Fact-checking Trump’s knocks at Obama in his Fox town hall

President Trump’s virtual town hall on Fox News on May 3 sounded like an oral reading of our Trump database of false or misleading claims (or our upcoming book, “Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth,” being published June 2 by Scribner). There were so many old chestnuts, from his false claims about NATO spending to his tale that the United States has spent $8 trillion on Middle East wars to his ahistorical bragging that he had built the greatest economy in the history of the world.

But the president’s favorite foil is his predecessor, Barack Obama. Anything Obama did is inherently suspect, in Trump’s telling, and anything Trump has done is surely superior.

We’ve also covered many of these in the past, such as his attacks on Obama’s successful handling of the swine flu pandemic. But here are two repeated claims that we have not had the opportunity to unravel previously. We will deal with them quickly in this roundup, so we won’t be awarding Pinocchios. Continue reading.