Tag: Trump lies

President Trump and truth: Another difficult week

The following article by Dan Balz was posted on the Washington Post website April 7, 2018:

President Trump on April 5 opened a roundtable on fiscal policy in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., with unscripted remarks about immigration and voter fraud. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

President Trump’s capacity to make things up is one of the defining features of his presidency. His loose adherence to the truth, when it suits his political purposes, seems to know few limits.

The president was at a roundtable discussion in West Virginia on Thursday for an event designed to highlight the new tax law, which Republicans are counting on to hold down expected losses in the November midterm elections. Continue reading “President Trump and truth: Another difficult week”

White House report uses fuzzy logic to tout ‘insurer profitability’ in Obamacare

The following article by by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website April 6, 2018:

The president misleadingly correlates insurance company’s rising stock prices to profits related to Obamacare, but they are not one in the same. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

“Health insurer profitability in the individual market has risen due to substantial premium increases, government premium tax credits that pay for those premium increases, and the large, government-funded, Medicaid expansion. Since ACA implementation on January 1, 2014, health insurance stocks outperformed the S&P 500 by 106 percent.”
— executive summary, “The Profitability of Health Insurance Companies,” White House Council of Economic Advisers, March 2018

This fact check has been updated. Continue reading “White House report uses fuzzy logic to tout ‘insurer profitability’ in Obamacare”

Trump’s easy campaign promises run into the difficulties of reality

The following article by Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker was posted on the Washington Post website April 4, 2018:

On April 3, President Trump alleged China forged a $500 billion trade deficit with the U.S., just days after the two countries hit each other with tariffs. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

An emboldened President Trump is discovering that the policies he once described as easy fixes for the nation are a lot more complicated in reality — creating backlash among allies, frustrating supporters and threatening the pocketbooks of many farming communities that helped get him elected.

Freed from the caution of former advisers, Trump has spent recent weeks returning to the gut-level basics that got him elected: tough talk on China, a promise of an immigration crackdown and an isolationist approach to national security. Continue reading “Trump’s easy campaign promises run into the difficulties of reality”

A guide to President Trump’s latest round of fact-challenged tweets

The following article by Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website April 3, 2018:

President Trump’s position on DACA has taken several twists and turns over the years. (Meg Kelly, Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

President Trump’s tweetstorms generally require context. He often appears to be reacting in the moment to something he watched on television. If you are not a cable junkie, some of the president’s Twitter comments may appear obscure or puzzling.

Moreover, the source of the president’s information — usually opinionated Fox News programming — often has the facts wrong or is confused. That adds yet another layer of complexity to the president’s missives. Here’s the guide to the president’s Monday morning outrage. Continue reading “A guide to President Trump’s latest round of fact-challenged tweets”

Trump accuses Amazon of ‘Post Office scam,’ falsely says The Post is company’s lobbyist

The following article by Philip Rucker was posted on the Washington Post website March 31, 2018:

The president regularly goes after the online retail giant, but his claims aren’t always valid. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump escalated his assault on Amazon.com on Saturday, accusing the online retail giant of a “Post Office scam” and falsely stating that The Washington Post operates as a lobbyist for Amazon.

In a pair of morning tweets sent during his drive from his Mar-a-Lago estate to the nearby Trump International Golf Club, the president argued that Amazon costs the U.S. Postal Service billions of dollars in potential revenue. Continue reading “Trump accuses Amazon of ‘Post Office scam,’ falsely says The Post is company’s lobbyist”

President Trump’s claim that China caused 60,000 U.S. factories to close

The following article by Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website March 26, 2018:

The president has harsh words about trade imbalances, but his numbers don’t always add up. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

“We’ve lost, over a fairly short period of time, 60,000 factories in our country — closed, shuttered, gone. Six million jobs, at least, gone.”
— President Trump, in remarks at the White House announcing tariffs on Chinese imports, March 22, 2018

Long before he was president, Donald Trump complained that China was “taking all our jobs.” Now, with the executive branch at his command, Trump is getting even with a plan to impose $50 billion to $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports. Continue reading “President Trump’s claim that China caused 60,000 U.S. factories to close”

President Trump’s claim that drug dealers who kill ‘thousands’ just get 30 days in jail

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website March 23, 2018:

Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

“Some of these drug dealers will kill thousands of people during their lifetime — thousands of people — and destroy many more lives than that. But they will kill thousands of people during their lifetime, and they’ll get caught and they’ll get 30 days in jail. Or they’ll go away for a year, or they’ll be fined. And yet, if you kill one person, you get the death penalty or you go to jail for life.”
— President Trump, remarks on combating the opioid crisis, March 19

“A drug dealer will kill 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 people, during the course of his or her life. … Thousands of people are killed, or their lives are destroyed, their families are destroyed. So you can kill thousands of people and go to jail for 30 days. They catch a drug dealer, they don’t even put him in jail. … Think of it: You kill 5,000 people with drugs, because you’re smuggling them in and you’re making a lot of money and people are dying, and they don’t even put you in jail, they don’t do anything. But you might get 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.”
— Trump, remarks at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, March 10 Continue reading “President Trump’s claim that drug dealers who kill ‘thousands’ just get 30 days in jail”

President Trump’s claim that California has the ‘highest taxes in the United States’

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website March 22, 2018:

It depends. California’s income tax has the highest tax on top earners in the country, but the state’s property taxes are below average. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

“I think Governor [Jerry] Brown’s done a very poor job running California. They have the highest taxes in the United States. … Hey, I have property in California, I will say. I don’t think too much about my property anymore but I have great property in California. The taxes are way, way out of whack and people are going to start to move pretty soon …. [T]he taxes are double and triple what they should be. And everybody that lives in California, they know it.”
— President Trump, remarks to reporters while touring prototypes of the wall he wants along the southern border, near San Diego, March 13, 2018

A number of readers from California wrote to express outrage at the president’s remarks about the state’s taxes when he visited the state. In particular, they noted that he mentioned property that he owns in the state and yet complained “the taxes are way, way out of whack … double and triple what they should be.” Continue reading “President Trump’s claim that California has the ‘highest taxes in the United States’”

Trump just accused Comey of lying under oath. (He misquoted ‘Fox & Friends’ to do it.)

Former FBI director James B. Comey. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)

The following article by Avi Selk was posted on the Washington Post website March 18, 2018:

President Trump continued on Sunday to attack federal law enforcement agencies investigating his 2016 campaign, tweeting that former FBI director James B. Comey had “clearly” lied under oath in testimony before a Senate committee last year.

The president (not for the first time) cited “Fox & Friends” as evidence for his claim. But Trump misrepresented what was said on Sunday’s talk show — and misquoted the Senate hearing at which Comey testified. Continue reading “Trump just accused Comey of lying under oath. (He misquoted ‘Fox & Friends’ to do it.)”

Fact-checking Trump’s error-filled tweetstorm about the Mueller probe

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website March 18, 2018:

President Trump continues to insist the Democrats are responsible for any story relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Video: Meg Kelly/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

In a series of tweets March 17 and 18, President Trump made a number of inaccurate or misleading statements about the investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. As a reader service, here’s a quick guide to his claims. Continue reading “Fact-checking Trump’s error-filled tweetstorm about the Mueller probe”