Donald Trump’s Attacks During Raucous Debate Founded on Falsehoods

Foiled Hostile Takeover in St. Louis: Donald Trump tried to overwhelm the debate by a nonstop barrage of attacks against Hillary Clinton © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Foiled Hostile Takeover in St. Louis: Donald Trump tried to overwhelm the debate by a nonstop barrage of attacks against Hillary Clinton © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

From his wild exaggerations to dangerous falsehoods, Donald Trump continued his pattern of bold-faced lying to millions of viewers during the second Presidential Debate, in St. Louis, October 9 – that is when you could get him to put two sentences together, and not wander off or make utterly outrageous statements. Here are just some of the independent reviews of Trump’s untrue statements on topics including taxes, foreign policy, his own offensive comments and more, compiled by the Hillary for America campaign. We’ve already had a president who lacked any inclination to find out facts, and who lied us into a war.

Trump’s Lies About His Own Offensive Comments to Women:

AP: “Donald Trump, asked whether his early morning tweets directing people to check out a sex tape showed discipline, said: ‘It wasn’t ‘check out a sex tape.’’ THE FACTS: Wrong. Trump told his 12.2 million Twitter followers to check out a sex tape as he criticized a former Miss Universe.”

CNN: “Trump: I didn’t say ‘check out the sex tape’ VERDICT: FALSE”

FactCheck.org: “Trump said he never tweeted ‘check out a sex tape’ in the wee hours of the morning a few days after the first presidential debate. That’s false — he did.”

Huffington Post: “During Debate, Trump Denies Telling People To Check Out A Sex Tape On Twitter. Yeah, well, he literally directed people to check out a sex tape on Twitter.”

NPR: “[DJT:]  I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women that I do. [FACT CHECK:] Trump has had many occasions to make this claim over the course of the campaign, dating back to his tense interaction with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly during the first Republican primary debate in Cleveland in August 2015, when Kelly reminded him of his history of offensive comments about women. Here is a partial list compiled by PBS.”

Politifact: “Trump said the tweet he sent out ‘wasn’t saying, ‘check out a sex tape’’  but rather to ‘just take a look at’ Machado’s background. That’s ridiculous. While Trump did urge his Twitter followers to check out Machado’s ‘past,’ he literally wrote ‘check out sex tape’ in the tweet. We rate his statement Pants on Fire!”

NPR: “[TRUMP:] No I didn’t say that at all. [FACT CHECK:] He did say that.The exact words were, ‘You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.””
Trump’s Lies About the Economy & Taxes:

Huffington Post: “Trump’s $20 Trillion Debt Line Is Ridiculous”

NPR: “[DJT:] We have no growth in this country. There is no growth. [FACT CHECKER:] The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international economic organization, evaluated the U.S. economy this summer and concluded: ‘Seven years after the financial crisis, the US economy has rebounded: output has surpassed its pre-crisis peak by 10%, robust private-sector employment gains have sharply reduced unemployment, fiscal sustainability has been largely restored and corporate profits are high.’”

AP: “Trump wrong on Clinton tax claim… DONALD TRUMP: ‘She is raising your taxes, and I am lowering your taxes. …She’s raising everybody’s taxes massively.’ HILLARY CLINTON: ‘He would end up raising taxes on middle-class families’ THE FACTS: Clinton is not raising taxes on ‘everybody.’ Nearly all of Hillary Clinton’s proposed tax increases would affect the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.”

Buzzfeed Reporter: “Trump says AGAIN that the US has the highest taxes in the world. That’s…untrue.

FactCheck.org: “Trump said of Clinton’s plan, ‘She is raising everybody’s taxes massively.’ Everybody? No. Analyses by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and the pro-business Tax Foundation both concluded that almost all of the tax increases proposed by Clinton would fall on the top 10 percent of taxpayers. Hardest hit would be the less than 0.1 percent of taxpayers who earn more than $5 million per year.”

Huffington Post: “Note To Trump: This Is How The Senate Works.Trump seems to misunderstand how the Senate works. He accused Clinton of not doing enough to get rid of the carried interest loophole when she was a senator. Clinton noted that she has been in favor of getting rid it for years.”

Huffington Post: “Trump Says He’ll Get Rid Of A Wall Street Loophole. His Tax Plan Says He Won’t.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump admitted that he used a $916 million loss declared on his 1995 tax returns to avoid paying federal income taxes. But he refused to say how many years he paid no income tax and simultaneously claimed to have paid a ‘tremendous’ amount of taxes. More questions than answers.

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said that growth is “down to 1 percent” and that taxes in the United States are the “highest in the world” Wrong.

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said he would reduce the tax rate on business income to 15 percent. Not exactly.”

Washington Post: “Fact Check: IRS audit doesn’t prohibit Trump from releasing taxes”

Washington Post: “Fact Check: Trump’s wrong on the U.S. being the highest taxed nation”

Trump’s Lies About The Affordable Care Act:

AP: “Trump overstates cost of Obama’s health plan. DONALD TRUMP: Obamacare ‘is going to be one of the biggest line items very shortly.’ THE FACTS: Trump vastly exaggerates the cost of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The cost of the coverage expansion in Obama’s health care law is nowhere near what the government spends on Medicare and Medicaid, for example.”

FactCheck.org: “He also cherry-picked high proposed premium increases in the exchanges, and he said that the law should be replaced with ‘something absolutely much less expensive,’ when repealing the law is expected to increase federal deficits.”

FactCheck.org: “Finally, Trump said that the ACA is ‘unbelievably expensive for our country. … We have to repeal it and replace it with something absolutely much less expensive.’ But the CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation’s latest estimates on the impact of repealing the law find doing away with it would likely increase federal deficits over the 2016-2025 time period.”

Trump’s Lies About Hillary Clinton and Health Care:

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said that Mrs. Clinton “wants to go to a single-payer plan” like the health care system in Canada. Untrue.

NPR: “[DJT:] But she wants to go to single-payer. [FACT CHECKER:] Clinton does not support single-payer. She supports expanding Medicare to people 55 and over, but has not come out in support of a complete overhaul of the health system so that it would be more like Canada or many European health systems.”

Politifact: “Trump says Clinton ‘wants to go to a single-payer plan’ for health care. She has consistently said she would fight efforts to repeal Obamacare and would try to improve it. She said she wants a public option to be ‘possible’ but she has not called for moving to a system of only single payer. Clinton has not called for a single-payer plan. At times, she has praised the health care systems of other countries that have a single-payer plan, but she has not advocated that plan for the United States. We rate Trump’s claim False.”

AP: “Trump wrong on Clinton and health care. DONALD TRUMP: ‘She (Clinton) wants to go to a single-payer plan, which would be a disaster…she wants to go to single-payer, which means the government basically rules everything.’ THE FACTS: It’s Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — not Clinton — who supports a Canada-style government-run health care system.”

Buzzfeed: “Trump falsely claims Clinton is proposing Canada-style healthcare system.”

FactCheck.org: “Trump used an old GOP scare tactic, wrongly claiming that Clinton wanted to implement a government-run, ‘single-payer,’ health care system, like Canada’s… Clinton supports making Medicare available to those over age 55, and creating a ‘public option,’ or a federal insurance plan, that would compete with private plans on the ACA exchanges. She hasn’t called for a single-payer system.”

Trump’s Lies About Immigration:

Buzzfeed: “Donald Trump claimed that the US doesn’t have borders. ‘We’re going to have borders on our country that we don’t have now,’ Trump said. But enforcement along the US-Mexico border has never been higher.There are currently about 21,000 agents patrolling more than 6,000 miles of the nation’s borders.”

CBS News: “TRUMP: ‘I understand the border. She doesn’t. She wants amnesty for everybody.’… It is not true that Clinton supports ‘amnesty for everybody,’ but she does want to make it easier for people who came here illegally to stay by passing legislation with a path to citizenship.”

Huffington Post: “Trump’s Muslim Ban Is Still On His Website”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump says Mrs. Clinton wants “amnesty for everybody, come on in, come on over.” Not her position.”

NPR: “[DJT:]  […] we are letting people into this country that are going to cause problems and crime like you’ve never seen. We’re also leading drugs for through our southern border at a record clip. At a record clip and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen. [FACT CHECKER:] Apprehensions at the Southwest border—a proxy for attempted crossings—have dropped by 79 percent from the peak in 2000. The Pew Research Center reports more Mexicans left the US than entered between 2009 and 2014.”

NPR: “[DJT:] ICE just endorsed me. They’ve never endorsed a  presidential candidate. [FACT CHECKER:] The federal bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not make an endorsement. A union of immigration and customs officers voted to endorse Trump.”

Washington Post: “Trump overstates, by a lot, when he said Syrian refugees are coming to the United States by the “hundreds of thousands.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said we have hundreds of thousands of people pouring into the United States from places like Syria, and we have no idea who they are. Way off.

Buzzfeed: “Trump’s said the US took in ‘tens of thousands’ of Syrian refugees.That is not accurate.

CBS News: “Donald Trump says ‘tens of thousands’ of people from Syria are coming to the U.S. TRUMP STATEMENT: ‘We are going to areas like Syria, where they’re coming in by the tens of thousands.’ FACT CHECK: False.”

Trump’s Lies About Muslims and Terrorism:

Buzzfeed: “Trump falsely claimed that Muslims in the United States are not reporting terror plots to the authorities. Trump cited San Bernardino where he said there were ‘bombs on the floor’ of the suspects’ apartment. There has never been any evidence that this was the case.”

CBS News: “Donald Trump claims that ‘many people’ saw bombs at the apartment of the San Bernardino shooters. TRUMP STATEMENT: ‘We have to be sure that Muslims come in and report when they see something going on. When they see hatred going on, they have to report it. As an example: San Bernardino, many people saw the bombs all over the apartment of the two people that killed 14 and wounded many, many people.’ FACT CHECK: False. To this day, no one has said they’ve seen bombs in the apartment of the San Bernardino shooters’ apartment.”

CBS News: “Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton will not say the phrase ‘radical Islam.’ TRUMP STATEMENT: ‘When there’s a problem, you have to state what the problem is or at least say the name. She won’t say the name and President Obama won’t say the name.’ FACT CHECK: False. Clinton used the term in June during an interview on NBC News’ ‘Today Show.’”

CNN: “Trump: ‘Many people saw the bombs all over the apartment’ VERDICT: FALSE”

FactCheck.org: “In stressing that Muslims need to notify the police of wrongdoing in their communities, Trump claimed without evidence that ‘many people saw the bombs all over the apartment of the two people that killed 14 and wounded many, many people’ in San Bernardino last year.”

Huffington Post: “Fact Check: Trump’s Claim That ‘Many People Saw The Bombs’ In San Bernardino Is False”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said Mrs. Clinton has never used the phrase ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ Just flat wrong.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said ‘many people saw’ bombs all over the apartment of a couple who committed the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. Not true.”

Politifact: “Trump said of Clinton, ‘These are radical Islamic terrorists and she won’t even mention the word.’ After the Orlando shooting, Clinton said she had no problem saying ‘radical Islamism’ which is similar but not the same as ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ She has also said that leaders should be careful not to demonize the religion of Islam, and that the United States needs specific strategies to fight ISIS. We rate this claim Mostly False.”

Washington Post: “Fact Check: Trump’s false claim on San Bernardino”

Huffington Post: “Don’t Believe Trump: No Syrian Refugees In The U.S. Have Been Linked To Terror”

Trump’s Lies About the Iraq War:

AP: “DONALD TRUMP: ‘I would not have had our troops in Iraq.’ Trump has repeatedly said in the campaign he opposed the Iraq War before it started. But the facts are clear: He did not.”

Buzzfeed: “Trump: ‘I was against the war in Iraq.’ No. He wasn’t.”

CBS News: “Donald Trump says he was against the war in Iraq, and that suggestions he was not have been debunked. TRUMP STATEMENT: ‘I was against the war in Iraq,’ Trump said, as he did in the first debate with Clinton. ‘It has not been debunked.’ FACT CHECK: False and false.

CNN: “Trump: ‘I would not have had our people in Iraq.’ VERDICT: FALSE”

CNN: “Trump: My opposition to the Iraq War “has not been debunked”VERDICT: FALSE”

FactCheck.org: “And finally Trump pins too much blame for the rise in ISIS — whose origin dates back to the Bush administration — on the troop withdrawal…”

Huffington Post: “Donald Trump Continues To Lie About The Iraq War”

FactCheck.org: “Trump repeated that he ‘was against the war in Iraq’ and claimed that this ‘has not been debunked.’ But we have found no evidence that he was against the Iraq War before it began.”

Washington Post: “Fact Check: Yes, Trump’s Iraq War claim has been debunked.”

NPR: “[DJT]: I was against the war in Iraq. [FACT CHECKER:] There is no evidence to support this claim.”

Trump’s Lies About Libya:

FactCheck.org: “Trump conveniently leaves out that he posted a YouTube video in February 2011 voicing support for U.S. intervention in Libya to remove Moammar Gadhafi from power, and that he told CNN in a 2007 interview that the U.S. should ‘declare victory [in Iraq] and leave … [T]his is a total catastrophe and you might as well get out now, because you just are wasting time.’”

FactCheck.org: “It’s been half a year, and Trump is still making the false claim that ‘ISIS has a good chunk’ of Libyan oil fields. We first flagged this statement in April, when an expert on Libya’s oil operations told us there’s no evidence that the Islamic State has control of any oil fields in that country.”

Washington Post: “Fact Check: Trump’s wrong on ISIS and Libyan oil”

AP: “Trump wrong that IS is taking Libyan oil. DONALD TRUMP: ‘ISIS has a good chunk of their oil,’ referring to Libya. THE FACTS: Not quite. While it is true that the Islamic State group has targeted Libya’s oil fields and has aspired to grab some of the country’s oil resources, as it did in Syria, there is no evidence that it is reaping any revenue from Libyan oil. The prospect of the extremist group seizing Libyan oil is one reason the U.S. has conducted limited airstrikes against the Islamic State in Libya, where it now has a very small presence.”

FactCheck.org: “Trump said that ‘Ambassador [Chris] Stevens sent 600 requests for help’ before he was killed in an attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012. But as the Washington Post Fact Checker reported, not all 600 came from Stevens, nor were they all requests for security upgrades, as it may have appeared to those watching or listening to the debate.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said Clinton ignored 600 requests for increased security from J. Christopher Stevens, the ambassador to Libya, and only communicated with Sidney Blumenthal. Extremely misleading”

Washington Post: “THE FACT CHECKER | Trump made a ludicrous claimthat U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens made 600 requests for help before he perished in the attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi.”

Huffington Post: “Clinton refused to answer Stevens’ calls for help, Trump claimed…  However, repeated GOP-led investigations into the Benghazi incident have found no evidence to blame Clinton for the deaths of Stevens and three other Americans there in a 2012 attack.”

Lies About Iran:

CBS News: “Donald Trump claimed that the Iran nuclear deal meant the United States paid Iran $150 billion. TRUMP STATEMENT: ‘When I look at the Iran deal and how bad it is for us, it’s a one-sided transaction where we’re giving back $150 billion dollars to a terrorist state.’ FACT CHECK: False.

CNN: “Trump says US is giving $150 billion to Iran REALITY CHECK: FALSE”

Washington Post: “Fact Check: Trump’s claim that Iran got $150 billion from the United States. THE FACTS: Trump always makes it sound like this is U.S. taxpayer money — and he always uses a too-high estimate.”

Trump’s Lies About Syria:

Buzzfeed: “Trump falsely declared that ‘Aleppo has already fallen.’”

Huffington Post: “Meanwhile, he added, only Assad’s coalition is fighting ISIS.In fact, Assad and his allies have focused on targeting civilians opposed to his rule and rebels who remain embedded among them ― allowing extremist militants to spread for years and control much of the country.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump accused Mrs. Clinton of being there for President Obama’s “line in the sand” in Syria. She said she wasn’t. Trump is wrong.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said Syria, Russia and Iran are fighting the Islamic State. Mostly misleading.”

NPR: “[DJT:] I think that it basically has fallen. OK? It basically has fallen. [FACT CHECKER:] Aleppo has not fallen to the Syrian government.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said that the United States signed a “peace treaty” to bring an end to the civil war in Syria. Not even close.”

Trump’s Lies About Russia:

Huffington Post: “Trump said he has no special ties to Russia, despite his campaign’s multiple ties to the country’s business and his stated admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.”

NPR: “[TRUMP:] I don’t deal there and no businesses there have no loans from Russia. [FACT CHECKER:] Trump may not have current business ties with Russia, but he has in fact tried to engage his business interests with Russia since the 1980’s.”

Buzzfeed Reporter: “Trump just said ‘we don’t know if it is the Russians doing the hacking.’ Ummm… no.”

NPR: [DJT:]  But I notice anytime anything wrong happens they like to say the Russians we don’t know if it’s Russian. [FACT CHECKER:] The U.S. intelligence community and Department of Homeland Security said Friday that Russia is behind this year’s campaign of hacks and the release of information related to the 2016 campaign.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump said “maybe there is no hacking,” in response to Mrs. Clinton’s claim that Russians are engaged in an unprecedented effort to influence the election — on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Hacking is endemic.”

Trump’s Lies About Clinton’s Emails:

FactCheck.org: “Trump twisted the facts when he directly addressed Clinton about her use of a private email system while secretary of state. ‘You get a subpoena and after getting the subpoena you delete 33,000 emails. And then you acid wash them — or bleach them, as you would say — a very expensive process,’ Trump said…. there is no evidence that Clinton knew that the emails were deleted after the subpoena was issued.”

Trump’s Lies About Birtherism:

FactCheck.org: “Trump is wrong about Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager. Solis Doyle has said that a ‘rogue volunteer coordinator’ in Iowa was immediately fired when the campaign found out that the aide forwarded an email promoting the birther conspiracy.”

FactCheck.org: “Trump: ‘Sidney Blumenthal — he’s another real winner that you have — and he’s the one that got this started’ As for Blumenthal, he has denied a claim made by McClatchy’s former bureau chief James Asher that Blumenthal, a senior adviser to Clinton’s 2008 campaign, encouraged McClatchy to chase the story of Obama’s birth… Other than that, there is no clear evidence to support Asher’s account.”

NPR: “[TRUMP:] Well, you owe the president an apology because, as you know very well, your campaign Sidney Blumenthal, he’s another real winner that you have. And he’s the one who got this started along with your campaign manager and they were on television just two weeks ago he was saying likely that. [FACT CHECKER:] We have fact-checked Trump’s birther claims previously (several times) online and on air. […]  As we noted, ‘There’s a big difference between what fringe supporters of Clinton said at the time, who were disavowed by the candidate, and the campaign Trump himself undertook in the subsequent years.’”