Category: Not Factual

Trump Returns to False Tax Claim as He Pushes For Reform

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As part of a push for tax reform, President Trump bemoaned that the United States is the most heavily taxed nation on Earth.

That’s not true.

Trump is traveling to North Dakota to deliver a speech Wednesday afternoon on the importance of streamlining the tax code and easing the burden of taxes on citizens and businesses. In an early morning tweet, he promoted this trip and promised that under his administration the U.S. would no longer be “the highest taxed nation in the world.”

This statement is completely false. According to 2015 data from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), taxation accounted for 26.4 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP). This was lower than the average for the 35 nations in the OECD (34.3 percent) and in some cases far lower than comparable countries (45.5 percent in France, for instance).

In April 2016, the Pew Research Center concluded that U.S. tax bills are below the average for developed nations by examining OECD data dating back to 2001. It calculated “national-level income taxes plus mandatory social-insurance contributions as a percentage of gross income” for four different family types: a single working parent, a single working person without children, a married couple with two children where both parents work, and a married couple with two children where only one parent works. In all cases, the U.S. was below the average.

Trump has repeatedly touted this false claim. For instance, in a heated exchange with “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd in May 2016, Trump said, “We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Our businesses pay more taxes than any businesses in the world. That’s why companies are leaving.” He also repeated the falsehood during debates and speeches.

PolitiFact rated Trump’s claim that the U.S. is “the highest taxed country in the world” as false in February 2016 after a Republican primary debate. The fact-checking website concluded that the U.S. “is far from the most taxed nation in the world, whether it’s an advanced industrialized economy or not.”

The website repeated its assessment on Wednesday after Trump’s tweet.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a public-policy think tank, also rated Trump’s claim as false: “Notwithstanding our high corporate tax rate, the U.S. is not close to being the highest-taxed country in the world.”

The corporate income tax rate in the U.S. is high, at 35 percent, but the effective corporate tax rate — after accounting for deductions and tax breaks — is 18.6 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Determining which country has the highest tax rate is complicated and depends on the data researchers examine. Using data from OECD, Investopedia reported that Portugal has the highest tax rate for people with high incomes (61.3 percent); Belgium has the highest level for average-earning single people without children (42 percent); and Turkey has the highest levy for average-earning married couples with two children where only one spouse works (25.8 percent). And according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, Argentina’s total tax rate is an extraordinary 137.3 percent.

[Yahoo]

Donald Trump’s EPA Is Now Attacking Journalists

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On Saturday, Associated Press journalists Jason Dearen and Michael Biesecker reported at least five toxic, Houston-area Superfund sites in the path of Hurricane Harvey had been deluged with floodwater, potentially distributing the assorted nasty things contained within across a much larger geographical area. The AP report noted while its reporters were able to access the sites via boat, the Environmental Protection Agency was not on scene, and did not provide a timeline for when its staff would be able to visit them.

Now the EPA, which is under the control of Donald Trump appointee and longtime EPA hater Scott Pruitt, has fired back with one of the administration’s favorite tactics: smearing the messenger. In an extraordinary statement that appeared on the agency’s website on Sunday, the EPA called the AP report “misleading” and attacked Biesecker’s “audacity” and credibility.

“Here’s the truth: through aerial imaging, EPA has already conducted initial assessments at 41 Superfund sites—28 of those sites show no damage, and 13 have experienced flooding,” the EPA wrote.

Notably, the EPA tried to bury that its “initial assessment” was conducted with “aerial images,” not actual on-site assessments, and that the agency had failed to visit at least 11 possibly storm-damaged Superfund sites as of Saturday. That is completely in line with the original AP report.

“Administrator Pruitt already visited Southeast Texas and is in constant contact with local, state and county officials,” the statement continued. “And EPA, has a team of experts imbedded with other local, state and federal authorities, on the ground responding to Harvey – none of which Biesecker included in his story.”

“Unfortunately, the Associated Press’ Michael Biesecker has a history of not letting the facts get in the way of his story,” the EPA continued. “Earlier this summer, he made-up a meeting that Administrator Pruitt had, and then deliberately discarded information that refuted his inaccurate story—ultimately prompting a nation-wide correction. Additionally, the Oklahoman took him to task for sensationalized reporting.”

(Biesecker did not make up the story, which is that Pruitt met with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris before deciding not to ban Dow’s chlorpyrifos pesticide, but instead issued a correction regarding the length of said meeting.)

In a followup statement, EPA Associate Administrator Liz Bowman claimed the AP was “once again” attempting to “mislead Americans” by “cherry-picking facts,” and slammed the report as “yellow journalism.” The statement also links to far-right website Breitbart, one of the president’s favorite websites.

Since the EPA did not actually contest any of the facts in the AP article, this looks an awful lot like petty retaliation against journalists for having the temerity to report on things like the EPA’s response to an environmental catastrophe—or any number of other things, like Pruitt’s extremely sketchy ties to the climate change denial movement, war on environmental science or plans to eliminate huge numbers of EPA staff.

Going after reporters might please the big, stupid and extremely petty man in the Oval Office. But that’s precisely because responding to bad publicity by doubling down and smearing critics is the way a child would handle things. Never mind the toxic waste potentially spread all around Houston—a bunch of Trump appointees’ egos are the real victims here.

[Gizmodo]

Trump Jokes About His Penis While Serving Food to Harvey Victims

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President Trump joked that his hands were “too big” while putting on plastic gloves to serve food to victims of Hurricane Harvey in Houston on Saturday.

Video broadcast by Fox News shows Trump working at a food serving line at NRG Stadium in Houston. While putting on gloves, Trump turned to the members of the press and said, “My hands are too big.”

Trump returned to Texas on Saturday to visit with victims affected by Hurricane Harvey and volunteers coordinating relief efforts. Alongside first lady Melania Trump, he handed out food and played with children at the evacuation center.

“People appreciate what’s been done. It’s been done very efficiently and very well,” Trump said following the visit to a Houston disaster relief center, according to a White House pool report.

“As tough as this was [the response] has been a wonderful thing, I think, even for the country to watch.”

Trump visited Texas earlier this week following the storm, where he was briefed on rescue and recovery efforts. But some critics argued that trip lacked the president meeting with storm victims personally.

The president is also set to visit Louisiana, which was also ravaged by Hurricane Harvey, on Saturday.

[The Hill]

Media

Despite Trump’s Dig, The Media Did Go ‘Into The Winds’ Of Hurricane Harvey

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President Donald Trump cannot seem to suppress his contempt for the news media ― even when he is speaking about something completely unrelated.

In remarks to members of the United States military in Texas on Saturday, Trump singled out the Coast Guard for rescuing nearly 11,000 people stranded by Hurricane Harvey.

He then compared it to what he described as the relative lack of courage exhibited by journalists covering the storm.

“Think of it: almost 11,000 people ― by going into winds that the media would not go into. They will not go into those winds,” he said. “Unless it’s a really good story, in which case they will.”

The media apparently considered Hurricane Harvey a “really good story” though, because numerous journalists put themselves in harm’s way to cover the disaster ― often accompanying the very service members Trump was thanking.

In fact, many reporters, including HuffPost’s David Lohr, took part in rescue efforts as they encountered people struggling to survive the storm’s worst effects.

Trump has a famously rocky relationship with the news media, particularly national outlets, which he frequently derides as “fake news.” At a campaign-style rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Aug. 22, Trump spent more than 10 minutes denouncing the media’s treatment of him, complete with indictments of specific journalists and their outlets.

During a visit to a shelter in Houston on Saturday, however, Trump struck a slightly more conciliatory tone. The Texans he met are “really happy” with the federal recovery efforts he is managing, Trump told reporters, adding that he was pleasantly surprised to find that even the news media was recognizing his work.

“It’s been very well received ― even by you guys, it’s been well received,” Trump said.

[Huffington Post]

Media

Trump Slams ‘Rigged System’ Over Claim Comey ‘Exonerated’ Clinton Before Probe Ended

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President Trump on Friday slammed what he called a “rigged system” following reports that former FBI Director James Comey began drafting an “exoneration statement” for Hillary Clinton before interviewing her in connection with her private email use as secretary of state.

“Wow, looks like James Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton long before the investigation was over…and so much more. A rigged system!” Trump tweeted early Friday.

The president was referring to allegations made this week by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

In a news release Thursday, the senators said Comey began drafting the exoneration statement in April or May 2016, which was before the FBI interviewed 17 key witnesses, including Clinton herself and other top aides.

Grassley and Graham said they learned about the draft after reviewing transcripts of interviews with top Comey aides.

“According to the unredacted portions of the transcripts, it appears that in April or early May of 2016, Mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating Secretary Clinton,” the senators said.

They added, “That was long before FBI agents finished their work. Mr. Comey even circulated an early draft statement to select members of senior FBI leadership. The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts.”

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, was investigated by the FBI for using a private email address and server to handle classified information while serving as secretary of state.

In July 2016, Comey famously called Clinton’s email arrangement “extremely careless” though he decided against recommending criminal charges.

The transcripts in question were from interviews conducted by the Office of Special Counsel, which interviewed James Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff, and Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel of national security and cyberlaw, the senators said.

“It is unclear whether the FBI agents actually investigating the case were aware that Mr. Comey had already decided on the investigation’s outcome while their work was ongoing,” the senators wrote.

In the Wednesday letter to FBI Director Chris Wray, the two senators said they have requested all records relating to the drafting of the statement.

Comey was fired as FBI director by Trump in May amid tensions over the Russia investigation.

[Fox News]

Reality

No. If Comey redirected the investigation before it completed then that is one thing, but seeing where an investigation is headed then drafting a statement, sharing the statement with peers for feedback, all in order to prepare for one of the biggest press conferences of your career, that is another.

Smart people prepare for things.

Eric Trump predicts CNN won’t cover Trump Harvey donation hours after network report

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President Trump’s son Eric Trump tweeted on Thursday that CNN wouldn’t report on his father’s pledge to donate $1 million to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

“So proud!!! Let’s see if @CNN or the #MSM acknowledges this incredible generosity. My guess: they won’t… “  Eric Trump tweeted with a link to a Fox News story.

Three hours earlier, CNN tweeted its coverage of Trump’s pledge, which was announced during Thursday’s White House press briefing.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Trump’s pledge on Thursday. Trump has yet to finalize what group the money will go to.

“He’s actually asked that I check with the folks in this room since you are very good at research and have been doing a lot of reporting into the groups and organizations that have the best and most effective in helping and providing aid and he would love some suggestions from the folks here and I would be happy to take them,” Sanders said.

Sanders also said she did not know if the donation would come from Trump himself or the Trump Foundation.

“I know that the president, he said he was personally going to give, I don’t know the legal part of exactly that but he said his personal money so I would assume that comes directly from him,” she said.

[The Hill]

Reality

We should be skeptical of Trump’s generosity. For years Trump used his charity as a scheme funneling other people’s money into his own pockets, and during the campaign claimed for four months that he donated one million dollars to veterans charities, but lied about it the entire time, only handing the money over once he was caught.

White House acknowledges Trump lied about ‘witnessing first hand’ the devastation of Harvey

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On Thursday morning, President Trump tweeted that “[a]fter witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, my heart goes out even more so to the great people of Texas!”

Trump was referring to the trip he took the day before to Texas, where he held a news conference with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and then briefly addressed supporters atop a fire truck in Corpus Christi. He praised the size of the crowd and admired the “turnout.”

Breaking from precedent established by recent presidents when they’ve visited the sites of disasters, Trump didn’t visit any of the hardest-hit areas, and he didn’t meet with any Harvey victims.

On Thursday evening, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to clarify Trump’s tweet about “witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey.” Sanders’ response acknowledged that the president lied, as she cited a number of second-hand accounts.

“He met with a number of local officials who are eating, sleeping, breathing the Harvey disaster,” Sanders said. “He talked extensively with the governor, who certainly is right in the midst of every bit of this, as well as the mayors from several of the local towns that were hit hardest. And detailed briefing information throughout the day yesterday talking to a lot of the people on the ground — that certain is a firsthand account.”

Meanwhile, a photo posted on Trump’s Instagram page showed the president watching radar in a conference room, along with the text of his “[a]fter witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey” tweet.

Merriam-Webster defines “firsthand” as “obtained by, coming from, or being direct personal observation or experience.” None of the sources Sanders cited rise to that level. But “secondhand” is defined as “received from or through an intermediary” — exactly the sort of thing described in her response.

[ThinkProgress]

Media

Finland Says No Fighter Deal with Boeing After Trump’s Ad-Lib Comments

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President Sauli Niinisto on Tuesday denied that Finland was buying new fighter jets from American planemaker Boeing (BA.N), following remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Finland is looking to replace its ageing fleet of 62 F/A-18 Hornet jets with multirole fighter aircraft in a procurement estimated at 7-10 billion euros by 2025.

“One of the things that is happening is you’re purchasing large amounts of our great F-18 aircraft from Boeing and it’s one of the great planes, the great fighter jets,” Trump said on Monday at a news conference with his Finnish counterpart in the White House.

Niinisto, who was standing next to Trump, looked surprised but did not follow up on the comment. He later denied the deal with Boeing on his Twitter account and on Tuesday in Washington.

“It seems that on the sale side, past decisions and hopes about future decisions have mixed … The purchase is just starting, and that is very clear here,” Niinisto told Finnish reporters.

Helsinki is expected to request that European and U.S. planemakers provide quotations for new jets in 2018, with a final decision made in the early 2020s.

A government working group has listed possible candidates as Saab’s (SAABb.ST) Jas Gripen, Dassault Aviation’s (AVMD.PA) Rafale, Boeing’s Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin’s (LMT.N) F-35 and the Eurofighter, made by Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.

[Reuters]

Trump Signed ‘Letter of Intent’ for Russian Tower During Campaign

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Four months into his campaign for president of the United States, Donald Trump signed a “letter of intent” to pursue a Trump Tower-style building development in Moscow, according to a statement from the then-Trump Organization Chief Counsel Michael Cohen.

The involvement of then-candidate Trump in a proposed Russian development deal contradicts repeated statements Trump made during the campaign, including telling ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in July 2016 that his business had “no relationship to Russia whatsoever.”

The disclosure from Cohen, who has described himself as Trump’s personal lawyer, came as Cohen’s attorney gave congressional investigators scores of documents and emails from the campaign, including several pertaining to the Moscow development idea.

“Certain documents in the production reference a proposal for ‘Trump Tower Moscow,’ which contemplated a private real estate development in Russia,” Cohen’s statement says. “The decision to pursue the proposal initially, and later to abandon it, was unrelated to the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign.”

In a separate statement texted to ABC News, Cohen added that “the Trump Moscow proposal was simply one of many development opportunities that the Trump Organization considered and ultimately rejected.”

Cohen specifically says in his statement that Trump was told three times about the Moscow proposal.

“To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Trump was never in contact with anyone about this proposal other than me on three occasions, including signing a non-binding letter of intent in 2015,” his statement says.

Cohen also makes clear that he himself engaged in communication directly with the Kremlin about the proposal during the ongoing 2016 presidential campaign. His statement says he wrote to the press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin at the request of Felix Sater, a frequent Trump Organization associate who had proposed the Trump Moscow development.

“In mid-January 2016, Mr. Sater suggested that I send an email to Mr. Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary for the President of Russia, since the proposal would require approvals within the Russian government that had not been issued,” Cohen’s statement says. “Those permissions were never provided. I decided to abandon the proposal less than two weeks later for business reasons and do not recall any response to my email, nor any other contacts by me with Mr. Peskov or other Russian government officials about the proposal.”

The Trump Moscow development proposal, which was first reported Monday by The Washington Post, provides a new look at the relationship between the president’s real estate firm and Sater, a convicted felon who served a year in New York state prison for stabbing a man during a bar fight.

Sater is a controversial figure who served for many years as a federal government cooperating witness on a host of matters involving organized crime and national security. Sater had also traveled in Moscow with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., in the mid-2000s and handed out business cards identifying himself as a “senior adviser” to Donald Trump Sr.

Trump had taken pains to distance himself from Sater. In one sworn deposition, regarding a Trump development in Florida on which Sater had worked, Trump said “I don’t know him very well … if he were sitting in the room right now I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.”

The emails show Sater and Cohen – friends since their teenage years growing up in Brooklyn – sharing their dreams of a Trump presidency.

In one, made public Monday by The Washington Post and New York Times, Sater writes: “I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy, our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it.”

And Sater adds, pointedly: “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this.”

On Sept. 30, 2015, Trump Organization officials told ABC News that Sater had inflated his connections to the company. Alan Garten, a senior Trump Organization attorney, told ABC News that “there’s really no direct relationship” between Sater and the real estate firm.

“To be honest, I don’t know that he ever brought any deals,” Garten said.

That was the same month Sater brought the company the Trump Moscow development proposal, according to Cohen’s statement. Cohen’s statement notes that he did not share the proposal with others in his firm.

“Mr. Sater, on occasion, made claims about aspects of the proposal, as well as his ability to bring the proposal to fruition. Over the course of my business dealings with Mr. Sater, he has sometimes used colorful language and has been prone to ‘salesmanship,’” Cohen wrote. “As a result, I did not feel that it was necessary to routinely apprise others within the Trump Organization of communications that Mr. Sater sent only to me.”

Garten and an attorney for Sater did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For five months, the Trump Organization gave serious consideration to the Moscow development idea. But Cohen told ABC News he scuttled the plan in January 2016, one year before Trump was sworn in as president.

“I abandoned the Moscow proposal because I lost confidence that the prospective licensee would be able to obtain the real estate, financing, and government approvals necessary to bring the proposal to fruition,” Cohen said. “It was a building proposal that did not succeed and nothing more.”

[ABC News]

Trump: I Pass a Lot of Bills. Also, the Democrats Won’t Let Me Pass Bills.

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See if you can spot the contradiction in these two tweets President Trump posted Friday morning.

Eight Democrats control the Senate, he warns, meaning that the Republican majority must end the filibuster to pass legislation.

Eleven minutes later, a different story: In seven months, Trump’s seen unprecedented success, including … passing a lot of legislation.

This is not the first time Trump’s tried to have it both ways on legislation.

On July 11, this tweet:

And on July 17: “We’ve signed more bills — and I’m talking about through the legislature — than any president, ever,” he said.

Those can’t both be true, by definition. You can’t pass “more bills … than any president ever” if there are “no votes” on the bills.

This is in part a byproduct of one of Trump’s best-known personality traits, his tendency toward hyperbole. Nothing that’s good is anything less than great and beautiful in Trump’s eyes; nothing that’s bad is anything more than terrible or the worst. There’s no average day in the Trump presidency, just days jostling each other at the very top and very bottom of the spectrum. (Or, really, just at the very top.) And so it is not the case that Trump is in the middle of the pack in terms of legislation passed, he’s the best.

It’s also a byproduct of another of Trump’s well-known characteristics: Nothing is his fault. He did once tell the nation that he alone could fix what was broken in Washington, that what was needed was a dealmaker, who could come in, crack skulls and get a negotiated resolution. But making deals in Congress isn’t like making deals in Trump Tower. There are no one-on-one negotiations, just 52-on-1 negotiations with the Republican caucus in the Senate, with 52 people who represent diverging constituencies and interests. Whether Trump’s dealmaking skills weren’t overhyped, it’s clear that he’s met his match in Congress.

Remember: The most spectacular failure by the Republicans so far this year was on the health-care bill that only needed 50 votes. Trump’s signed no major legislation into law, and the one bill that would have met that definition failed independently of any need to overhaul the filibuster.

That’s not the story that Trump wants to tell. He wants to blame the failure on the Democrats — and, secondarily, on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who’s earned his own disapproving tweets from Trump in recent weeks. Whatever happened that was bad, Trump would like us to know, it certainly wasn’t the fault of Donald J. Trump.

So we end up with weird moments like Friday morning, a president who is both bragging about his unprecedented success and lamenting the unprecedented obstruction that’s preventing him from doing his job.

As Cornell Law professor Josh Chafetz noted on Twitter, neither of those claims is true. He’s signed more bills than some presidents and less than others. The filibuster makes consensus-building trickier, but rifts within his own party in both the House and the Senate are the bigger initial stumbling block.

But, again, most of America by now takes this in stride. We know Trump exaggerates and lies and misrepresents; we know that his hyperbole is just that. We know that the president wants to be hailed as the best and to have all of his failures blamed on someone else. For better or worse, we’ve come to terms with it.

Just as we’ve come to terms with Trump’s now-expected early morning tweets containing internal contradictions. One more day in the world of 2017.

[Washington Post]

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