Tag Archives: Trump lies

Coronavirus Pandemic, Democrats 2020, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Joe Biden

Biden: Trump’s 152 Covid-19 Lies & Counting, Causing Loss of Lives, Livehoods

Refrigerator truck serves as mobile morgue outside New York City hospital in March 2020. Biden cites 152 lies (and counting) Trump has made about the coronavirus pandemic, and faults Trump for US having 25 percent of the COVID-19 cases and deaths, and deeper, longer economic collapse than other Industrialized nations. The coronavirus has already hit over 5 million Americans, killed nearly 170,000, and put 36 million out of work © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com.

BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT REPORT

TO:              Interested Parties
FROM:       Kate Bedingfield, Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director
RE:              President Trump’s Coronavirus Lies: 152 and Counting
DATE:        August 14, 2020

 
As Vice President Biden has said many times, the American people can face any challenge if you simply tell them the truth, but from the very beginning of this crisis President Trump has refused to be honest with the American people about the scope of the challenge that we face with COVID-19, or the steps needed to stop it, save lives, and get our country back to work.
 
Simply put, Trump has regularly lied to the American people on matters of life-and-death. This report details over 150 instances of Trump’s misleading claims or outright mistruths. There are undoubtedly more. As our country crosses the grim milestone of five million coronavirus cases, it shows the clear cost to the American people of his dishonesty.
 
From the outset, President Trump has lied by downplaying the threat posed by COVID-19, claiming that “one day, like a miracle, it will disappear” — repeating Chinese Communist Party propaganda about the virus instead of listening to the warnings being raised by our government’s leading public health experts and the intelligence community. Many months later, Trump has repeatedly returned to this same lie even as cases spike and America faces the worst outbreak among any advanced economy .
 
Trump has lied by attacking the medical experts who should be guiding our response — launching personal attacks at Dr. Fauci, twisting the advice being provided by the top public health experts in America, and constantly undermining guidance from them on the steps we must take to get COVID-19 under control. Unfortunately for Trump, poll after poll shows that the American people overwhelmingly trust the experts like Dr. Fauci over him.
 
Similarly, President Trump has misled the American people by hawking unproven, and possibly dangerous, treatments for the coronavirus even as he spent months dismissing and even attacking common sense steps to slow the spread of the virus, including wearing a mask and practicing social distancing.
 
We can, and we must, do better than Donald Trump’s lies if we want to stop COVID-19. At every step of this crisis, Trump’s failed leadership has produced tragic results, with more than 160,000 Americans dead, over five million infected, and our economy reeling from the biggest contraction in recorded history.
 
To beat this virus, we need a President who will level with the American people and tell them the truth about the challenges we face, and how to overcome them. Vice President Biden knows that if we’re going to beat this virus, we need to be honest with the American people — we need a President who leads by example, not someone who shirks responsibility and lies constantly in an attempt to cover up for his own failures.
 
That’s why Vice President Biden has laid out a bold plan to combat this virus — starting by listening to the experts, telling the truth about what it will take to overcome this scourge, and then mobilizing our country to get it done. That’s how we’ve always come together as one America, united in common purpose, to face the greatest challenges that have faced our nation, and that’s exactly how we’re going to beat COVID-19.
 
TRUMP’S COVID-19 LIES:
 
A. Minimizing the Threat of the Virus:

  1. Trump claimed that the threat of coronavirus to the U.S. was a Democrat political hoax.
  2. Trump repeatedly undersold the threat of the virus and claimed his administration was “ahead” of it.
  3. Trump claimed the media was exaggerating the threat of coronavirus.
  4. Trump repeatedly claimed that the virus would simply “go away.”
  5. Trump claimed that warmer weather weakens the virus, and that it would go away by April, based on information given to him by President Xi.
  6. In mid-April, Trump claimed that some states did not have “any problem” with coronavirus.
  7. In July, Trump claimed that “large portions” of the U.S. are “corona-free.”
  8. Trump repeatedly implied the virus was no more serious than the seasonal flu.
  9. Trump baselessly asserted that the coronavirus mortality rate calculated by the WHO is incorrect.
  10. Trump claimed that the virus is 99% harmless.
  11. In mid-June, Trump claimed that the virus was “dying out” and “leaving.”
  12. Trump has downplayed recent surges as “flames” that could easily be “put out.”
  13. Trump has repeatedly understated the crisis in Florida. 
  14. Trump implies that the virus does not harm young people and that children are “virtually immune.”
  15. Trump said that coronavirus could be referred to as simply “a flu” or “a germ,” and that no one really knows what to call it.
  16. Trump claimed that one of the COVID-19 death projections did not account for mitigation measures, like social distancing.
  17. Trump tried to differentiate the Spanish influenza from the current pandemic by claiming that the mortality rate among those infected was 50%.
  18. Trump claimed that health experts, including Dr. Fauci, said coronavirus was not a problem in February.
  19. Trump claimed that “nobody knew anything” about the virus in January.
  20. Trump claimed, in early March, that the virus had only hit three weeks ago.
  21. In April, Trump claimed, “you may not even have corona coming back” in a second wave.

B. Trump’s Response to Virus:
General:

  1. Trump claimed that no one could have predicted that the United States would face a pandemic because of coronavirus.
  2. Trump lied about and exaggerated the efficacy of his administration’s response, claiming that they had done a “great” job at containing and combating the virus.
  3. Trump repeatedly claimed that the virus was “under control.”
  4. Trump claims that the United States’ response to the virus has been the most aggressive in the world. 
  5. Trump baselessly claims that he has been “right” about coronavirus more than anyone else, including public health experts.
  6. Trump misleadingly cited a Gallup poll to exaggerate the approval ratings of his administration’s response to Coronavirus.
  7. Trump claimed that the public’s approval rating of his response to the virus was higher than the approval of the Obama administration’s handling of H1N1.

China Travel Restrictions:

  1. On at least 40 occasions, Trump claimed he had imposed an outright “ban” on travel from China and “closed the borders” against the advice of experts, which he has claimed saved “thousands,” “hundreds of thousands,” and even “millions” of lives.
  2. Trump claimed he was the first to restrict travel to and from China. He was particularly adamant that Italy and other European countries had not limited travel to and from China, which led to their high number of coronavirus cases.
  3. Trump claimed that everyone, including public health experts, disagreed with his decision to implement restrictions from China.

Europe Travel Restrictions:

  1. Trump claimed at least 20 times to have banned travel from Europe, and claimed that all U.S. citizens travelling from Europe would be subject to screening, testing, and quarantine if necessary.
  2. Trump claimed to have barred travel to Italy prior to his March 11 ban on travel to all of Europe.
  3. Trump claims that cases are also surging in European countries because of their extended lock-down orders.

U.S. Borders:

  1. Trump claimed the U.S. had some troops on the U.S.-Canadian Border.
  2. Trump claims that without more stringent patrol of the U.S.-Mexico border, the border would have become the “global epicenter of the viral transmission.”

Dr. Fauci:

  1. Trump attempts to undermine Dr. Fauci’s credibility with false claims about Fauci’s past recommendations.
  2. Trump claims he has a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci and has distanced himself from his administration’s attempts to discredit Dr. Fauci.

Other Claims:

  1. Trump claimed states did not need federal assistance to acquire medical supplies and personal protective equipment and that they were fully stocked.
  2. Trump claimed in April that he hadn’t left the White House in “months.”
  3. Trump repeatedly claimed to have fully invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA), which enables the federal government to order private industry to produce specific items like testing and PPE when he had not actually done so.

C. Testing Capacities:
Nature of Tests:

  1. Trump claimed multiple times that testing was readily available for anyone who wanted one.
  2. Trump has repeatedly claimed that U.S. testing is “perfect” and the “best in the world.”
  3. Trump later admitted that there were some issues with the initial coronavirus test, but claimed it took “about a week” to solve.
  4. Trump claimed that testing was “overrated.” and that “testing isn’t necessary.”
  5. Trump said past administrations were to blame for his administration’s delays in developing and deploying coronavirus tests.

Number of Tests:

  1. Trump has continuously claimed that the United States is “number one” in testing, or has the “best testing.”
  2. In March, Trump claimed that the U.S. had done more testing than any other nation, including South Korea.
  3. By April, Trump escalated his previous lie and claimed that the U.S. had completed more coronavirus tests than the rest of the world (or all other “major” countries) combined. He has made some version of this claim at least 13 times.
  4. Trump said the U.S. would not “need anywhere near” 5 million tests.
  5. Trump said in late April that we would reach 5 million tests conducted per day “very soon.”
  6. Trump claimed that the federal government was providing more testing capacities than Governors needed.
  7. Trump baselessly claimed the report by the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, which detailed complaints from hospitals regarding wait times and shortages of testing supplies, was “wrong” and politically motivated.
  8. Trump exaggerated the number of tests that the U.S. had completed. 

Number of Cases:

  1. Throughout the spring, Trump claimed the U.S. had reached its peak in cases and was “heading down.”
  2. Trump claims that we only have the highest number of coronavirus cases globally because we were doing the most testing in the world.
  3. Trump has repeatedly claimed that coronavirus cases only surged in June because of increased testing.
  4. When forced to admit that the increase in cases is not exclusively a result of more testing, Trump claims that most of the cases are harmless.

Testing and the Private Sector:

  1. Trump claimed that Google had engineered a website that helped Americans decide whether they need testing, and where they could obtain it.
  2. Trump claimed testing was available and provided to passengers on trains and planes.
  3. In May, Trump said workers returning to their jobs “should have no problem” obtaining a coronavirus test.

D. Coronavirus Deaths and Mortality Rates:

  1. On April 10, Trump said that the final number of U.S. deaths could be as few as 55,000.
  2. In mid-April, Trump predicted that the total number of casualties would be around 50,000 – 60,000.
  3. In late April, Trump predicted that the total number of casualties would be around 60,000 – 70,000.
  4. On May 1, Trump estimated that the total number of coronavirus deaths would be under 100,000.
  5. Trump misleadingly compared the coronavirus deaths with the projected number of deaths, absent any mitigation.
  6. Trump claimed that the U.S. coronavirus mortality rate is one of the best in the world.
  7. Trump claims that the death rate is a better indicator than new cases.
  8. Trump claimed in mid-July the death rate from coronavirus was “down tenfold.”

E. Personal Protective Equipment:
General:

  1. Trump claimed that hospitals were artificially inflating their need for equipment.
  2. Trump claimed that no one could have predicted that the country would ever need tens of thousands of ventilators.

States and Personal Protective Equipment:

  1. Trump claimed that, by mid-April, there was no demand for ventilators.
  2. Trump seemed to endorse Jared Kushner’s claim that the Strategic National Stockpile was the federal government’s, and was not intended to be shared with the states.
  3. Trump claimed that NY state had rejected recommendations to buy 16,000 ventilators at a cheap price in 2015, and NY state had established lotteries and death panels in response to the virus.
  4. Trump claimed that NY State asked for more ventilators without realizing that eight thousand had already been delivered to the state.
  5. Trump claimed to have never said that governors were asking for equipment they did not need.
  6. Trump claims he did not threaten to limit help to governors who “did not treat him right.”
  7. Trump claimed that the federal government was providing states with all the materials they need.
  8. Trump claimed that Governor Cuomo sent sick patients back to nursing homes when they could have been treated on the USNS Comfort.

Private Sector Involvement:

  1. Trump claimed that automotive companies were producing ventilators, per his orders, by mid-March. 

F. Treatments and Vaccines:
Vaccine:

  1. Trump repeatedly claimed a vaccine would be available “soon.”
  2. Trump said the virus would go away without a vaccine.

Hydroxychloroquine:

  1. Trump repeatedly said that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was proven effective in treating coronavirus.
  2. Trump repeatedly said that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is safe to use to treat COVID-19.
  3. Trump denounced a report conducted at Veterans Administration hospitals, which found no evidence that hydroxychloroquine helped people, and in fact may increase likelihood of death. He also claimed it was the only study that undercut his claims regarding the drug.

Other Treatment-Related Lies:

  1. Trump says he is “all for masks.”
  2. Trump rejects the idea that widespread mask usage would successfully prevent the spread of the virus and claims that masks can actually cause problems and are a “double-edged sword.”
  3. Trump later undersells the value of wearing masks, only tepidly endorsing their use.
  4. Trump claims that governors “go by the CDC guidelines” regarding masks.
  5. Trump said that he was being sarcastic when he asked medical experts to look into viability of injecting disinfectants to treat virus, that he had only asked medical experts to look into whether or not the sun could treat the virus, and that he was only talking about using disinfectants on hands, not to ingest.
  6. Trump retweeted a conspiracy video that claimed that neither masks nor shutdowns were necessary to combat coronavirus, and that hydroxychloroquine is the cure for coronavirus, and later endorsed the video and said the video makers were “respected” doctors.
  7. Trump claims that he had not been asking Dr. Birx questions about the impact of sunlight and heat, but was instead speaking to the laboratory expert about sunlight.

G. Other China-Related Lies:

  1. Trump claimed that, although the virus spread out of China, China contained it to  Wuhan.
  2. Trump exaggerated Tim Cook’s statement that Apple production plants in China were “back to normal” at the end of February.

H. World Health Organization:

  1. Trump claimed he never threatened to freeze WHO funding, just minutes after having made the threat.
  2. Trump claimed that the WHO ignored the spread of the virus in Wuhan.

I. Blaming Democrats, the Obama Administration, and Vice President Biden:
Obama Administration:

  1. Trump claimed that the Obama administration had implemented a rule on testing that limited the FDA’s capacity to test.
  2. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he inherited a flawed COVID-19 test from the Obama administration.
  3. Trump claimed that the Obama administration left no medical supplies or ventilators in the national stockpile.
  4. Trump claims that the Obama administration stopped testing for H1N1 because they did not want to increase the number of cases.

Vice President Biden:

  1. Trump claimed that the Obama Administration’s response – and Vice President Biden’s response in particular – to H1N1 was a huge disaster.
  2. Trump claimed that Vice President Biden had apologized to him for calling him Xenophobic. Trump claimed this apology took place on a Friday evening, when it wouldn’t generate any coverage.
  3. Trump claimed that a Biden aide had made up a prediction that Trump would try to delay November’s election.
  4. Trump baselessly claims that listening to Vice President Biden would have resulted in hundreds of thousands more deaths.

Democrats:

  1. Trump claimed criticism regarding testing was a partisan attack, and felt it was a “personal attack.”
  2. Trump repeatedly claims that the Democrat policy of open borders caused coronavirus.
  3. Trump later revised this claim, baselessly stating that if the Democrats had their way and opened borders, border states would be the global epicenter of the virus.
  4. Trump later claimed that Democrats did not take the virus seriously in February and March.
  5. Trump has made various false claims about Pelosi’s visit to San Francisco’s Chinatown, and then claimed that she deleted her tweet about her visit to Chinatown.
  6. Trump claims that Democrats are the ones opposing “payments” to Americans and that he supported larger payments than Democrats.

J. Pandemic and the Media:

  1. Trump claims that the media has been unfair to him and misrepresented how his administration has handled the crisis.
  2. Trump claims that the media has unfairly focused on the number of coronavirus cases, rather than the mortality rate.
  3. Trump claimed “unknown sources” cited by the New York Times and Post were made up.
  4. Trump claimed the media did not call to ask for a comment before publishing stories regarding Alex Azar.
  5. Trump denounced the media for reporting that he and Jay Inslee had clashed on the phone or that Jay Isnlee had told him the federal government needed to step up (“We need Tom Brady”). Trump claimed that the comment was meant positively.
  6. Trump claimed a New York Times correspondent, Michael Grynbaum, had written a positive article about him.

K. The Lockdown:
General:

  1. Trump repeatedly exaggerated how quickly the country could “open up.”
  2. Trump claims that the country has reopened “safely” and will remain “open.”
  3. Trump claimed that the states that did not have stay-at-home orders were “not in jeopardy.”
  4. Trump claimed that the President has the power to decide whether or not to open up states.
  5. Trump claimed that continued economic shutdown would result in greater number of deaths, by suicide, than Coronavirus would cause.
  6. Trump claimed that Dr. Birx had not discouraged Americans from having dinner or cocktail parties, and was simply referring to certain states.
  7. Trump claimed that anti-lockdown protests socially distanced, and that protestors were six feet apart.
  8. Trump claims that Democrats only want to reimpose shutdowns to hurt Trump’s election chances.
  9. Trump claims that states with Democratic governors are prohibiting him from holding rallies for political reasons.
  10. Trump claimed people were getting arrested for listening to church services in their cars.

Schools:

  1. Trump has claimed that people are opposing school reopening for political reasons.
  2. Trump claims that “everyone” is in favor of opening schools.
  3. Trump claims that we can safely reopen all schools.
  4. Trump claims that keeping schools shut would be more dangerous for families.
  5. Trump claimed that Vice President Biden does not want to open schools.
  6. Trump attempts to discredit the CDC’s recommendations for school re-openings.

L. The Economy:
General:

  1. Trump baselessly muses that “maybe” the coronavirus improved U.S. jobs numbers.
  2. Trump baselessly claims that the economy will be even stronger than it was prior to the virus.
  3. Trump claims that, prior to the virus, he was paying off the national debt.
  4. In early June, Trump claimed the economy was “rocking and rolling.”
  5. In early July, Trump claimed the economy is “roaring back to life” like “nobody has even seen before.”
  6. Trump claimed that he would exempt farmworkers from restrictions on immigration, because in previous instances when the border was closed, all farmers went out of business.
  7. Trump understates coronavirus’ catastrophic impact on small businesses.

Coronavirus Relief Act:

  1. Trump said that the Paycheck Protection Program had been administered seamlessly.
  2. Trump claimed that he was the first President to provide paid sick leave for American workers.
  3. Trump denied that Wells Fargo had stopped taking small business loan applications.

M. Lies about Voting and Elections:

  1. Trump claims mail-in voting enables “massive” voter fraud.
  2. Trump says that Americans can safely vote in person this November.
  3. Trump claims that absentee ballots are safer than mail-in ballots.

N. Other:

  1. Trump floats the idea of postponing the election to protect against fraudulent election results, saying it could take “years” to determine results of election.
  2. Trump claimed that Captain Crozier had sent the letter regarding the outbreak on the USS Roosevelt  to 28 people.
  3. Trump claimed that the outbreak on the USS Roosevelt resulted in 540 people testing positive.
  4. Trump blamed Captain Crozier for stopping in Vietnam during the pandemic, implying that this was the reason for the outbreak on ship.
  5. Trump exaggerates the number of people on the Grand Princess cruise, saying there were close to 5,000 people aboard.
  6. Trump blames Black Lives Matter protests for the increase in cases.
  7. Trump blames Mexico for the spike in coronavirus cases.
Election 2016, Presidential Campaign 2016, Presidential Politics

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.’”

Election 2016

Fact Check: 15 Biggest Lies in Trump’s Speech Attacking Hillary Clinton

Donald J. Trump goes on the attack after a very bad week in which, gasp, his poll numbers fell © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Donald J. Trump goes on the attack after a very bad week in which, gasp, his poll numbers fell © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Donald Trump’s 45 minute attack on Hillary Clinton on June 22 – a rebuttal of sort to her scathing attack on Trump as someone who would crash the economy rather than create jobs –  sounds like a desperate reaction to the building negatives his presidential campaign is facing as reporters begin to expose his hypocrisies and failures.

The New York Times today reported how he is funneling millions of dollars of campaign spending back to his own businesses and relatives: In May, the biggest-ticket item was Mr. Trump’s use of the Mar-a-Lago Club, his Florida resort, which was paid $423,000. The campaign paid $350,000 to TAG Air for his private airplanes, $125,000 to Trump Restaurants and more than $170,000 to Trump Tower, the Manhattan skyscraper that houses the campaign’s headquarters….” And said, “the presumptive Republican nominee, who points to his business acumen as a case for his candidacy, is trying to do what he has suggested he would in 2000 when he mulled making an independent run: ‘It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.’” (Donald Trump’s Self-Funding Includes Payments to Family and His Companies).

The New York Times, in an article fact-checking Trump’s speech on June 22, said, “Donald J. Trump has had a rough week, overseeing a shake-up of his campaign staff and reporting a dismal fund-raising total. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee tried to refocus his campaign on Wednesday with a speech attacking his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. But he took liberties with the truth, delivering a series of inaccurate and misleading statements.”

The Hillary for America Campaign also offered its own fact-checking.

Fact Check: 15 Biggest Lies in Trump’s Speech Attacking Hillary Clinton

In his speech attacking Hillary Clinton Wednesday, Donald Trump — Politifact’s reigning ‘Liar of the Year’ — resorted to a litany of hypocritical attacks, nutty conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Many of the most outrageous attacks were long ago discredited by independent fact checkers, but Trump is still peddling them.

Here is a breakdown of 15 of Trump’s biggest lies about Clinton in his Wednesday speech:

LIE: “Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security. Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all.”
FACT CHECK: Trump made a similar allegation before, and the Washington Post Fact Checker called it a “whopper.”

LIE: “Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth – with no way to screen who they are or what they believe.”
FACT CHECK: Hillary Clinton has called for being “vigilant in screening and vetting refugees from Syria.” Moreover, Politifact has rated the claim that there was no way to screen refugees from the Middle East as “false.”

LIE: “For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.”
FACT CHECK:  To date, the only financial commitment Hillary Clinton has specified along these lines is $15 million to broadly support the integration of immigrants, including refugees. And an independent analysis of the potential cost associated with resettling an additional 70,000 refugees–as Clinton proposed last year–has pegged the price tag at $582 million. By comparison, the cost to rebuild the city of Detroit alone is $1.25 billion, according to the city’s emergency manager.

LIE: “Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East, and on the road to nuclear weapons.”
FACT CHECK: Politifact rated the claim that Iran is on the road to nuclear weapons “false,” saying, “the terms of the deal expressly forbid pursuing a militarized nuclear program.”

LIE: “Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20% of America’s uranium holdings to Russia, while 9 investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.”
FACT CHECK: According to Factcheck.org, “the author of ‘Clinton Cash’ falsely claimed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State had ‘veto power and ‘could have stopped’ Russia from buying a company with extensive uranium mining operations in the U.S.” In fact, the State Department was just one member of a nine-agency panel that reviewed this transaction. The panel was led by the Treasury Department, not State, and Hillary Clinton was never personally involved in the consideration of the deal.

LIE: “Hillary’s Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor, and unemployed Americans out of work.”
FACT CHECK: Comprehensive immigration reform would boost economic growth and increase the size of the labor force.

LIE: Hillary Clinton “has even deleted this record of total support [for TPP] from her book.”
FACT CHECK: According to NBC News, “The cuts were part of 96 pages of cuts made to account for the paperback’s smaller size, according to a publisher’s note. But not all of them were cut: there’s still two pages praising the deal, or at least the idea of it.”

LIE: “Among the victims is our late Ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed — that’s right, when the phone rang at 3 o’clock in the morning, she was sleeping.”
FACT CHECK: According to Factcheck.org, “Trump is certainly entitled to his opinion, but the evidence shows Clinton was fully engaged in the immediate response, and subsequent congressional investigations concluded the government response to the attack — including Clinton’s — was appropriate.”

LIE: “She has pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement, and thus create totally open borders in the United States.”
FACT CHECK: While Hillary Clinton has pledged to push for comprehensive immigration reform in her first 100 days, Politifact has given a ruling of “Pants on Fire” to the claim that such a plan would equal “mass amnesty.” In fact, in her memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton wrote that she supported the 2013 Senate immigration bill, which included unprecedented investments in border security, along with a path to citizenship.

LIE: “To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death.”
FACT CHECK: According to the Washington Post Fact Checker, “Clinton says that in speaking with the families, she did not blame the Benghazi attacks on the video. Most participants we interviewed (four out of six) back up her version, saying they do not recall her mentioning a video.”

LIE: “She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.”
FACT CHECK: According to the New York Times, “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned on Sunday that removing President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt too hastily could threaten the country’s transition to democracy.”

LIE: Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy has “unleashed ISIS across the world.”
FACT CHECK: Politifact looked at a similar claim Jeb Bush made and rated it “Mostly False.”

LIE: “To cover-up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server.”
FACT CHECK: Independent experts like Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists have said there was no criminal aspect to her use of a private email server.  Additionally the Wall Street Journal reported that federal officials do not expect criminal charges to be filed as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing review of the private email system.

LIE: “Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments – perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China – putting all of America in danger.”
FACT CHECK: The New York Times reported that security logs show no evidence of foreign hacking.

LIE: “Hillary Clinton appointed a top donor to a national security board with top secret access – even though he had no national security credentials.”
FACT CHECK: Contrary to Trump’s claim, the appointee in question actually serves on the Board of Directors of the American Security Project, the Foreign Policy Program Leadership Committee at the Brookings Institution, and on the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, a member of the national security board to which Fernando was appointed, said Fernando’s “expertise in cyber-security is a great asset to our national security.” Brookings executive vice president and former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said of Fernando: “I’ve always valued his foreign policy insights.”