"We've accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions," Trump said in a July 2018 Rose Garden press conference.
This is false. The economy wasn't hurting when Trump took office, and it hasn't turned around in just two short years. The economic turnaround Trump refers to is actually credited to his predecessor, President Barack Obama, who steered the country from a devastating recession into booming growth.
Economists told NBC News that Trump might have given the economy a boost with the tax cuts and dampened it with the trade war, but he didn't turn things around. Economies do not turn on a hair with a new presidency. While Obama can look back on his eight years and see his leadership play out, Trump's effect is still not yet known.
"Big steel is opening and renovating plants all over the country. Auto companies are pouring into the U.S., including BMW, which just announced a major new plant," Trump tweeted in November.
This is not true, according to industry experts. Auto investment is down; BMW had said they might open a new plant, but they didn't announce one. There are a handful of bright spots for steelmakers--production is up, for one--but there's no sign of a broad trend of investment and new plants.
The falsehood came days after news broke that General Motors would close American plants because the president's steel tariffs raised the cost of doing business, and Trump has repeatedly sought to portray his trade war as a boon to the country.
"When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so... We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN," Trump wrote in a December 2018 tweet.
Trump is misstating how tariffs work. Tariffs are a fee charged by the U.S. when a good is brought into the U.S. They're designed to make foreign made goods more expensive--thus boosting domestic producers--but that expense, charged to the importer, is typically passed down to American consumers.
"All Republicans support people with pre-existing conditions, and if they don't, they will after I speak to them," Trump tweeted in October. "I am in total support."
The Trump administration backed Republican-led states in a lawsuit that claims ObamaCare's protections for pre-existing conditions are illegal, and a federal court ruled the law unconstitutional in December. If the Supreme Court confirms the ruling, insurers would be able to start denying coverage to those people. The White House has not proposed alternative legislation that would offer those with pre-existing conditions the protections ObamaCare gives consumers. Supporting the concept of health care for people with pre-existing conditions, and supporting legislation that accomplishes it, are two different things.
"Remember this: President Obama separated children from families," Trump said in November 2018.
This is false. There was no widespread Obama-era policy of separating parents and children. The Obama administration instead opted to detain families together, earning outrage of their own. Advocates said there were a handful of scenarios under the Obama administration where children were separated from their parents because of fears of human trafficking, but reunification was speedy.
The president made this claim as a way to defend his own administration's policy that separated more than 2,600 migrant children from their parents earlier this year--a policy he was forced to end after widespread public outrage and condemnation from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
"When a car is sent to the United States from China, there is a Tariff to be paid of 2-1/2%. When a car is sent to China from the United States, there is a Tariff to be paid of 25%," Trump tweeted April 9. "Does that sound like free or fair trade. No, it sounds like STUPID TRADE-- going on for years!"
Trump's 25% figure matches up with international trade data: we rate this Mostly True. But economists raised some important details that Trump omitted: Some experts suggested Trump had cherry-picked the facts by singling out "cars" instead of a broader category of automobiles or car parts. The U.S. tariff on light trucks from China is 25%. And Chinese tariffs on American auto parts sent to China are well below 25%. For example, China places a 10% tariff on automobile engines.
OnTheIssues Fact Check: Is that true? The United States Senate unanimously supported declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel? Despite the controversy--and possible war with the Palestinians--that such a declaration could cause? Yes, we checked; the Senate voted 90-0-10 (unanimous with ten abstentions or absences). The resolution said, "June 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War and the reunification of the city of Jerusalem. The Senate reaffirms the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 as United States law, and calls upon the President and all United States officials to abide by its provisions." The 1995 law calls for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, including a progress report every 6 months. President Trump is now implementing the 1995 law, 23 years later and 46 progress report due dates later.
Politico.com Fact-Check: Family reunification has been the basis for immigration since 1965. Under this law, if you marry that guy you met while working in Shanghai, you can bring him home. And his 2-year-old. And when you'd like his parents to help with child care, you can bring them in too, after a few years. If we had a family immigration system without limits, this structure could theoretically lead to the dreaded chain migration. That Chinese spouse can petition for his sister, and her family, and so on. But the immigration system's waiting lists make chain migration a theory that doesn't really happen in practice. This is because each link in the chain takes years to complete. \
NPR Fact-Check: Trump's numbers are right, but it's generally a stretch for presidents to take credit for job creation. The unemployment rate for black Americans is currently 6.8%, the lowest level recorded since the government started keeping track in 1972. And Hispanic unemployment rate is at 4.9%, close to a record low. However, Trump is implying that he caused these low African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates. But those rates had been falling relatively steadily since around 2010, under Pres. Obama, and their declines don't appear to have picked up speed. This implies that there's nothing specific that Trump did to change this rate
Is that true? Washington Post Fact-Check: One possible measurement is regulations withdrawn, determined from the OMB database, narrowed just to an administration's first sweep through the regulations:
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The above quotations are from Fact-checking on 2018 gubernatorial and Senate campaigns.
Click here for other excerpts from Fact-checking on 2018 gubernatorial and Senate campaigns. Click here for other excerpts by Donald Trump. Click here for a profile of Donald Trump.
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