FactCheck: 46M watched SOTU; 98M watched Super Bowl

FACT-CHECK: FALSE. The size of the crowds attending his public events has always been supremely important to President Donald Trump, so much so that he has been known to inflate attendance numbers on more than one occasion. The tendency for exaggeration seems to have rubbed off on some of Trump's supporters, who posted on social media after his 5 February 2019 State of the Union (SOTU) address that more people had watched the president's speech on TV than had watched the 2019 Super Bowl (which is typically the most-watched television broadcast in any given year).

2019's Patriots vs. Rams match-up drew a total viewing audience of 98.2 million watchers--more than twice the viewership of any State of the Union address (including Trump's previous outing) from the past decade. [Post-SOTU reports pegged viewership of SOTU 2019 at 46 million].

FBI: Trump had fewer people at inauguration than Obama

This small moment was deeply disconcerting to those of us in the business of trying to find the truth, [by which we mean there] are things that are objectively, verifiably either true or false.

It was simply not true that the biggest crowd in history attended the inauguration, as he asserted, or even that Trump's crowd was bigger than Obama's. To say otherwise was not to offer an opinion, a view, a perspective. It was a lie.

In NYC almost everyone is Democrat, but I'm Republican

TRUMP: I come from a place, New York City, which is virtually, I mean, it is almost exclusively Democrat. And I have really started to see some of the negatives--as an example, and I have a lot of liking for [Jeb Bush], but the last number of months of his brother's administration were a catastrophe. And unfortunately, those few months gave us President Obama. And you can't be happy about that.

3 principles: One term, two-fisted policies, zero excuses

I'm a clean-hands freak; and dislike shaking hands

To me the only good thing about the act of shaking hands prior to eating is that I tend to eat less. For example, there is no way, after shaking someone's hand, that I would eat bread. Even walking down the street, as people rush up to shake my hand, I often wonder to myself, why? Why risk catching a cold?

I got Obama to produce birth certificate, so I'm satisfied

TRUMP: Sidney Blumenthal works for [Hillary's] campaign and sent a highly respected reporter to Kenya to find out about it. They were pressing it very hard. She failed to get the birth certificate. When I got involved, I didn't fail. I got him to give the birth certificate. So I'm satisfied with it.

Q: The birth certificate was produced in 2011. You've continued to question the president's legitimacy as recently as Jan. 2016. What changed your mind?

TRUMP: Nobody was pressing it. But I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate. And I think I did a good job.

CLINTON: Donald started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American. There was absolutely no evidence for it, but he persisted.

OpEd: Obama's grandmother never said he was born in Kenya

Already public, the tape in question was a recorded telephone interview with Obama's stepmother, Sarah, who was in Kenya. Sarah spoke Swahili. The interviewer was an English-speaking preacher named Ron McRae.

The interview finds McRae saying "Was he born in Mombasa?" In response the translator says, "No. Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America." McRae pressed Sarah on the issue, and the translator, after asking the question and waiting for the answer, replied, "Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii."

OpEd: Leveraged government and companies against each other

Trump played the city, the sellers, and the hotel chain off one another, using one to leverage a deal with the other. When a city official asked for proof of Penn Central's commitment, Trump sent what looked like an agreement with the sellers. Trump then used the city's resulting approval to push his deal with Hyatt to closure. Trump was saved by New York's first-ever tax break for a commercial property--he could buy the hotel for $1, then lease it back for 99 years--an arrangement that would save Trump's project an estimated $440 million over the next 40 years.

OpEd: impeachable act to fire FBI's Comey

While there may be viable technical defenses against a criminal charge here, there simply is no plausible way to understand this fact pattern as a good-faith exercise of presidential power.

OpEd: impeachable act to investigate Hillary Clinton

This is not obstruction of justice in any criminal sense. It's rather the opposite of obstruction of justice; it's the initiation of injustice. So I don't think it's plausibly sound in terms of criminal law. But it is molten-core impeachment territory. Consider: The president of the United States was trying to induce the attorney general of the United States to initiate a criminal investigation based on no known criminal predicate against a private citizen whom he happened to dislike.

Letting Trump go risks system of justice

Mueller Report documents 77 lies by Trump campaign

Topics of lies:
• 31 Trump Tower Moscow
• 25 Trump Tower meeting and other Russian contacts
• 13 Comey firing & fallout
• 8 Other topics

• 53 to the public (including press conferences)
• 12 to Mueller or other authorities
• 10 to Congress
• 2 Undetermined

OpEd: criminal act to try to get A.G. to unrecuse

Consider only two examples. The first is the particularly ugly section concerning Trump's efforts to get then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to "unrecuse." Another example: Mueller reports that after the news broke that Trump had sought to get then-White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire the special counsel, Trump sought to get McGahn to deny the story. He also sought to get him to create an internal record denying the story. McGahn refused.

OpEd: Trump's crew tried to collude, like Keystone Kollusion

Here's the key point: If there wasn't collusion on the hacking, it sure wasn't for lack of trying. Indeed, the Mueller report makes clear that Trump personally ordered an attempt to obtain Hillary Clinton's emails; and people associated with the campaign pursued this believing they were dealing with Russian hackers. And Donald Trump Jr. was directly in touch with WikiLeaks--from whom he obtained a password to a hacked database. None of these incidents amount to crimes. But the picture it all paints of the president's conduct is anything but exonerating. Call it Keystone Kollusion.

OpEd: strong evidence of collusion by Trump campaign

1. Trump was receptive to a Campaign adviser's (George Papadopoulos) pursuit of a back channel to Putin.
2. Kremlin operatives provided the Campaign a preview of the Russian plan to distribute stolen emails.
3. The Trump Campaign chairman and deputy chairman (Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) knowingly shared internal polling data and information on battleground states with a Russian spy; and the Campaign chairman worked with the Russian spy on a pro-Russia "peace" plan for Ukraine.
4. The Trump Campaign chairman periodically shared internal polling data with the Russian spy with the expectation it would be shared with Putin-linked oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.

OpEd: 1920s law authorizes to get presidential tax returns

If Congress cannot question the people who are making policy, or obtain critical documents, Congress cannot function as a coequal branch of government. If Congress cannot get information about the executive branch, there is no longer any separation of powers, as sanctified in the US constitution. There is only one power--the power of the president to rule as he wishes. Which is what Donald Trump has sought all along.

OpEd: Trump aides must testify despite "executive privilege"

Trump is treating Congress with contempt--just as he has treated other democratic institutions that have blocked him. Congress should invoke its inherent power under the constitution to hold any official who refuses a congressional subpoena in contempt.

When President Richard Nixon tried to stop key aides from testifying in the Senate Watergate hearings, in 1973, Senator Sam Ervin, chairman of the Watergate select committee, threatened to jail anyone who refused to appear.

When Nixon tried to block the release of incriminating recordings of his discussions with aides, the supreme court decided that a claim of executive privilege did not protect information pertinent to the investigation of potential crimes.

OpEd: would face criminal charges if not president

Privately, the two prosecutors, who were then employed in the special counsel's office, told other Justice Department officials that had it not been for the unique nature of the case--the investigation of a sitting president--they would have advocated that he face federal criminal charges.

Given the Justice Department's longstanding doctrine that a president cannot face criminal indictment while in office, Mueller suggested in his report that Congress could still act: the special counsel made more than twenty references in his report to Congress's impeachment power.

Mueller: firing Comey is obstruction if Russia probe delayed

Firing Comey would qualify as an obstructive act if it had the probable effect of impeding the investigation--for example, if the termination would have the effect of delaying the investigation or providing the President with the opportunity to appoint a director who the President perceived as more protective of his personal interests.

On March 20, 2017, Comey had announced that the FBI was investigating Russia's interference in the election, including "an assessment of whether any crimes were committed." It was widely known that the FBI, as part of the Russia investigation, was investigating the hacking of the DNC's computers--a clear criminal offense.

Trump: no Russia probe; Mueller: yes, Comey was running it

At the time the President fired Comey [on May 9], a grand jury had not begun to hear evidence related to the Russia investigation and no grand jury subpoenas had been issued.

Trump: Mueller has conflict; Mueller: no, it's obstruction

Substantial evidence, however, supports the conclusion that the President in fact directed McGahn [on June 17] to call Rosenstein to have the Special Counsel removed.

On June 16, 2017, the President publicly acknowledged that his conduct was under investigation by a federal prosecutor, tweeting, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!"

Substantial evidence indicates that the President's attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel's oversight of investigations that involved the President's conduct--most immediately, to reports that the President was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice.

Barr/Trump's Mueller conclusion: no collusion;no obstruction

The letter was a political windfall for President Trump. No one else would be indicted, Barr wrote, Mueller had declined to make a prosecution judgement on the question of whether Trump obstructed justice, but instead had described the facts he had found and noted "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." Barr wrote that he [and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein,] reviewed the question themselves and determined the evidence was "not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense." Trump seized on the letter to declare he had been vindicated.

OpEd 2016: Putin hated Hillary and wanted to help Trump win

First, they sought to undermine confidence in the American democratic enterprise--to dirty us up so that our election process would no longer be an inspiration to the rest of the world.

Second, the Russians wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton. Putin hated her, blaming her personally for large street demonstrations against him in Moscow in December 2011. Putin took that as an unforgivable personal attack.

Third, Putin wanted to help Donald Trump win. Trump had been saying favorable things about the Russian government and Putin had shown a long-standing appreciation for business Leaders who cut deals rather than stand on principle.

OpEd:FBI believes Steele Dossier showed Russian interference

COMEY: That it, at its core, was consistent with the other information we'd gathered during the intelligence investigation. That there was a massive Russian effort underway to interfere with our election with three goals: to dirty up the American democracy so it's not a shining light for others around the world; to hurt Hillary Clinton, who Vladimir Putin personally hated; and to help Donald Trump become elected president. Those allegations are at the core of the Steele dossier, and we already knew that was true from totally separate information. And it was coming from a credible source.

Q: Did you know it had been financed at the beginning by President Trump's political opponents?

COMEY: I was told at some point that the effort had originally been financed by a Republican source to develop opposition research on Trump, and then Democrats were paying for it.

Electing Hillary means four more years of Obama

Hillary does not have the stamina to be president

TRUMP: She doesn't have the look. She doesn't have the stamina. I said she doesn't have the stamina. And I don't believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina. You have to be able to negotiate our trade deals. You have so many different things you have to be able to do, and I don't believe that Hillary has the stamina.

CLINTON: Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.

I beat 16 very talented people in the primary

A: Sure, I regret. But in the meantime, I beat 16 people and here I am. I would have liked to have done it in a nicer manner. But I had 16 very talented people that I had to go through. That was a record in the history of Republican politics. I was able to get more votes than anybody ever has gotten in the history of Republican politics.

Trump made a profit from his 2016 campaign

OpEd: Trump never faced tough press questioning

Alas Trump never faced tough questioning as a candidate in a forum where he could not walk away or give nonsense answers without repeated follow-up. This is a serious problem for the future of American democracy in the television era, when appearances matter more than reality. Trump will not be the last manifestly unqualified candidate who knows how to manipulate television to his or her advantage and fool many people. To guard against that we need to have flint-eyed reporters--not just smiling television news readers--asking tough questions in public forums that are aimed at eliciting facts and truths.

OpEd: Obama doesn't have the psychology of a winner

In two instances when he spoke on the record, Trump veered from a general discussion of "success" to an evaluation of the president. In the first case he said Obama lacked the qualities of a winner and "has had so many losses and people don't even want to watch him on television." In the second he said the president was not psychologically tough. "It's all psychology. If Obama had that psychology, Russia's Vladimir Putin wouldn't be eating his lunch. He doesn't have that psychology and he never will because it's not in his DNA."

I want to win as a Republican, but might run as Independent

TRUMP: I fully understand.

Q: And that experts say an independent run would almost certainly hand the race over to Democrats & likely another Clinton. You can't say tonight that you can make that pledge?

TRUMP: I cannot say. I have to respect the person that [is nominated], if it's not me, I can totally make that pledge. If I'm the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. We want to win; I want to win as the Republican; I want to run as the Republican nominee.

RAND PAUL: He's already hedging his bet. Maybe he supports Clinton, or maybe he runs as an independent.

Q: You're not gonna make the pledge tonight?

TRUMP: I will not make the pledge at this time.

No more morning in America; we'll be mourning FOR America

But it doesn't have to be this way. If we get tough and make the hard choices, we can make America a rich nation--and respected--once again.

Bad students (like Obama) shouldn't go to Harvard

"How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump said. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records." By charging that Obama was not admitted based on merit, Trump is suggesting that Obama was admitted because he is black. In GOP politics, attacking racial minorities as the underachieving beneficiaries of affirmative action is a very old move. Trump is blatantly attacking Obama's teenage qualifications for college--a topic so obscure, it was a non-issue in Obama's exhaustive, two-year-long presidential campaign.

OpEd: Praised Hillary Clinton in 2008 election

DT: You have a lot of good people. Rudy Giuliani is a very good person. Hillary Clinton is a very good person. We might not like what's going on right now, but we live in a very resilient country, and we'll find a way out of our problems. This country is very, very resilient.

1980: We handled captives in Iran poorly

Grade school mischief-maker: headstrong and determined

No matter the consequences, Donald's behavior did not change. "He was headstrong and determined," said a Kew-Forest teacher. "He would sit with his arms folded, with this look on his face--surly."

By his own account, Trump's primary focus in elementary school was "creating mischief because I liked to stir things up & test people. It wasn't malicious so much as it was aggressive." As a 2nd-grader, as Trump has described it, he punched his music teacher, giving him a "black eye" because "I didn't think he knew anything about music, and I almost got expelled. I'm not proud of that, but it's clear evidence that even early on I had a tendency to stand up and make my opinions known in a very forceful way."

1990 Marla Maples headline: "Best sex I ever had"

February 1990 was a newsy month. Nelson Mandela was freed from prison. President George H. W. Bush welcomed the president of Czechoslovakia, as the collapse of the Soviet empire accelerated. But for weeks, one story dominated the front pages of the city's tabloids: Donald vs. Ivana. The obsession in the nation's media capital spread to serious national publications.

The sensational headlines reached their apex with the Post's February 16 front-page "Best Sex I've Ever Had", a statement supposedly uttered by Maples in reference to Donald. The headline would become a tabloid classic.

The Post's managing editor, Colasuonno. Did Marla really say what the Post was about to trumpet on page one? "Guys, this headline is libel-proof," he said. "Donald will never complain about this one."

After Ivana, never let wife run business again

As Trump's private life merged with his public identity, he came to see his marriages as something that either boosted his image and therefore his business's reputation, or as a hindrance. "My marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection," he said during divorce proceedings with Ivana.

Marla Maples would pose far less of a threat. She wasn't one to challenge him, except for continually pressing him to wed her. This time, there would be no talk of a marriage of equals.

OpEd: curries favor with journalists who don't cross-check

I sized him up as a modern P.T. Barnum selling tickets to modern variations of mermaids, that people decided were worth a bit of their money. Trump was full of himself.

I've always been rebellious and very set in my ways

Fiercely defend religious freedom and terms like "Christmas"

Trump: In June 2016, Trump delivered a message to evangelicals that if he wins the White House in November, he will fiercely defend religious freedom. In August 2015, Trump said, "There's an assault on anything having to do with Christianity. They don't want to use the word 'Christmas' anymore at department stores." Trump also said, "There's always lawsuits and unfortunately a lot of those lawsuits are won by the other side. I will assault that. I will go so strongly against so many of the things, when they take away the word 'Christmas.' I go out of my way to use the word 'Christmas.'"

Clinton: Denounces legislative efforts in Indiana and Arkansas that supporters say protect religious expression and opponents say discriminate against gay people. Clinton called it "sad" that Indiana would approve the law, which like the 1993 version is called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Keep the word 'Christmas' in the holiday

Asked whether the Gospels would inform his public-policy choices in the White House, Trump said "deep down, maybe they do" influence his decision-making. For example, Trump said, he is offended that "the word Christmas is being taken out" of the holiday. "I see these stores like Macy's and so many others-- they're afraid to use the word 'Christmas' now," Trump said. "Maybe they can't use it, legally. What's going on is outrageous, and I will do things about it. The beliefs in the Bible had a lot to do with our country."

OpEd: FBI investigation of Hillary's email proves relevance

COMEY: With thousands of emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop, the question is, "So what do we do now?" I can't see a door that's labeled, "No action here." I can only see two doors: "Speak," and "Conceal."

Q: You knew that candidate Trump is going to say, "This proves everything I've been saying about Hillary Clinton is right." Five previous attorney generals all disagree with you. They say this crossed a line.

COMEY: Yeah, I've heard a lot of that. That was allegedly the reason for my firing.

Q: If you knew that letter would elect Donald Trump, you'd still send it?

COMEY: I would. Because down that path [if the letter was not sent] lies the death of the FBI as an independent force in American life. I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump, and if I hide this from the American people, she'll be illegitimate the moment she's elected, the moment this comes out.

Mocks opponent as "Pocahontas" at Native American event

Warren has called the Republican president's use of the name a racial slur. Warren has acknowledged telling Harvard and an earlier employer, the University of Pennsylvania, of her heritage but only after she had been hired.

Pocahontas was a native woman who lived in present-day Virginia in the 1600s and agreed to marry an English colonist to help ensure peace and protect her people.

Questions about Warren's heritage, which first surfaced during her successful 2012 campaign to oust Republican Sen. Scott Brown, haven't dampened her popularity in Massachusetts. One recent poll found her leading each of her challengers by more than 20 percentage points.

Hillary & Obama criminally paid people to start riots

We should have impeached George W. Bush for Iraq War lies

TRUMP: Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don't even have it. Iran has taken over Iraq. Obviously, it was a mistake. George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.

Q: So you still think he should be impeached?

TRUMP: You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you, they lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none.