THE FACTS: There was no insurrection on Election Day. There was a free and fair election won by Democrat Joe Biden. Despite Trump's repeated claims, no evidence of widespread corruption has ever been found. Every state has certified its results as fair and accurate, and numerous state and federal election officials--including Trump's own attorney general at the time--have said there was no evidence of systemic fraud or errors of a scale that could have possibly change the outcome. Judges have widely agreed, even some appointed by Trump. The government's then-top cybersecurity and election officials declared the election "the most secure in American history" with "no evidence that any voting system deleted or changed votes, or was in any way compromised." Biden won by the same Electoral College margin that Trump did 2016. But Biden won the popular vote, getting 7 million-plus more votes than Trump.
Forbes Fact Check: What isn't true is that we lost that energy independence under President Biden. Using the definition of exports minus imports, 2021 was our highest level of energy independence in history. In 2019, our energy exports were greater than our imports by 0.61 quadrillion BTUs (quads). In 2020, that excess grew to 3.47 quads and in 2021 it grew to a new record of 3.82 quads. By that measure, we are more energy independent than we have ever been.
TRUMP: Yeah, as you know, the bump stocks are actually a very unimportant thing and NRA, I went with them and they said, "it doesn't mean anything. Actually, all they do is teach you how to shoot very inaccurately." So we did that.
A.P. Fact Check: The National Rifle Association is "disappointed" with the Trump administration's plan to outlaw bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire continuously. An NRA spokeswoman says the Justice Department should provide amnesty for gun owners who already have the devices, and says the regulation "fails to address the thousands of law-abiding Americans" who followed the government's previous guidance. Bump stocks became a focal point in the gun control debate after they were used in the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest in modern U.S. history.
TRUMP: Excuse me, just the opposite.
Q: Well, Chris Miller was your acting Defense secretary. He says you never gave that order.
TRUMP: He did not say that.
Q: He has testified that.
TRUMP: He did not say that.
Forbes Fact Check: Miller was asked to be precise. "Just so we're clear," an investigator asked him, "you did not have 10,000 troops, quote, 'to be on the ready,' prior to January 6th."
"A nonmilitary person probably could have some sort of weird interpretation, but no," Miller responded. "The answer to your question is no. That was not part of my plan or the department of defense's plan."
OTI transcript of Donald Trump's interview with Sean Hannity: "They [the Europeans] screw us on trade. They are in many ways worse than China, or as bad as China, on trade. How many Chevrolets are being sold in Berlin? Not too many. How many Chevrolets are being sold in Paris? Not too many. Maybe none. And yet, we sell their products -- their wines, and their cars, and their Mercedes, and their BMWs -- we sell it all over our country."
CNN Fact Check: Trump was criticizing the lack of reciprocity of certain countries in selling American goods here. But for the record, from what I could find, there were more than 200,000 Chevrolets registered in Germany in 2019. In the first half of the last decade, roughly 20,000 Chevrolets were being sold in France a year. Both of those numbers are larger than "none."
[OnTheIssues FactCheck: Trump is referring to the House committee investigating the insurrection of January 6. As for the 2020 election, neither Trump nor any of his partisans have produced any evidence that it was in any way "rigged": numerous courts have studied several states results and found no valid evidence that would alter the election results].
Fact-Check by CBS News (June 13, 2023):The National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA released a statement detailing how presidential records are meant to be handled. "The PRA requires that all records created by Presidents (and Vice-Presidents) be turned over to [NARA] at the end of their administrations," the Archives said.
Prosecutors are not relying on the PRA to bring charges against Trump. He is instead charged with retaining national defense information under a different law known as the Espionage Act, a 1917 statute that has been used to prosecute other high-profile cases related to the retention or dissemination of classified information.
TRUMP: You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o'clock in the evening.
Q: Were you calling the shots, though, Mr. President, ultimately?
TRUMP: As to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Oh, sure. It was my decision.
Fact-Check by ABA Journal (August 3, 2023):John Lauro, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, is pointing to an advice-of-counsel defense in the case accusing Trump of trying to subvert the 2020 election results. Trump thought that he could ask then-Vice President Mike Pence to halt the count of presidential electors based on a "very detailed memorandum from a constitutional expert," Lauro told Fox News. Trump "got advice from counsel--very, very wise and learned counsel--on a variety of constitutional and legal issues," Lauro told NPR. "So it's a very straightforward defense."
Fact Check by Human Rights Watch, 8/4/22: Viktor Orban has become the darling of certain political circles in the US. Since 2012, Orban hijacked public institutions, attacked the independence of courts, and left almost no independent media standing. He has attacked the rights of LGBT and transgender people, and banned same-sex unions. He encouraged ruthless and rights-abusing treatment of migrants and refugees and the criminalization of those who help them. Orban's adherence to the racist "great replacement" theory risks emboldening white supremacists.
Fact Check by Mediaite , 1/11/24: Trump's claim to be squarely focused on policy is questionable, given the fact that he has repeatedly declared himself the "retribution" of his supporters and threatened to weaponize the government against his political foes. Just hours before Trump's town hall, his campaign sent out a fundraising email that literally began with the proclamation "I AM YOUR RETRIBUTION!"
A: They have chaos at the border. They have chaos in the military. People are going woke. We have the greatest military in the world except for the top where they want to turn this beautiful thing we built. We beat ISIS, knocked them out. It was supposed to take four years. I did it in literally three months. It was supposed to take four or five years.
[Did Trump's 2017-2018 actions in Iraq knock out ISIS?] Fact Check by American Enterprise Institute, 9/11/23: "ISIS remains resilient and has sustained a low-level insurgency in Iraq while conducting targeted attacks in Syria, especially against prisons to release key operatives. It has particularly strengthened in central Syria. Iraqi counterterrorism pressure has suppressed, but not eliminated, the ISIS threat."
Trump was told about claims on "social media" that Harris might be ineligible to serve as president and vice president. He was then asked if he can definitively say that she meets the requirements. Trump referred to a lawyer who raised the issue, Chapman University professor John Eastman, as "very highly qualified."
Trump concluded his comments by saying, "I just heard about it, I'll take a look." Nonetheless, his just-asking-questions posture--which he also employed with his Obama birtherism--doesn't change the fact that he gave credence to the conspiracy theory by praising the author of the article, saying he had heard Harris is not eligible, and raising the possibility that Harris was not born in the US.
CNN FactCheck 2/10/24: "NATO was busted until I came along," Trump said at a rally in South Carolina. "I said, 'Everybody's gonna pay.' They said, 'Well, if we don't pay, are you still going to protect us?' I said, 'Absolutely not.' They couldn't believe the answer." Trump said "one of the presidents of a big country" asked him whether the US would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they "don't pay."
"No, I would not protect you," Trump recalled telling that president. "In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills." [Conclusion: Yes, Trump said Russia could do what they want, but only to NATO members who didn't pay their bills.]
[OnTheIssues FactCheck: In fact, Biden did not use Trump's name at all in his speech "I Fear For Our Democracy", referring 16 times to the "former president."]
It took Trump all of 10 days running in a head-to-head against the first woman and first incumbent of Black and Indian-American heritage to openly question her background: "I don't know. Is she Indian or is she Black?" Trump said, raising questions that echoed the ex-President's persistent & discredited questions about former President Barack Obama's place of birth. "I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way and then all of the sudden she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person."
Harris has always identified as a product of a multicultural family, being born of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.
CLAIM: Virginia Governor Ralph Northam during a 2019 radio interview spoke in support of infanticide, or "after-birth abortions."
AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. Northam was giving a hypothetical example of what could happen if a mother, whose fetus wasn't otherwise viable, requested an abortion while in labor. His comments came in response to a question about whether he supported state legislation that would have loosened restrictions on abortions later in pregnancy.
THE FACTS: Social media users are misrepresenting comments Northam made: "The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."
TRUMP: By allowing these millions of people to come into our country, look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame.
Q: I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.
TRUMP: Well, I've seen people on television say my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that and maybe that's a good thing to say for a city manager.
Q: I'm not taking this from television. I'm taking it from the city manager.
TRUMP: But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.
[Newly unsealed] court documents contain a treasure trove of documents, outlining the Kremlin's tactics to influence the outcome of the 2024 US election.
The records also reveal the plan was discussed at the highest levels of the Russian government, appearing to show that President Vladimir Putin may have been updated.
The orchestrators of the campaign targeted existing divisions within US society, using racist stereotypes and far-right conspiracies to target supporters of former president Donald Trump.
The plan lists a variety of targeted audiences, including residents of swing states, American Jews, "US citizens of Hispanic descent," and the "community of American gamers."
[Norah O'Donnell in the debate transcript]: After the 2020 election, President Trump's campaign and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting the results. Judges looked at the evidence and said there was no widespread fraud. The Governors of every state in the nation, Republicans and Democrats, certified the 2020 election results and sent a legal slate of electors to Congress for January 6th.
"CBS is LYING AGAIN about the 2020 Election. Where is my apology from Leslie Stahl? She claimed that the Hunter Biden LAPTOP FROM HELL was not real, and that my Campaign wasn't spied on. CBS IS FAKE NEWS!" he posted on Truth Social.
Trump attacked moderator Norah O'Donnell for even asking: "Norah just made a statement about the Election, not a question. She's having a bad night!"
FactCheck (Wikipedia downloaded 4/5/202):International Transgender Day of Visibility (often referred to as TDOV) is an annual event occurring every March 31 since 2009. dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide. In 2024, TDOV coincided with the Christian holiday of Easter that year. President Biden's support of TDOV was condemned by some Christian Republicans, which transgender advocates say is manufactured.
The facts: The 5 boys were tried as adults and actually pleaded not guilty. And the victim, Trisha Meili, although almost killed, was found unconscious in the park, survived and testified in court. All of them were exonerated after a convicted murderer confessed to the crime in 2002. In 2014, they were awarded a $41m settlement.
In 1989, before any of the boys had faced trial, Trump paid a reported $85,000 to take out ads calling for their execution. The [ad included]: "They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence."
People of Haitian descent say these xenophobic attacks are nothing new for their community, and experts say the "dog eater" trope is a fearmongering tactic white politicians have long deployed against immigrants of color, particularly those of Asian descent.
Demonizing immigrants through falsehoods about their diet is a political tactic that originated in the late 19th century. More recently, in 2016, US Senate hopeful Faye Stewart accused Vietnamese refugees of "harvesting" dogs and cats for food.
FactCheck (CNN June 11, 2024): A federal jury has convicted Hunter Biden on all three federal felony gun charges he faced, concluding that he violated laws meant to prevent drug addicts from owning firearms. The conviction marks the first time a president's immediate family member has been found guilty of a crime during their father's term in office, though his crimes predate Joe Biden's tenure as president. The jury returned guilty verdicts on all three charges, which stemmed from a revolver Hunter Biden bought in October 2018.
CNN Oct. 16. 2024: Fact check: John Deere says Trump's story about how he saved US jobs with a tariff threat is fictional. A search of news articles and corporate press releases showed nothing about any such John Deere announcement the day prior. And in response to Trump's story, a John Deere spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News that it had not changed its plans or announced any such changes.
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The above quotations are from Fact-checking on 2024 presidential, gubernatorial, and Senate campaigns.
Click here for other excerpts from Fact-checking on 2024 presidential, gubernatorial, and Senate campaigns. Click here for other excerpts by Donald Trump. Click here for a profile of Donald Trump.
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