigration for a spike in violent crimes in the past year,
particularly in California. But so many factors, including weather, can
influence short-term changes in violent crimes. The overall trend for
California shows that violent crimes have steadily declined since at least
2005. Trump continues to argue for sweeping deportation policies by pointing to
isolated instances where Americans were killed by known criminals who are in
the country illegally. But aggravated felons are a small percentage of the
population of undocumented immigrants, and Trump exaggerates the actual threat
of undocumented immigrants pose to everyday Americans’ lives.
No, Donald Trump, there’s nothing ‘fishy’
about Vince Foster’s suicide
Trump appears
intent on dredging up every last bit of every Clinton controversy, including
the 1993 death of the Clintons’ close personal friend, White House
deputy counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr. He called theories of possible
foul play “very serious” and the circumstances of Foster’s death “very
fishy.” But there were five official investigations into
Foster’s death, conducted by professional investigators, forensic experts,
psychologists, doctors and independent prosecutors with unlimited resources.
The fifth probe lasted three years — and still found nothing. We provided
a guide to the five investigations and their findings.
Sorry, Donald Trump, the Trump University
judge was just following the law
Trump has
blasted U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel for having an “inherent conflict
of interest” in the Trump University fraud case because of his Mexican heritage
and Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular,
Trump points to Curiel’s use of a procedural move — a summary judgment — as
evidence. But it is clear that Curiel made a straightforward legal judgment as
to whether two sides agreed or disagreed on facts, and whether those should be
presented to a jury. Under the law, he had little choice in his ruling. Trump
also overlooks that Curiel, in his November 2015 ruling, did grant him partial
summary judgment.
The End…….so
far
Copyright
G.Ater 2016
Comments
Post a Comment