Tag: Trump lies

8 Suspect Claims From the Trump-Putin News Conference

The following article by Linda Qiu was posted on the New York Times website July 16, 2018:

“My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.” — Donald Trump

This is disputed.

Those who accused Russia of seeking to influence the 2016 election include the United States intelligence community, Democratic lawmakers and most Republican lawmakers, technology companies like Google and Facebook, and even top members of Mr. Trump’s administration.

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, indicted 13 Russians and three companies in February, accusing them of posing as American activists and manipulating the election. On Friday, he charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

View the complete article on the New York Times website here.

After a stunning news conference, there’s a newly crucial job for the American press

The following article by Margaret Sullivan was posted on the Washington Post website July 16, 2018:

Here are the full remarks and responses to questions from President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a news conference on July 16 in Helsinki. (The Washington Post)

It was press conference as national nightmare, summed up succinctly by the BBC on its home page minutes later with this headline: “Trump Sides With Russia Against FBI.”

And though Monday’s joint Trump-Putin post-summit appearance in Helsinki was a news conference — with some admirably tough questions from two experienced wire-service reporters — it also was a moment in which no media interpretation was really necessary.

Everything was right out there in the open. Believe your eyes and ears.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

Trump trashed Mueller probe even though he knew indictments were imminent

The following article by Erick Boehlert was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 13, 2018:

Credit: Mark Wilson, Getty Images

Not even a new round indictments of Russian intelligence officials will move Trump off his anti-DOJ rhetoric.

Despite being fully briefed that 12 members of Russia’s military intelligence agency would soon be indicted for hacking Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign, Trump still denounced U.S. law enforcement’s pursuit of the case as a “witch hunt” while he was overseas this week.

“I think I would have a very good relationship with Putin if we spend time together. After watching the rigged witch-hunt yesterday, I think it really hurts our country and our relationship with Russia,” he said Friday during his joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

He was referring to Thursday’s circus-like hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, where Republicans once against tried — and failed — to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

View the complete post on the ShareBlue.com website here.

North Korea exposes Trump lie by ditching meeting on war hero remains

The following article by Tommy Christopher was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 12, 2018:

Credit: Markus Schreiber, AP Photos

The Kim regime just showed how much Trump’s central boast about his North Korea ‘deal’ is a lie.

Since his embarrassing summit with Kim Jong Un, Trump has been going around bragging that North Korea has “already” returned the remains of Korean War casualties.

But North Korea exposed that lie by skipping a meeting meant to begin that process.

According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, North Korean officials failed to show up for a meeting with American officials on Thursday.

View the original article on the ShareBlue.com website here.

French president debunks Trump’s latest whopper about NATO allies

The following article by Eric Boehlert was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 12, 2018:

Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP Photo

Trump tried to take credit for an agreement that already existed, and French president Emmanuel Macron immediately called him out for lying.

Having concocted a NATO crisis during the alliance’s annual meeting this week, Trump announced that he had magically solved a problem he himself created.

He’s lying, of course.

On Wednesday, Trump berated America’s longtime allies by insisting the U.S. has been “taken advantage of” by other members of the NATO alliance because they spend less than the U.S. does on military defense.

View the complete article on the ShareBlue.com website here.

Many fact checks later, President Trump is (still) botching NATO spending By Meg Kelly July 13

The following article by Meg Kelly was posted on the Washington Post website July 13, 2018:

President Trump (still) consistently misstates his impact on NATO’s budget and how that budget works. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

The Fact Checker first reviewed a series of inaccurate statements that then-candidate Donald Trump made about the funding of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, back in March 2016. Over two and a half years and many Pinocchios later, Trump still doesn’t seem to understand how NATO works.

He tweeted and commented on defense spending while browbeating NATO allies about supposed unpaid debts at the this year’s annual summit. But the numbers he used were often misleading or just plain wrong. As a reader service, we looked into six claims the president just couldn’t and hasn’t stopped repeating.

“Prior to last year where I attended my first meeting, it was going down, the amount of money being spent by countries was going down and down very substantially, and now it’s going up very substantially … I let them know last year, in a less firm manner, but pretty firm, and they raised an additional $33 billion. … [NATO is] richer than it ever was.” — in a news conference, on July 12

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wrote, “The upswing in NATO defense spending over the past year and a half demonstrates that [President Trump’s] efforts are making a difference.” Yet, they don’t match the president’s boasts of success. Member countries have been spending more on their defense since 2014. Excluding the U.S., members have collectively increased defense spending by $11.4 billion over the past year, when adjusted for inflation and using 2010 prices and exchange rates. (Trump could be referencing the same calculation in today’s dollars, which comes to $34 billion.)

Anatomy of a Trump rally: 76 percent of claims are false, misleading or lacking evidence

The following article by Salvador RIzzo and Meg Kelly was posted on the Washington Post website July 10, 2018:

President Trump’s campaign style rally on July 5 was littered with claims that are false, misleading or lack evidence. (Meg Kelly /The Washington Post)

We’re doing something new: analyzing every factual claim from President Trump’s campaign rally in Montana on Thursday.

According to The Fact Checker’s database, the president had made 3,251 false or misleading claims at the end of May, and his average daily rate was climbing.

This side of Trump really comes alive during campaign rallies, so we wanted to do the math and find out whether the president speaks more fictions or facts in front of his crowds.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

Fact-checking President Trump’s numbers on the ‘human toll of illegal immigration’

The following article by Meg Kelly was posted on the Washington Post website July 6, 2018:

The president has made this claim for over two years — but there is still no evidence. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

“So here are just a few statistics on the human toll of illegal immigration. According to a 2011 government report, the arrests attached to the criminal alien population included an estimated 25,000 people for homicide, 42,000 for robbery, nearly 70,000 for sex offenses, and nearly 15,000 for kidnapping. In Texas alone, within the last seven years, more than a quarter-million criminal aliens have been arrested and charged with over 600,000 criminal offenses. … Sixty-three thousand Americans since 9/11 have been killed by illegal aliens. This isn’t a problem that’s going away; it’s getting bigger.”
— President Trump, remarks at the White House, June 22, 2018

In the midst of uproar over his administration’s family separation policy, President Trump highlighted the stories of families who have been “permanently separated” because a loved one was killed by an undocumented immigrant. This theme is nothing new. The president has claimed without evidence that undocumented immigrants bring “tremendous crime” since he announced he was running for office.

We’ve looked at the overarching claim here, here and here — but what caught our eye in these comments were all the specific numbers Trump used. It’s rare for the president support his case with statistics.

View the full article on the Washington Post website here.

In a Fox-Inspired Tweetstorm, Trump Offers a Medley of Falsehoods and Misstatements Image

The following article by Julie Hirschfeld Davis was posted on the New York Times website July 3, 2018:

President Trump boarded Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base on Tuesday. Credit: Doug Mills The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The string of insults, misstatements, exaggerations and outright falsehoods emanating from the White House began just after sunrise.

In the space of a few hours, President Trump on Tuesday took credit for averting a war with North Korea, charged without proof that President Barack Obama had secretly granted citizenship to thousands of Iranians as part of nuclear disarmament negotiations and appeared to suggest that customers of the motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson were psychic.

He called a sitting congresswoman “crazy” and “corrupt.” He branded the National Security Agency’s handling of millions of telephone call records “a disgrace” — and suggested it was connected to the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 elections.

View the full article on the New York Times website here.

Trump falsely claims Obama gave citizenship to 2,500 Iranians during nuclear deal talks

The following article by Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website July 4, 2018:

Credit: Getty Images

“Just out that the Obama Administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians – including to government officials. How big (and bad) is that?”
— President Trump, in a tweet, July 3, 2018

This tweet packs a punch: Trump is suggesting that President Barack Obama’s administration sweetened the Iran nuclear deal by granting U.S. citizenship to 2,500 Iranians, including government officials.

Trump has long derided the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But this is a new line of criticism, coming nearly two months after Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the deal.

View the full article on the Washington Post website here.