Category: Not Factual

Donald Trump Now Says Even LEGAL Immigrants Are a Security Threat

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First Donald Trump said that he wanted to block nearly all foreign Muslims from entering the United States. More recently, he decided to stop using the word “Muslim” as he called for halting immigration from countries with high rates of terrorism, although he has yet to say which countries that would include.

At a rally in Portland, Maine, on Thursday afternoon, Trump provided a lengthy explanation of why he thinks the United States needs to be skeptical of immigrants from many countries, even if they follow the legal process. Reading from notes, Trump listed nearly a dozen examples of immigrants, refugees or students who came to the United States legally — often applying for and receiving citizenship — and then plotted to kill Americans, sometimes successfully doing so. The countries that he referenced in these examples: Somalia, Morocco, Uzbekistan (he asked the crowd where it was located), Syria, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen (which he pronounced “yay-men”). Trump’s staff has yet to confirm if there are countries from which the nominee wants to limit immigration.

“We’re letting people come in from terrorist nations that shouldn’t be allowed because you can’t vet them,” Trump said. “There’s no way of vetting them. You have no idea who they are. This could be the great Trojan horse of all time.”

At another point in the rally, Trump said: “Hillary Clinton wants to have them come in by the hundreds of thousands, just remember. This has nothing to do with politics, folks. This is a whole different level. This has to do with pure, raw stupidity. Okay?”

Trump has long called for a crackdown on illegal immigration, which he has framed as a national security concern. In his announcement speech last year, Trump described illegal Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. At numerous rallies, mothers and fathers whose children have been killed by illegal immigrants have shared their heartbreaking stories. Trump has said that building a wall along the border with Mexico will not only keep out illegal immigrants but also criminals, drug traffickers and terrorists. And he has proposed deporting the millions of immigrants illegally living here, starting with those who have committed crimes.

For more than 10 months, Trump has opposed allowing any Syrian refugees into the country because they could be terrorists, and he has promised to kick out all Syrian refugees currently in the country. In December, Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” Last month Trump said that his position on banning Muslims has “gotten bigger,” as he’s now focusing on territories with terrorism problems. Last week Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity: “People don’t want me to say ‘Muslim.’ I guess I prefer not saying it, frankly, myself. So we’re talking about territories.” But he has yet to say which territories he would target.

About 13 percent of 318.9 million people living in the United States in 2014 were immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute, which is a massive increase from 1970, when the rate was less than 5 percent. Mexico is the most common home-nation of these immigrants, followed by India, China and the Philippines.

Within minutes of taking the stage in Maine on Thursday afternoon, Trump warned the crowd of outsiders “pouring into our country,” and he promised to build a wall along the border. He was interrupted by protesters who held up pocket-sized copies of the Constitution. The crowd booed and then chanted: “USA! USA! USA!”

As the protesters were led away, Trump resumed: “A Trump rally is the safest place in our country to be. Believe me. Believe me. Right? It is safe. But if we keep going the way it is, our whole country is becoming different.”

Trump warned the crowd that “radical Islamic terrorism” is the “most important issues facing civilization right now” and that the United States has to be more careful in allowing foreigners to visit or move here.

“We’ve just seen many, many crimes getting worse all the time, and as Maine knows — a major destination for Somali refugees. Right? Am I right?” Trump said, as the crowd affirmed what he had said. “Well, they’re all talking about it: Maine. Somali. Refugees. We admit hundreds of thousands, you admit into Maine, and to other places in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, and they’re coming from among the most dangerous territories and countries anywhere in the world — right? — a practice which has to stop. It has to stop… This is a practice that has to stop.”

To back up this point, Trump rattled through a list of cautionary examples — nearly all of which appear on a list of 26 examples released in November by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who chairs an immigration subcommittee. Sessions has closely advised Trump for months and one of his former aides, Stephen Miller, is now a senior policy adviser to Trump and often speaks at Trump’s rallies about the dangers of immigration. In nearly each example, Trump noted that the suspect in question came to the United States legally and was granted citizenship.

“They’re the ones we know about. There are so many that we don’t know about. You’re going to have problems like you’ve never seen,” Trump said. “We don’t know where these people are. You know when the government puts them around… for the most part, very few people know where they even are. We don’t even know where they are located. I’m telling you, I’ve said it before: This could be the great Trojan horse of all time. They’re coming in. They’re coming in.”

Here are the examples Trump gave:

  • Somalia: Trump referenced a Washington Times article about thousands of Somali refugees resettling in Minnesota and “creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment that is both stressing the state’s safety net and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamist terror groups.” The article quotes a FBI official saying Minnesota has seen recruitment videos targeted at Somalis in their state but that authorities have been working closely with the Somali community. “It’s happening,” Trump said. “It’s happening. You see it, you read about it. You can see it.” (You can read the full article here: “Feds’ relocation of Somali refugees stresses Minn. welfare, raises terror fears.”)
  • Chechnya: Trump noted that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the so-called Boston bombers, came to the United States ” through the political asylum process.” Trump did not mention that the brothers were from Chechnya, but he noted that the younger brother became a naturalized U.S. citizen on Sept.11, 2012, while the older brother had an application pending. “Oh that’s wonderful, right?” Trump said. “We take them. We take them.”
  • Pakistan: Trump referenced the mass shooting in San Bernardino, although he didn’t mention the residency status of the married couple accused of murdering their coworkers. Syed Rizwan Farook was a U.S. citizen, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, was a permanent resident from Pakistan. At other rallies, Trump has questioned why Malik was allowed to come to the United States on a “fiancee visa.”
  • Morocco: Trump said that a “Moroccan national on a student visa… was arrested for plotting to blow up a university and a federal courthouse.” Some background that Trump didn’t include: Federal authorities began investigating El Mehdi Semlali Fathi, a native of Morocco who was living in Connecticut on a long-expired student visa. Fathi told a friend he wanted to use “toy planes” to bomb a university and a federal building, but he was never arrested on terrorism-related charges. Instead, Fathi was arrested on immigration-related charges, and in October 2014, he was sentenced to 24 months of imprisonment for fabricating a refugee application. He was set to be deported upon his release.
  • Uzbekistan: Trump said that a Uzbek refugee living in Idaho — he paused to ask the audience: “You know where that is? You know where that is, huh?” — was arrested and charged with “teaching terror recruits how to build bombs.” Trump opined: “Oh, wonderful, wonderful. I don’t want them in this country.” Fazliddin Kurbanov was arrested in 2013 and charged with teaching people to build bombs that would target public transportation. Earlier this year he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
  • Syria: Trump said that an immigrant from Syria, who received U.S. citizenship,  planned to killed solders on a military base. He was likely referring to Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, who was born in Somalia and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, settling in Ohio but traveling to Syria to allegedly train with a terrorist organization. Mohamud was indicted on terrorism charges in April 2015, with prosecutors stating that he “wanted to go to a military base in Texas and kill three or four American soldiers execution style.”
  • Again, Somalia: Trump mentioned the Oregon college student who plotted to blow up a Christmas tree during a lighting ceremony, noting that he was a Somalian refugee who gained citizenship. In October 2014, Mohamed Osman Mohamud was sentenced to 30 years in prison for trying to use a weapon of mass destruction.
  • Afghanistan and the Philippines: Trump said an immigrant from Afghanistan who became a U.S. citizen and a legal permanent resident from the Philippines were convicted of “plotting to join Al-Quada and the Taliban in order to kill as many Americans as possible.” In February 2015, Sohiel Omar Kabir, originally of Afghanistan, and Ralph Deleon, a citizen of the Philippines who was a lawful permanent U.S. resident, were sentenced to 300 months in federal prison for participating in plots to provide material support to terrorists and kill American military members.
  • Iraq: Trump said an Iraqi immigrant who applied for and received U.S. citizenship was arrested for lying to federal authorities about pledging allegiance to ISIS and his travels to Syria and wanting to “kill as many Americans as possible, didn’t care how.” Bilal Abood, who worked for the U.S. military as a translator during the Iraq War, was sentenced to four years in federal prison in May for lying to the FBI about traveling to Syria and sending a tweet that pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State. Abood testified that he traveled to Syria to fight with the Free Syrian Army, which opposes the Islamic State, according to the Dallas Morning News. During the sentencing, the judge said there no evidence suggesting Abood was planning a terrorist attack.
  • Again, Pakistan: Trump said two immigrants from Pakistan who became citizens were sentenced to “decades-long prison terms for plotting to detonate a bomb in the middle of New York City.” In June 2015, brothers Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi were sentenced to 35 years and 20 years in prison for plotting a terrorist attack in New York City in 2012 and assaulting two deputy U.S. marshals while in custody.
  • Yemen: Trump said an immigrant from Yemen was arrested for trying to join the Islamic State and illegally buying firearms to “kill as many military personnel as possible.” A version of Jeff Sessions’ list states that this happened in September 2014 but provided no links to additional information.

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Under a Trump presidency, legal immigrants could have their 14th amendment rights of equal protection gutted so some hick in middle-American is able to “feel” safer.

And I stress “feel” when talking about safety and the Trump supporter because no matter how strongly they “feel” it isn’t going change reality. We have over 100 years of studies which show immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime.

“But! But! But, there was that one Mexican who killed that poor girl in that evil sanctuary city San Francisco!” is what you the Trump supporter are thinking in your head right now. But you’re wrong. While that individual incident was indeed tragic, you are so wrong and you need to know why now. You are falling into the trap of a small sample size. Every day 91 Americans are murdered, just by guns alone, so by the time you’ve finished reading this chances are some native-born American killed someone else with a gun.

So we look at data. And larger trends. And facts. Not emotions. We look at data that violent crime is on the decline, and has been for decades. The data shows violent crime has decreased 50% since 1990. I can say that not because I “feel” like it’s dropped, but because the statistics from the FBI prove it has.

Not emotions. Evidence.

So when you hear Trump in his speeches and interviews when he uses this language to make you afraid, afraid of your family, afraid of your neighbors, afraid of people you’ve never met but who have a love of this country that rivals yours, remember he his doing this because he believes you are too stupid. Trump is betting, just as he did in the Republican primaries, that you’re so dumb that you’ll take whatever he says at face value, neglect you’ll use the same logic and critical thinking that you apply to everything else in your life, and be afraid.

So think really hard about your vote. Think about what you “feel” and what you know is fact.

Media

Trump’s comments at the 28:00 minute mark.

Trump Tweets ISIS and Bad Economic Numbers are Obama’s Fault, Both Not True

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Twitter

In his Twitter account, Donald Trump fired off a tweet blasting President Obama’s decision-making for causing ISIS and a horrible economy, claims that are as far from reality as one can get.

Reality

What was crazy about Trump’s claims, that we are seeing worst economic numbers since the Great Depression, is that there is no reading of any data that puts our economy at the same level of the Great Depression or even the Great Recession.

Also there was this little thing of the Labor Department’s monthly jobs and economic report released just a day after Trump’s tweet which shows a bright economic outlook. Whoops!

The Labor Department report said employers added 255,000 jobs in July continuing the longest streak of private-sector job growth, the unemployment rate remains below the natural rate at 4.9%, and the labor participation rate went up, all beating economic expectations. In response to the report the NASDAQ surged so high stocks are into record territory.

The jobs report was so good that usual critic Jeff Cox of NBC said “It’s hard to find anything bad, even for a skeptic.“

The even crazier claim in Trump’s tweet was how “Obama gave us ISIS.” A quick history lesson, ISIS was formed in 1999 and greatly expanded in 2003 by former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party who were out of a job after the George W. Bush-lead invasion of Iraq, which was based on faulty evidence. Donald Trump (as well as Fox News) can’t rewrite history here, Barack Obama was not a United States Senator until 2005, two years after the start of the invasion.

Fact is, over the past 2 years ISIS has been, losing ground, pushed out of key cities, and cut off from revenue producing oil fields. While ISIS still has the ability to inspire attacks in other countries, the multi-nation military response is working.

Finally, the “rise of Iran” may sound scary to some on first read, but as experts at think-tanks and NATO have argued, their rise is unsustainable, short lived, and a good thing as it will help towards stabilizing the Middle-East.

Paid CNN Commentator Corey Lewandowski Reignites Obama “Birther” Conspiracies

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Former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski revived long-debunked “birther” conspiracy theories about President Obama, suggesting he didn’t release his Harvard transcript as a candidate because it may have shown he was not born in the US.

The conversation on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon Tuesday began with commentator Angela Rye noting that Trump has been attacking Obama since before the election season. She added that the Republican presidential candidate demanded Obama release his birth certificate and college transcripts to prove he was an American citizen.

“Did he ever release his transcripts from Harvard?” Lewandowski, also a CNN commentator, responded.

“By the way, tell me about those tax returns, Corey,” Rye quipped back.

Following rumors that Obama was not born in the United States, the White house released the president’s long-form birth certificate in 2011, showing he was indeed born in Hawaii.

Lewandowski pressed Rye further, repeating his question again.

“You raised the issue. I’m just asking,” Lewandowski said. “You raised the issue. Did he, did he ever release his transcripts or his admission to Harvard University? You raised the issue, so just yes or no? The answer is no.”

“At this moment I’m going to Beyoncé you,” Rye said. “Boy bye.”

At that point, Lemon interrupted, asking about the importance of Obama’s Harvard transcript.

“Look, the only reason it’s germane is because she brought the issue up, and said Donald Trump raised the issue of his Harvard transcripts,” Lewandowski said. “And I just simply said, ‘Have those ever been released?’ And the question was, ‘Did he get in as a US citizen, or was he brought in to Harvard University as a citizen who wasn’t from this country?’ I don’t know the answer.”

When asked later by Rye where Lewanowski thinks Obama is from, he acknowledged the president is from Hawaii.

Reality

President Obama was born in Hawaii. Shut up.

Media

Donald Trump Claims He Watched a Nonexistent Recording of Iranian Money Transfer

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As Fox News reported on the controversial transfer of $400 million in cash to Iran in January, it repeatedly played dark, grainy footage of shadowy figures walking off a small private plane with bags in hand. The video is often labeled as being from Jan. 17 in Geneva where three Americans first landed after being released from prison in Tehran.

Republican nominee Donald Trump watched this sort of footage, according to his spokeswoman, and concluded that it showed the controversial money transfer that was described in detail for the first time this week by the Wall Street Journal. At a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced that the months-old video had been recorded by the Iranian government and released to embarrass the United States.

“Remember this: Iran — I don’t think you heard this anywhere but here — Iran provided all of that footage, the tape of taking that money off the airplane,” Trump said at the rally. “Right?”

Trump provided no source for this exclusive information but described in detail what he saw in the video.

“Now, here’s the amazing thing: Over there, where that plane landed, top secret, you don’t have a lot of paparazzi. You know, the paparazzi doesn’t do so well over there, right?” Trump said, seeming to refer to Iran and not Switzerland, where the footage was recorded. “And they have a perfect tape, done by obviously a government camera, and the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane. Right? That means that in order to embarrass us further, Iran sent us the tapes. Right? It’s a military tape; it’s a tape that was a perfect angle, nice and steady, nobody getting nervous because they’re gonna be shot because they’re shooting a picture of money pouring off a plane.”

Twitter quickly filled with confusion and this central question: What is Trump talking about?

Several senior U.S. officials involved in the Iran negotiations told the Associated Press on Wednesday they weren’t aware of any such footage. There was speculation that perhaps Trump saw the footage during one of the classified security briefings provided to presidential nominees, but Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort said in an interview on Fox News earlier in the day that those briefings have not yet begun.

The Washington Post asked Trump’s staff to explain what Trump was talking about and emailed a link to a Fox News clip that showed the January footage from Geneva, asking if that was the video the nominee saw.

“Yes,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded in an email. “Merely the b-roll footage included in every broadcast.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Donald Trump later repeated this false claim at another rally in Portland, Maine. Then after being corrected by about every news agency Trump admitted his error in an early-morning tweet Friday, without actually saying he was wrong.

There was nothing secret or clandestine about the $400 transfer of cash to Iran as it was made public early this year.

The $400 million payment — part of an overall $1.7 billion settlement of claims — was announced by the State Department on Jan. 17, the same day that President Obama announced the release of the detainees.

The U.S. had no way to directly deliver cold hard currency to Iran. Rather, the pallets traveled to Switzerland and the money was eventually transferred to Iran.

Media

Trump’s False Claim That Clinton ‘Started the Talks’ to Give $400 Million to Iran

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The GOP presidential nominee jumped on an interesting report in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama administration shipped $400 million in cash to Iran at about the same time that four Americans being held in Iran were released after negotiations.

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Trump is simply wrong that Clinton started the talks that led to the release of $400 million to Iran. She initiated the talks on Iran’s nuclear program, but that’s as far as her involvement goes. Iran’s claim for the $400 million was made long before Clinton took office — and was resolved after she left.

Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in early 2013. The deal involving the American detainees — including The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian — was announced in January this year, three years after the end of her tenure. Clinton did initiate negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program — though substantial talks with Iran did not take place until after she left.

But Clinton had nothing to do with talks on the detainees. Those occurred on a separate track, which U.S. officials said was necessary to not raise the price to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The $400 million payment — part of an overall $1.7 billion settlement of claims — was also announced by the State Department on Jan. 17, the same day that President Obama announced the release of the detainees. (He also made reference to a settlement of claims without mentioning a dollar figure.)

Trump Spokeswoman Rewrites History to Blame Obama for 2004 Death of Captain Khan

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Donald Trump’s spokeswoman Katrina Pierson blamed the policies of President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the death of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, despite the fact that Khan died in 2004.

“It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagement that probably cost his life,” spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said in an interview Tuesday with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

Khan died during the presidency of George W. Bush, while Obama was a state senator in Illinois.

Later Wolf Blitzer actually had to go back on air and fact-check Pierson’s comments that yes, Obama was not president in 2004.

Khan is the son of Ghazala and Khizr Khan, whose condemnation of Trump on Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention received widespread coverage.

Rules of engagement constitute the military policy that specify when soldiers are authorized for use of force.

Trump fired back at the Khans after the speech, drawing bipartisan criticism from officials including Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) said he would vote for Clinton over Trump following his comments about the Gold Star family.

Pierson also said in the CNN interview that Trump “never voted for the Iraq War.” BuzzFeed previously reported that Trump expressed support for the invasion during a 2002 interview with radio host Howard Stern.

(h/t Politico)

Media

Eric Trump Says Father Apologized to Khans (But He Hasn’t)

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Eric Trump defended his father Tuesday from criticism for his treatment of the family of a slain Muslim US soldier and said that he had already apologized to the Khans and Gold Star families — despite the fact that the senior Trump has pointedly declined to apologize.

Appearing on “CBS This Morning,” Trump was pressed about his father’s lack of apology for his criticism of the Khan family, even amid stinging bipartisan condemnation for his remarks.

The senior Trump has so far not apologized for his remarks toward the Khans, despite Eric Trump’s claim.

“Would your father be willing to apologize and move on?” co-host Norah O’Donnell asked.

“I think that’s a great question for him, and I think he has by calling them a hero,” Trump responded.

“In terms of the one question — whether you’ve made a sacrifice — I think my father has. Now, that’s certainly not the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice is a soldier dying for this nation, dying to protect the three of us, no doubt about it –”

Co-host Gayle King interjected, “Is it difficult for your father to apologize?”

“My father’s a fighter,” Trump said. “I think that’s what this country needs is a fighter. And I think he was attacked the other day — he was attacked viciously — and by the way, that’s politics. You’re going to get attacked.”

Co-host Charlie Rose pivoted, asking instead: “Who tells your father he’s wrong?”

“We can tell him he’s wrong,” Trump laughed.

“When’s the last time you told him he’s wrong?” Rose pressed.

Trump replied, “Listen, we do it respectfully, we go back and forth as a family. I think that’s actually the benefit of having children be part of this process.”

King tried again to push Trump on the Khans: “Do you think he’s wrong on this?”

“I think this is something that’s honestly blown hugely out of proportion,” Trump countered, proceeding to argue that Donald Trump had praised the family as “amazing people” and that his focus was ultimately on security issues and dealing with illegal immigration and Syrian refugees.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

It appears the apple does not fall far from the tree when it comes to facts.

Eric Trump also made several other false statements:

Along with fact-checking, here is why this incident is concerning and adds to the growing evidence that Donald Trump is not fit for the office of the Presidency. Eric Trump called his father a “fighter” and Donald Trump in the past has defended his actions as “counter-punching,” but the Republican presidential nominee’s very first reaction to the valid criticism of his sacrifice and his knowledge of the United States Constitution was to “counter-punch” a grieving mother of a dead American soldier who stood on a stage and said nothing. Think about that.

The person who takes the oath of office and occupies the White House should not be someone who picks a fight at every opportunity as sees every criticism as a “vicious attack.” Instead, as history has shown, a degree of “presidential restraint” is required to be a Commander-in-Chief, which is something Donald Trump has yet to show it is something he is capable of.

Take for instance President Harry Truman’s refusal to order the use of atomic weapons during the Korean War. Its impact has been as permanent as it has been under appreciated, for the effect of Truman’s rejection of the bomb was to establish a taboo against nuclear use that has lasted all these years.

Media

CBS This Morning

 

Trump Adviser Claims Father of War Hero Is a “Muslim Brotherhood Agent”

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Roger Stone, an informal adviser to Donald Trump, took to Twitter on Sunday to claim that Khizr Khan, the father of a slain war hero who spoke at last week’s Democratic National Convention, is working for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The link that accompanied Stone’s tweet outlines a conspiracy theory that claims Khan is working to bring radical Muslims to the United States. The article Stone linked to also alleges that Khan’s son, Captain Humayun Khan, was a Muslim martyr who was killed “before his Islamist mission was accomplished.”

The article concludes, threateningly if not quite coherently: “What part of ‘they will be in the House of Islam by force in the near future’ don’t these democrats understand? More dead Americans?”

Of course, as with most low-budget far-right conspiracy sites, no actual evidence is ever presented.

Stone’s shocking tweets come just a day after Trump told ABC News that, like the Khan family, he has made many sacrifices. The Republican nominee also attacked Khan’s wife, who stood alongside her husband during his DNC address, suggesting that perhaps she “wasn’t allowed” to speak because of the couple’s Muslim faith.

(h/t Mother Jones, Slate)

Reality

The Muslim Brotherhood is a conservative Middle Eastern Islamic organization that may have some connections to terrorist activity; in the world of American far-right conspiracy theories, however, the Brotherhood is believed to be seeking to infiltrate and destroy the U.S. government.

Trump: Incorrectly States Putin is ‘Not Gonna Go Into Ukraine’

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Donald Trump said in an interview Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t going to go into Ukraine, even though the Russian military has intervened in the nation’s affairs since 2014.

“He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not gonna go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down,” Trump said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Host George Stephanopoulos pushed back, saying, “Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?”

“OK, well, he’s there in a certain way,” Trump responded.

“But I’m not there. You have [President] Obama there. And, frankly, that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama, with all the strength that you’re talking about and all of the power of NATO and all of this.”

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Ukraine isn’t part of the NATO coalition, so US soldiers would have no legal right to show up on their sovereign lands to fight and defend against Russian troops, risking a much larger conflict.

Instead President Obama, along with European countries, enacted sanctions against Russia. The sanctions have been very effective, which contributed to the collapse of the Russian ruble and the 2014–15 Russian financial crisis.

The result being the Minsk and Minsk II diplomatic agreements where Russia agreed to pull their military out of Ukraine.

Media

Trump Rescued by Firefighters Before Blasting Colorado Springs Fire Marshal

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When it comes to first responders, Donald Trump plays favorites. It’s no secret that the Republican presidential nominee likes police officers. A lot. But firefighters — that relationship may be just a bit more complicated.

Since Trump’s campaign began, a series of fire officials across the country have become his unwitting nemeses, as Trump publicly grumbles about their enforcement of the capacity restrictions at some of his rally venues.

At a February event in Madison, Ala., for instance, he complained at least twice that the fire marshal had closed the gates of the stadium where he said some 32,000 had come to hear him speak (local estimates put the figure of actual attendees at closer to 10,000). “Let them come in, Mr. Fire Marshal,” Trump said.

In a rare shift earlier this month, Trump had the opposite complaint: Phoenix officials, he said, “broke the fire code” by allowing too many people into the Convention Center room where he’d spoken.

Those numbers didn’t quite jibe with the count of 4,200 to 4,500 his campaign gave reporters at the event — or with the fire department’s own numbers, which fell squarely in the middle of that range.

“Once capacity was reached, we closed the doors. No rules or codes were broken, and no one was in danger at anytime,” Phoenix Fire Department spokeswoman Shelly Jamison told local station KPNX, adding that the Trump campaign had been offered the use of a larger room, but had declined.

So there have been a few fiery attacks over the past few months. But on Friday in Colorado, Trump had a much less heated encounter with the Colorado Springs Fire Department after he and nine others were trapped in an elevator at The Mining Exchange Hotel.

“The firefighters were able to secure the elevator, open the top elevator hatch, lower a ladder into the elevator, which allowed all individuals to self-evacuate, including Mr. Trump, onto the second-floor lobby area,” fire department spokesman Steven Wilch told Colorado station KRDO in a Saturday report. Trump was over an hour late to his event at the University of Colorado campus located in solidly conservative Colorado Springs — but he made it.

If you think that’s the sort of thing that might prompt him to mention the fire department in his remarks at that event, as you may have heard Friday, you’re right! “We have a fire marshal that said we can’t allow more people,” Trump said, as the crowd booed. “….The reason they can’t let them in is because they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Fire Marshal Brett Lacey, the candidate said, was “probably a Democrat, probably a guy that doesn’t get it.”

Trump went on. “Hey, maybe they’re a Hillary person. Could that be possible? Probably,” he said, calling the restriction a “disgraceful situation.”

“This is the kind of thing we have in federal government also, by the way,” he said, “and then you wonder why we’re going to hell. That’s why we’re going to hell.”

Lacey — who was named Civilian of the Year by the department in February for his role responding to a pair of deadly mass shootings in the city — said later that he didn’t mind the dig. He noted that he’d allowed a last-minute boost in the number of individuals allowed in the room, after the Trump campaign reportedly distributed too many tickets. But in an interview with Colorado’s KKTV, the marshal refused to fight fire with fire.

“Sometimes there are people that aren’t very happy with some of the rules and regulations were required to enforce,” Lacey said. “But it doesn’t bother me at all.”

Media

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