Donald Trump said he was right to imply that President Obama is an ISIS sympathizer.
In an attempt to defend his controversial claims that the president supports the terrorist group, the presumptive Republican nominee tweeted a story from anti-Obama website Breitbart.com that cites a newly discovered “secret” memo the website says proves Obama is an ISIS supporter.
The memo, as it turns out, is neither secret nor does it demonstrate the administration’s support for ISIS or any other policy. Indeed, it’s a recently declassified and heavily redacted intelligence field report from August 2012 about the worsening security situation in Iraq, obtained by the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
Breitbart falsely concludes that because the memo mentions that al Qaeda in Iraq (a precursor to ISIS) is fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Obama administration therefore supports ISIS.
The Obama administration, particularly through its State Department, has spoken at length about the complicated process of vetting the array of opposition groups in order to avoid supporting those with ties to extremism.
An: Media fell all over themselves criticizing what DonaldTrump "may have insinuated about @POTUS." But he's right: https://t.co/bIIdYtvZYw
White House spokesman Josh Earnest Monday responded to a question about Trump’s claims the same day. “Well, I think what is clear is, if you take a look at the president’s record, it speaks for itself,” Earnest said. “And that record includes a lot of dead terrorists.”
The Washington Post did an enormous fact-check and came to the conclusion that the Brietbart.com article was a pack of crap. This should come to the surprise of no-one who reads Brietbart.com and can recognize it as dishonest and willfully deceptive. For more information you can read the fact-check here, but in the Washington Post’s expert summary:
“This is what happens when people with little understanding of policy or context choose to willfully misinterpret documents. This is a relatively unimportant memo, with little information not in newspapers at the time. Rather than showing that the Obama administration is supporting terrorist groups, the information in the memo demonstrates why the administration was so reluctant to back rebel groups in Syria, often to the annoyance of Republican hawks.
Moreover, the memo was not sent directly to Clinton’s office, as asserted by Breitbart.
Trump, as a presumptive presidential nominee, really needs to rely on more accurate information when making factual claims.”
This all stems from Donald Trump’s debunked rekindling of the old conservative trope that President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim hellbent on overthrowing the government. Donald Trump said:
Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump said on Fox News. “And the something else in mind — you know, people can’t believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.
Donald Trump responded to the worst terror attack since 9/11 with a no-holds-barred attack on Muslims and Hillary Clinton that played loose with the facts and was rife with inflammatory rhetoric.
He claimed Clinton wanted to disarm Americans and let Islamic terrorists slaughter them, while seeming to overinflate the number of Syrian refugees and insinuating the perpetrator of the Orlando attack was a foreigner.
In a speech pulsating with tough talk that will likely please his supporters, the presumptive Republican nominee also renewed his call for a ban on Muslim migration into the United States — and extended it to cover all nations with a history of terrorism. Hinting at a huge expansion of presidential power, he vowed to impose such a system by using executive orders.
“The current politically correct response cripples our ability to talk and to think and act clearly,” Trump said framed by two American flags at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. “If we don’t get tough, and if we don’t get smart, and fast, we’re not going to have our country anymore. There will be nothing, absolutely nothing, left.”
Trump’s speech Monday was a clear attempt to use the fallout from Sunday’s attack in Florida that left 49 dead to position himself as a strong agent of change determined to flush out a culture of weakness and incompetence that he said had let terrorism fester and threatened the existence of U.S. culture itself.
It is a strategy that appealed to his base and helped him win the Republican primaries, and he is now deploying it after a rough couple of weeks signifying the start of the general election.
As part of that effort Monday, he delivered some of the most explosive and forceful political rhetoric uttered by a major U.S. political figure in many years, seeming to show little regard for facts.
Trump refused to name Omar Mateen, the killer who went on the rampage in an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, during his speech. But, adding a line not found in his prepared remarks, he said that he was born “an Afghan, of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States.” But the perpetrator of the Orlando massacre was born in New York to parents from Afghanistan.
The real estate magnate also appeared to equate all Muslims who seek to come to the United States with the perpetrators of recent terror attacks — another claim that seems to fly in the face of the evidence about a community that has been present in the U.S. for decades.
“We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer,” Trump said.
“Remember this, radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti- American.”
He also accused Clinton of endangering the country with her plans to bring in more foreigners.
“Hillary Clinton’s catastrophic immigration plan will bring vastly more radical Islamic immigration into this country, threatening not only our society but our entire way of life,” he charged. “When it comes to radical Islamic terrorism, ignorance is not bliss. It’s deadly — totally deadly.”
He accused Clinton of wanting to “allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country. They enslave women and they murder gays. I don’t want them in our country.”
And he repeated an unsubstantiated claim that Clinton wants to deny Americans’ 2nd Amendment rights.
Trump’s rhetoric — which was heavy on toughness but often short on policy details — contrasted sharply with the more nuanced and conventional response to the attack delivered earlier by Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
But he made a case that the current policies were not working and were leaving America dangerously exposed to a tide of Islamic terror he said was coming its way — an argument that many in the GOP find compelling.
He has pointed to the political benefits of the rising fears of terrorism following other recent attacks.
In each instance, Trump sought to project both strength and a lack of concern for the reaction to his provocative rhetoric, calculating that both would help him rise in the polls during the Republican primary. Indeed, a majority of Republican voters agreed with Trump’s call to temporarily ban all foreign Muslims from entering the United States.
“Whenever there’s a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country,” Trump said on CNN after last December’s San Bernardino shooting. “We have weak, sad politicians.”
Donald Trump’s speech was heavy on inflammatory rhetoric, light on details and facts.
Trump: “The Muslim ban is temporary. We have to find out what is going on?”
There are terrorists running around in Syria and Iraq. They have a book. They think that book is great. The use their book to justify killing others. Why is that so fucking hard to understand? Can he shut up about his stupid ban now?
Plus, aside from being completely and totally xenophobic, there is one major logical flaw with this policy. Meet Omar Mateen, 29 year old who killed at least 50 people in massacre Orlando. An American, born in New York.
Meet James Wesley Howell, 20 year old who was caught with cache of weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials in his car and apparent plans to attend the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood. An American, born in Indiana.
Exactly how would banning foreigners from entering the United States have solved the Orlando massacre or helped to prevent another possible shooting in Los Angeles by Americans?
Trump: A “tremendous flow” of Syrian refugees is pouring into the country free of screening also seemed to be an exaggeration.
Since May 1, 2016, 2,019 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the U.S., according to a State Department official, while only 1,736 were taken in over the first seven months of the fiscal year.
Interestingly, there are a lot of countries in the middle-east that are our friends, like Israel. So is Donald Trump inferring that Israelis are savages? If we remove our friends from the list of Middle-Eastern countries, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, then that leaves only 33,000 immigrants who were admitted into the United States in 2014 from the Middle-East. That would mean Trump is off by 67%.
We’ll have to revise Donald’s truth grade to an ‘F’.
Trump: “[Clinton] wants to take away Americans’ guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.”
Clinton has called for universal background checks and stricter controls on firearms, but has never called for the abolition of the 2nd Amendment. Another false statement.
Trump: “Remember this, radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti- American.”
You know who has far more effective at being more anti-woman and anti-gay in this country? Republicans.
Donald Trump seemed to suggest that President Barack Obama had an ulterior motive concerning how he addresses and handles terror attacks, because he does not say the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.”
Trump said Monday morning on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends”:
We’re led by a man who is very — look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can’t believe it.
People cannot believe, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and he can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.
Asked earlier why he had tweeted that Obama should resign because he wouldn’t say the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said:
He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other, and either one is unacceptable.
A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to a request for an explanation of what Trump meant. But asked on NBC’s “Today Show” about the comments, Trump said that “a lot of people” thought Obama does not want to understand terrorism.
Well, there a lot of people who think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it. I happen to think he just doesn’t know what he’s doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it, he doesn’t want to see what’s really happening.
And later, speaking to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, Trump offered yet another explanation when questioned about what he meant.
I can’t define it. Nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody knows why (Obama) doesn’t have more anger, more competitive zeal. It’s almost like he’s falling asleep.
Trump has been on the defense since tweeting Sunday that he did not need congratulations for being “right” about the Orlando nightclub shooting. On Sunday, Trump tweeted that Obama should resign for not using the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Obama dubbed the shooting an “act of terror” and an “act of hate” in his response Sunday afternoon.
Reality
So instead of thinking diplomatically on foreign affairs and having a tangible policy, Trump instead turns to an old baseless conservative political smear from 2007 that Obama is a covert Muslim extremist.
For those who may be too young or have forgotten, Fox News was famous for their political smears against the then-Senator Obama saying things like:
None of these hand any kernel of truth. So it came to no surprise when Fox News defended Trump, writing:
The Washington Post story featured comments Trump made earlier in the day on Fox News, when he made a made a vague statement about Obama interpreted by some as a reference to his sympathies.
Interpreted by some? Excuse me? If Donald Trump was not trying to infer the right-wing conspiracy theory that President Obama does not act because he is an undercover Muslim, can Fox News please try to come up with a plausible explanation of what Trump was actually talking about?
Finally, Trump took the opportunity to bring up the old conservative trope that Obama refuses to acknowledge terrorism, and until he does we’ll be vulnerable to terrorists… or something. However there is a very good reason why President Obama, and before him George W. Bush, will not speak the words “radical Islamic terrorism” when referring to terrorist groups like ISIS. They may sound like small words to Republican critics like Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, but they have big meaning. The members of ISIS and other terrorist groups are desperate for legitimacy. This is why ISIS calls themselves the “Islamic State.” They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam. And they propagate the notion that America, and the West, is at war with Islam. For a President of the United States to infer that we are at war with the Islamic religion, it would have immediate consequences from our Muslim allies in the middle-east as well as give terrorist groups the legitimacy they exactly desire.
Donald Trump reversed his stance on U.S. military intervention in Libya on Sunday, saying he would have authorized “surgical” strikes to take out strongman Moammar Gaddafi — even though he’d previously said the world would be better with Gaddafi in power.
“I didn’t mind surgical. And I said surgical. You do a surgical shot and you take him out,” Trump said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
It was a notable change from the position he’d staked out at a Republican presidential debate in Texas in February.
“We would be so much better off if Gaddafi would be in charge right now,” Trump said then. He has also hit Clinton over the U.S. intervention in Libya in his stump speech.
It’s the second time Trump has reversed his position on Libya. In a 2011 video, Trump said that “on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives.”
On Sunday, he still sought to blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.
“I wasn’t for what happened. Look at the way — I mean look at with Benghazi and all of the problems that we’ve had. It was handled horribly,” he said.
He added: “I was never for strong intervention. I could have seen surgical where you take out Gaddafi and his group.”
While Trump has changed positions on how the United States should have handled Gaddafi, he’s now advocating a sharp escalation in the U.S. military’s role in Libya.
He asked at a rally in Fresno, California, two weeks ago why the United States isn’t “bombing the hell out of” ISIS in Libya.
“ISIS has the oil. And then you say if ISIS has the oil, why aren’t we blockading so they can’t sell it? Why aren’t we bombing the hell out of … ” Trump said, stopping short as he pivoted to slamming Obama as “grossly incompetent.”
He’s also made blasting Clinton’s foreign policy judgment a staple on the campaign trail.
“She doesn’t have the temperament to be president. She’s got bad judgment. She’s got horribly bad judgment,” Trump said two weeks ago in Anaheim. “If you look at the war in Iraq, if you look at what she did with Libya, which was a total catastrophe.”
Clinton, meanwhile, unleashed on Trump as ill fit to serve as commander in chief on Thursday in a high-profile speech.
“He’s not just unprepared — he’s temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility,” Clinton said.
Trump said, “on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives.”
Republican Debate: Shouldn’t have taken him out – February, 25 2016
“We would be so much better off if Gaddafi would be in charge right now.”
Interview: Take him out – June 2016
“I didn’t mind surgical. And I said surgical. You do a surgical shot and you take him out.”
Hillary Clinton gave a speech on foreign policy that was a direct attack on Donald Trump, whose own foreign policy knowledge is lacking in such a way that CNN has now chosen to fact-check in real time so that viewers can see when he reneges on something he’s said, like his belief that Japan should have nukes.
Trump hasn’t taken well to her speech. He has attacked those who lauded it and gone after Clinton, too. Just as he did yesterday when he tried to claim that he never spoke out in favor of Japan getting its own nuclear arsenal, he tried to insist that everything Clinton said about him in her speech was a lie.
In Crooked Hillary's telepromter speech yesterday, she made up things that I said or believe but have no basis in fact. Not honest!
She responded with a link to her site, The Briefing. That link leads to a quote-by-quote breakdown of her speech. Each assertion made about Trump’s beliefs is backed up with a link to the interview or press conference during which he said it.
From saying he has no issue with abandoning our allies in NATO to the direct quote in which he insisted he knows more about ISIS than America’s own military generals do, the takedown is thorough and scathing.
Donald’s twitter response to Clinton’s evisceration of his foreign policy was largely seen as massive disappointment. Many pundits waited eagerly to see how he would respond, how he would defend his positions, and were left with a few poorly-spelled tweets attacking her for using a “telepromter.” Ironically, a few days later Donald Trump himself turned to a teleprompter for his primary victory.
So we wanted to take the time and fact-check both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
1. “This is a man who said that more countries should have nuclear weapons, including Saudi Arabia.”
2. “This is someone who has threatened to abandon our allies in NATO, the countries that work with us to root out terrorists abroad before they strike us at home.”
TRUE. In a March 30 town hall on MSNBC, Trump repeatedly suggested he will threaten NATO countries to bear a bigger burden, ultimately saying “If we have to walk, we have to walk.”
CHRIS MATTHEWS: We don’t need NATO?
TRUMP: Do you think — no, we don’t really need NATO in its current form. NATO is obsolete, and we’re spending disproportionately…
MATTHEWS: How do you walk from NATO, The Middle East, North Asia, China, all these relationships? Just drop them all?
TRUMP: Look, NATO is…
MATTHEWS: We have old deals we have to stick with.
TRUMP: … is 68 years old.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
TRUMP: OK, you have countries that are getting a free ride. You have countries that benefit from NATO much more than we do. We don’t benefit that much from NATO….Why aren’t they reimbursing us? Why aren’t they paying a good portion of the costs?
MATTHEWS: Well, that’s fine. It’s a good argument if you can get it. But if the alternative is we walk…
TRUMP: And we’ll get it, I’ll get it, I’ll get it. I’m the messenger.
MATTHEWS: If the alternative is we walk…
TRUMP:If we have to walk, we have to walk.
Comments start around the 6:30 mark.
3. “He believes we can treat the U.S. economy like one of his casinos and default on our debts to the rest of the world, which would cause an economic catastrophe far worse than anything we experienced in 2008.”
TRUE. In an interview on CNBC, Donald Trump broke with tired clichés about the evils of federal debt accumulation. “I am the king of debt,” he said. “I love debt. I love playing with it.”
I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal,” Trump said. “And if the economy was good, it was good. So therefore, you can’t lose.
This idea would indeed cause a global financial crisis. By suggesting an unorthodox approach towards cutting the national debt… not paying it then renegotiate terms. Such a renegotiation risks creating financial turmoil because U.S. Treasuries are considered the safest assets on the planet and a major benchmark for valuing other securities. Calling into question their safety could cause borrowing rates to rise and create confusion in the markets.
Trump later said the media misunderstood his comments. However while Trump did not say the word ‘default’ he explained the exact definition of the word default in his proposal. And his new answer to print money can lead to higher inflation and was almost just as bad of an idea.
4. “He has said that he would order our military to carry out torture.”
TRUE. During a campaign event at the Sun City retirement community on February 17, 2016, Donald Trump said that he supports waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques because “torture works” in the questioning of terrorists.
“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works,” Trump said. “Okay, folks? Torture — you know, half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works. Okay?”
5. “He says he doesn’t have to listen to our generals or our admirals, our ambassadors, and other high officials, because he has quote, ‘a very good brain.’”
TRUE. Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he talks with consistently about foreign policy, Trump responded:
“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
“I know what I’m doing and I listen to a lot of people, I talk to a lot of people and at the appropriate time I’ll tell you who the people are,” Trump said. “But my primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff.”
Then as evidence, Trump claimed he had predicted the rise of Osama bin Laden, a statement for which was a total and absolute lie.
6. “He says climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.”
TRUE. And complete and total nonsense.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
7. “He has the gall to say that prisoners of war like John McCain aren’t heroes.”
TRUE. At the Iowa Family Leadership Summit in July 2015, when moderator Frank Luntz brought up Senator John McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Donald Trump said:
He’s not a war hero.
Then went on to say.
He’s a war hero ’cause he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK? Perhaps he’s a war hero, but right now he’s said some very bad things about a lot of people.
Trump caught flack from every direction but refused to change his stance on McCain. When asked by ABC News whether he owes McCain an apology, Trump said:
No, not at all.
Then continued:
People that were not captured that went in and fought, nobody talks about them. Those are heroes also.
Later when confronted with his comments about McCain by a veteran and supporter at a rally, Trump flatly lied that he never made those comments.
8. “He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin…” and picks fights with our friends, including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the president of Mexico, and the Pope.”
“I will tell you, in terms of leadership, he’s getting an ‘A,’ and our president is not doing so well. They did not look good together.”
9. “and picks fights with our friends – including the British prime minister…”
TRUE. On Good Morning Britain in May 2016, Trump was asked about comments by British Prime Minister David Cameron, leader of the U.K.’s Conservative Party, who said that Trump’s suggestion Muslims should be barred from the United States was “divisive, stupid and wrong.”
“It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship,” if he were to win the presidential election in November.
“I think they’re very rude statements and frankly, tell him, I will remember those statements. They’re very nasty statements.”
11. the German chancellor…
TRUE. Donald Trump told Breitbart executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon that he was highly critical of Germany’s Angela Merkel saying she is “a catastrophic leader” and that “she’ll be out if they don’t have a revolution.”
Everyone thought she was a really great leader and now she’s turned out to be this catastrophic leader. And she’ll be out if they don’t have a revolution.
12. the president of Mexico…
TRUE. Donald Trump sparked outrage among Mexicans and Latinos over comments he made when he kicked off his Presidential bid when he claimed Mexico sending its “rapists” and criminals to the U.S. and calling for a human-proof wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to keep them out.
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
Mexican President Pena Nieto attacked the “populism” of the Trump campaign, which he said sought to put forward “very easy, simple solutions to problems that are obviously not that easy to solve,” and then compared Trump to Hitler:
“And there have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of this strident rhetoric have only led to very ominous situations in the history of humanity. That’s how Mussolini got in, that’s how Hitler got in, they took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis. And I think what (they) put forward ended up at what we know today from history, in global conflagration. We don’t want that happening anywhere in the world”
13. and the Pope.
TRUE. Trump faulted Pope Francis for planning to visit the Mexican border to pray with migrants:
I don’t think he understands the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico. I think Mexico got him to do it because they want to keep the border just the way it is. They’re making a fortune, and we’re losing.
Pope Francis then made the observation that that Mr. Trump “is not Christian” in proposing deportations and a wall with Mexico.
Donald Trump responded saying Francis’ criticisms were “disgraceful” and “unbelievable,” said the pontiff will “wish and pray” that the real estate mogul were President “if and when the Vatican is attacked, and he contended that the Mexican government had hoodwinked the pope into criticizing him.
14. “He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia.”
I know Russia well. I had a major event in Russia two or three years ago, Miss Universe contest, which was a big, big, incredible event. An incredible success.
Donald Trump on Wednesday night charged Hillary Clinton was misrepresenting his position by saying he wants nuclear arms for Japan — but the presumptive Republican nominee previously has said exactly that.
At a rally in Sacramento, California, Trump said:
[Hillary Clinton] lies. She lies. She made a speech, she’s making another one tomorrow, and they sent me a copy of the speech. And it was such lies about my foreign policy, that they said I want Japan to get nuclear weapons. Give me a break.
See they don’t say it: I want Japan and Germany and Saudi Arabia and South Korea and many of the NATO states, nations, they owe us tremendously, we’re taking care of all those people and what I want them to do is pay up.
The questions over Trump’s position comes as Clinton prepares to hit him on that and other comments in a foreign policy speech later Thursday.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not immediately respond to questions about his position.
Donald Trump must not realize when he makes these comments that we live in the age of Google.
New York Times Interview – 3/26/16
Here is the New York Times interview transcript where Donald Trump first mentions his foreign policy plan to allow Japan to have nuclear weapons.
Well I think maybe it’s not so bad to have Japan — if Japan had that nuclear threat, I’m not sure that would be a bad thing for us.
Anderson Cooper Interview – 3/29/16
Here is Trump telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper during a town hall, responding to questions about the New York Times article, and suggested that it was time to reconsider the United States’ decades-old policy of not allowing Japan to arm itself with nuclear weapons.
Can I be honest with you? It’s going to happen anyway. It’s going to happen anyway. It’s only a question of time. They’re going to start having them or we have to get rid of them entirely.
Fox News Interview – 4/3/16
Here is Trump in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace where Trump clearly states Japan should have nukes. Trump said:
“It’s not like, gee whiz, nobody has them. So, North Korea has nukes. Japan has a problem with that. I mean, they have a big problem with that. Maybe they would in fact be better off if they defend themselves from North Korea.”
Wallace asked, “With nukes?”
“Including with nukes, yes, including with nukes,” Trump responded.
Trump’s comment occurs at the 10:23 mark.
Donald Trump Rally – 6/2/16
Here is the Sacramento, California event. Trump’s lie occurs at the 12:48 mark.
Washington Post – We have generally learned that there’s not much utility in fact-checking every tweet that springs to life from the imagination of Donald Trump or which receives his blessing via retweet. Tweets containing factual errors are not as plentiful as those containing exclamation points or disparagement, but they aren’t exactly rare.
But on Thursday evening, Trump retweeted this one, and we — well, I — couldn’t let it stand.
There are nine little graphs embedded in there, with hard-to-read axes and unclear provenance for the numbers, all of which are meant to bolster one argument: Barack Obama’s presidency has been bad.
Look, for example, at the graph at upper left, “Student Loans.” It’s almost impossible to make out the labels on the horizontal axis, but it’s clear that there simply aren’t any until the graph starts to rise. Which is … a bit deceptive. So what I figured I’d do is try my best to recreate these charts with verifiable numbers, to see how this argument stacks up.
Student loans
The vertical axis on this one tells us what we’re looking at. It passed “1.000” at some point recently; the third labeled section of the graph appears to demarcate 2010-2014. (The others, I think: 2000-2004 and 2005-2009.) If it passed 1 recently, then we’re talking about student loan debt, in dollars.
The Federal Reserve has data going back to the first quarter of 2006, allowing us to create a slightly more legible version of the graph.
(We’ve highlighted 2009 on our charts to emphasize the point at which Obama took over.)
On an old page from 2012, we find the trend extending back a bit more.
The trend, then, isn’t a big spike. It’s a steady increase since about 2006 — before Obama was president.
Food stamps
Here, the horizontal axis extends a bit further back, still in those odd five-year chunks. What’s being tallied here is not “food stamps,” which makes no sense, but average participation over the course of each year, in millions. In other words, the average of how many people used the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) each month of the year.
That data is available from the USDA.
There was an uptick — one that began in 2008, which we’ll get to. But notice that the person who made this chart cut it off before the number started to (slowly) drop back down.
There’s a theme you’ll see present itself here: That Obama took office right after the recession began. As a result, he appears to perform poorly on some metrics, like this one. But that’s a natural result of the financial crisis that predated him: more people relied on supplemental assistance.
Federal debt
…And the government took on more debt.
Notice that on the debt chart in the original, the horizontal axis has changed. No longer does it start in the 1980s — instead, it goes back to 1950. Yes, debt increased under Obama by a large amount. But, again, that increase began under his predecessor, George W. Bush, as an effort to address the financial crisis.
What’s more, comparing 1950 to 2000 makes little sense, since the value of the dollar wasn’t equivalent at that point. But compared to the other problems here, that’s relatively minor.
Money printing
This one is probably my favorite. I’m not going to get into the politics of the printing of money and why certain quarters object to the practice. Instead, I’m going to try to figure out what the 4 million figures on the vertical axis indicate — and what the numbers along the bottom are.
The Federal Reserve (naturally) has lots of data on money in circulation, including this chart of print orders by year since 1995. It doesn’t match the graph Trump tweeted.
Data.gov (a great resource, by the way) has the number of notes produced each year from 1980 to 2012 in various denominations. Combined, those numbers don’t result in 4-million-plus of anything — they add up to far more. The Department of the Treasury indicates that it produced 24.8 million notes a day in 2014.
So what is this graph? No idea. If you have an idea, let me know.
Update: We have an answer. Dan Ludwinski of the Cornell University Department of Economics explains what the Trump graph shows.
“The ‘money printing’ graph is assets held by the Federal Reserve,” he wrote in an email. “The majority of these assets are excess reserve balances — money deposited by commercial banks and held by the Federal Reserve. Calling this “money printing” is laughably inaccurate. This is money that is taken out of circulation and held by the Fed. Anyone who has taken econ 101 knows that this is a decrease in the money supply.”
Health-care costs
You’ve probably noticed by now that the pink boxes in the Trump tweet generally approximate the period during which Obama was president. It varies a bit, but that’s generally the case.
So you’ll notice on this one that the creator of the charts cheats, making most of the graph a period during which Obama was president. It starts in 2007 and goes through 2015.
“Healthcare costs” is vague. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a tool that allows you to see expenditures under a number of scenarios since 1960 — but none of its charts appear to sync with the one Trump tweeted.
The Federal Reserve, as always, has some data. In this case, it’s health expenditures per capita. They’ve gone up steadily, at least through 2012. The Kaiser data shows about the same thing.
What’s Trump’s chart? I’m not sure. Notice that the vertical axis on it begins at 105, not zero, making the amount of change seem exaggerated. It’s possible that the figures are percentages, indicating how much costs were relative to the prior year. But while 2011 costs were 103.8 percent of 2010 costs in the Fed’s data, 2012’s was only 104.2 percent of 2011’s. So who knows.
Labor force participation
On this one, the creator of the graphs cheats again, showing a section of the vertical axis. But, for once, it’s clear what’s being talked about.
To calculate unemployment, the government looks at how many people in the labor force have jobs. People not in the labor force don’t come into play in that calculation, and so if people drop out of the labor force — stop looking for work or retire, for example — the unemployment rate can fall faster, because the number of unemployed people in the labor force will have fallen. (That’s precisely why the unemployment rate fell in May.)
This has been used as a counterpoint to Obama’s trumpeting of the plunging jobless rate.
And it’s accurate. Labor force participation has fallen since Obama took office.
Of course, one could also show how many new jobs were added, or the state of the unemployment rate. But given that this is, at last, accurate and comprehensible, we’ll let it slide.
Black inequality
This is an interesting one. The creator of these graphs uses calculations of what’s known as the “Gini coefficient” for black Americans, data that is again available from the Federal Reserve. What we’re talking about here isn’t inequality in the sense of racial justice; it’s income inequality.
The Gini coefficient estimates how far from a perfectly equitable distribution of income a group happens to be. The formulas for this are complex, so it’s nice that the Fed has already taken care of it.
Here are the coefficients for both whites and blacks since 2002, when the Fed data begins.
Notice that the variation is much more subtle in this chart. That’s because the vertical axis shows a wider range. Yes, income inequality increased, but not that dramatically.
Median family income
This one is refreshingly straightforward. Here’s what the Fed has to say.
This doesn’t match the Trump chart, mind you, and it’s not clear why. Oh well. Here’s the Fed’s data, if you want to look for yourself.
Home ownership
Another straightforward one! This is the percentage of houses that are owner-occupied.
Again, the rate has declined under Obama — a decline that began under Bush.
Why? In part because it was home ownership problems that precipitated the recession. Bad home loans and the rapid expansion of home ownership played key roles in creating the conditions that led to the economic collapse. As a result, home ownership rates dropped.
But this graph, at least, is fairly accurate, if a bit deceptive in where it places the blame. That’s not true for many of the others.
So why did Trump tweet it? Because, as has often been the case, the details are less important than the political point. If a bunch of graphs claim to show how Obama has been bad for the economy, boom. Retweet. If some jerk goes through each one and notes why it’s wrong or skewed, that doesn’t detract from the main point, which is that Obama is bad. If challenged, Trump can simply blame the originator of what he retweeted, which he has often proven willing to do.
And that, in a nutshell, is why fact-checking things like this is so often thankless.
Donald Trump on Tuesday went on a sustained frontal assault against the media during a contentious news conference that highlighted his un-presidential temperament.
The billionaire had called the press conference to announce an accounting of his at least $5.6 million in fundraising for veterans groups, but spent most of the 40 minutes criticizing and insulting reporters — collectively and at times individually — as “dishonest,” “not good people,” sleazy, and among the worst human beings he has ever met.
And he vowed the White House briefing room would be just as combative as the Trump Tower lobby, where he addressed reporters Tuesday, should he ascend to the Oval Office.
Trump said when asked if this is how he would behave with the press as president.
Yeah, it is going to be like this. You think I’m gonna change? I’m not gonna change.
At one point, Trump fumed:
I’m the only one in the world who can raise almost $6 million for the veterans, have uniform applause by the veterans groups and end up being criticized by press…I think the political press is among the most dishonest people that I have ever met, I have to tell you. I see the stories and I see the way they’re couched. I find the press to be extremely dishonest. I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest.
Tuesday’s news conference did not mark a departure from Trump’s relationship with the press, which has been strained throughout the brash mogul’s campaign — but Tuesday was a surprise escalation, especially at a time when many supporters want him to start acting more presidential.
Over the last year, Trump has repeatedly called out individual reporters on Twitter and in interviews for everything from what he viewed as insufficient crowd shots to biased reporting. And attacking the press is a regular part of the Republican’s stump speech, during which he typically rips reporters as “scum,” “slime,” “dishonest” and “disgusting” — often prompting jeers from the crowd.
Trump kicked off his litany of attacks by accusing reporters of turning what should have been a positive story about his charity into a negative one.
Reporters had repeatedly asked Trump to provide an accounting of the donations, requests that were frequently rebuffed or side-stepped by Trump and his campaign staff.
Trump said he didn’t “want the credit” for his fundraising, “but I shouldn’t be lambasted” — that despite Trump repeatedly touting the donations himself on the campaign trail since the January fundraiser, which was televised in what some at the time dubbed a PR stunt.
But the subject of the news conference quickly turned away from the veterans donations as Trump accused reporters of writing stories they “know” are false, and of spinning the truth.
He also lashed out at individual reporters, calling ABC’s Tom Llamas a “sleaze,” referring sarcastically to CNN’s Jim Acosta’s live reports as a “beauty,” telling Katy Tur she’s a “third-rate journalist,” and refusing at one point to call on CBS’s Major Garrett.
Trump repeatedly blasted the media for the way it has covered his fundraising for vets.
“All of the money has been paid out,” Trump said. “The press should be ashamed of themselves, and on behalf of the veterans, the press should be ashamed of themselves.”
“There are so many people who are so thankful for what we did,” Trump said, adding that the final figure could top $6 million once all the donations are in.
Trump listed the vets groups — there were more than 40 — that he said had received money and the amounts that had been given to each. He said there were no administrative costs deducted from the donations.
Trump revised that figure recently to $5.5 million following months of questions from reporters struggling to track the funds and dodging on the exact amount from the Trump campaign.
Trump himself disbursed his $1 million pledge last week to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, a charity that helps support the families of fallen Marines and law enforcement officers to which Trump’s foundation has previously donated. Trump only transferred the money after reporters uncovered that for 4 months of claiming he donated money, he never did.
Amid reporters’ questions, Trump and his campaign have repeatedly offered conflicting accounts of how much money was raised and declined multiple requests to provide a full accounting. The campaign has insisted it was working on disbursing the funds, but said it was waiting on some donors to make good on their pledges and also needed to properly vet the charities in the running to receive the funds.
Three veterans groups earlier Tuesday confirmed donations from the Trump Foundation. The Bob Woodruff Foundation and the Boston Wounded Vets Run each confirmed donations of $75,000 apiece. The Racing For Heroes Foundation also received what the group’s president described as a “large” donation.
There are a few things at play here. First, Donald Trump’s complaints to the press. Second, the facts he brought up at his conference. Three, the unusually slow distribution of donations to the veterans charities. Fourth, Trump’s own $1 million dollar donation. And finally, and most important, Trump’s completely un-presidential temperament at his press conference.
But Donald’s complaint that the press was not nice to him is frankly, too stupid of a statement to have to answer, but we will.
While Trump boasts how much money he raised and how much money he gave to charity he’s essentially demanding that everyone, including the press, should just brown-nose him up-and-down for his awesomeness. However it is not a journalist’s job sit there and accept the information that they are told at face value, but to critically review evidence of a story. (Granted some do this better than others.) And unfortunately for Donald Trump, there has been a lot of justified controversy surrounding his fundraiser.
As we point out below, it was the Trump campaign who originally refused to disclose his fundraiser accounting information and instead brushed off the press and told them to look for the it themselves, which of course they would. Then for the next 4 months Trump lied again and again when he spoke about his charitable $1 million donation in the past tense.
So while Donald Trump tries complain about the nastiness of the reporters, if he and his campaign were open and transparent instead of recalcitrant and stonewalling then there would have been no needed to follow up on this story and uncover some pretty major lies.
Fact Checking Trump’s Statements
During the press conference Donald Trump made many claims that just did not add up.
Trump opened the press conference by saying he’s received the most votes ever for a Republican in a primary. As we pointed out before this is not true.
Trump mentioned that wanted to keep the donation dealings private yet he boasted for 4 months about his fundraiser every chance he could. He can’t claim to have it both ways.
At the 15 minute mark of the speech Donald Trump clearly drops the f-bomb. “Fuck look, when this started, I think you were there, I said if we could raise $1 million dollars that would be good.”
Trump claimed multiple times that he didn’t want any public credit for his fundraiser, yet he nationally televised the event, claimed it was for the ratings, continuously brought it up during campaign rallies, and kept sending tweets about it
Trump commented that most of the money was sent out early on. But as we detail below, after 4 months only half of the funds were distributed and the other half was sent out on 5/24, the day of the Washington Post story.
Trump challenged reporters to go find out how much money Hillary Clinton has raised. The Clinton family donated $105,000 to veteran charities between 2006-2012, helped to raise $50 million dollars for a state-of-the-art veterans rehab center, and has the Clinton Foundation that raises over $200 million for global charities every year. However this is completely irrelevant. The amount of money someone else donates has no effect on the ability for journalists to critically review this evidence.
While his fundraiser that raised $5.5 million dollars for veterans groups is an amazing gesture, it is hardly altruistic. In fact, while $5.5 million dollars is great and will do good, people donate more than $2.5 billion annually to the over 40,000 American charities with military related missions. While it indeed will help veterans and does deserve some thanks, the amount is really a drop in the bucket.
Unusually Slow Distribution of Donations
Trump spent a significant time explaining that the reason why it took so long to distribute the donations is because vetting the different charity groups took time. Filling out forms, sending people out to the charity office, background checks, etc.
On 1/28, the Trump campaign released a press release indicating that Mr. Trump made a $1 million dollar contribution at a special event in Des Moines to benefit vets.
The conservative newspaper The Weekly Standard broke the story on 2/18 that the Trump campaign was refusing to acknowledge how much money was disbursed saying, “You can do your homework and ask the veterans’ organizations.” They did and found out that only about $500,000 was distributed to veterans charities at that time.
On 2/26, the conservative pundit Stuart Varney on Fox Business News corroborated The Weekly Standard’s story with their own independent investigation by checking with the charities a full month after the fundraiser and found that only $650,000 of the supposed $6 million raised had been distributed to charities.
Two months after the fundraiser on 4/7, the not-very-liberal Wall Street Journal again talked to the veteran charities and found only $2.4 million was distributed.
Then on 5/20, The Washington Post followed up with the 22 veteran charities and only $3.1 million could be accounted for. Furthering the scandal, the Trump campaign confirmed that only $4.5 million and not $6 million was raised while claiming $1 million dollars donated by Trump was already given to the charities but refused to share evidence saying, “Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent.”
At about the 14 minute mark in the media video is when the sparks really start to fly. It really comes across as child throwing a tantrum.
He is highly combative, curses, singles out individuals for riddicule, and is visibly flustered.
After the press conference, Jesse Ferguson, a Clinton spokesman, tweeted: “EVERYONE STOP. Close your eyes for a moment. Think about the press conference you just watched. Now try to imagine him as President. Thanks.”
EVERYONE STOP. Close your eyes for a moment. Think about the press conference you just watched. Now try to imagine him as President. Thanks.
Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring, “There is no drought.”
California is, in fact, in midst of a drought. Last year capped the state’s driest four-year period in its history, with record low rainfall and snow.
Speaking at a rally in Fresno, Calif., Trump accused state officials of denying water to Central Valley farmers so they can send it out to sea “to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.”
The theory that California’s water shortage is all the fault of the Environmental Protection Agency is, like most conspiracy theories, grounded in an actual fact. The EPA has, in fact, caused 800,000 acre-feet of water annually to be flushed into San Francisco Bay to maintain its marine ecosystem. The program, however, dates to the early 1990s, and California’s water system, all told, manages over 40 million acre-feet a year. The practice that Trump describes so darkly involves 2 percent of that—and an economically vital 2 percent at that. California fisheries produce jobs in the hundreds of thousands. But not in Fresno.
Trump appeared to be referring to disputes over water that runs from the Sacramento River to the San Francisco Bay and then to the ocean. Some farmers want more of that flow captured and diverted to them.
Politically influential rural water districts and well-off corporate farmers in and around California’s Central Valley have been pushing back against longstanding federal laws protecting endangered fish and other species, saying federal efforts to make sure endangered native fish have enough water is short-changing farmers of the water they want and need for crops.
Water authorities say they can’t do it because of the water rights of those upstream of the farmers, and because of the minimum-water allowances needed by endangered species in the bay and by wildlife in general.
The three-inch Delta smelt is a native California fish on the brink of extinction. The smelt has become an emblem in the state’s battles over environmental laws and water distribution.
The farm lobby, a heavyweight player in California’s water wars, also is seeking federal and state approval for billions of dollars in new water tunnels, dams and other projects.
Trump promised that, if he’s elected, he would put their interests first. “If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive,” he said.
California is the country’s No. 1 agriculture producer. The state’s drought is raising the stakes in water disputes among farmers, cities and towns, and environmental interests.
Almost four months after promising $1 million of his own money to veterans’ causes, Donald Trump moved to fulfill that pledge Monday evening — promising the entire sum to a single charity as he came under intense media scrutiny.
Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, organized a nationally televised fundraiser for veterans’ causes in Des Moines on Jan. 28. That night, Trump said he had raised $6 million, including the gift from his own pocket.
“Donald Trump gave $1 million,” he said then.
As recently as last week, Trump’s campaign manager had insisted that the mogul had already given that money away. But that was false: Trump had not.
In recent days, The Washington Post and other media outlets had pressed Trump and his campaign for details about how much the fundraiser had actually raised and whether Trump had given his portion.
The candidate refused to provide details. On Monday, a Post reporter used Twitter — Trump’s preferred social-media platform — to search publicly for any veterans groups that had received Trump’s money.
By Monday afternoon, The Post had found none. But it seems to have caught the candidate’s attention.
Later Monday evening, Trump called the home of James K. Kallstrom, a former FBI official who is chairman of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. The charity aids families of fallen Marines and federal law enforcement officers.
Trump told Kallstrom that he would give the entire $1 million to the group, according to Kallstrom’s wife. Sue Kallstrom said she was not sure whether the money had been transferred yet. However on May 25th it was confirmed the transaction was completed.
Other big donors to Trump’s fundraiser had already made their gifts weeks before. Why had Trump waited so long?
“You have a lot of vetting to do,” Trump said Tuesday in a telephone interview conducted while he was flying to a campaign rally in Albuquerque.
For this particular donation, it would seem that little new vetting was required because Trump already knew the recipient well. The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation had already received more than $230,000 in donations from the Donald J. Trump Foundation — a charity controlled by Trump but largely funded by others. Last year, the group gave Trump its “Commandant’s Leadership Award” at a gala in New York.
When asked Tuesday whether he had given the money this week only because reporters had been asking about it, Trump responded: “You know, you’re a nasty guy. You’re really a nasty guy. I gave out millions of dollars that I had no obligation to do.”
Trump’s call on Monday night stood in contradiction to an account given Friday by campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. “The money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said then. “Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent.”
On Tuesday, Trump said Lewandowski would not have been in a position to know that. “I don’t know that Corey would even know when I gave it out,” he said.
In the same interview, Trump said the fundraiser had raised about $5.5 million for veterans overall. He said he was not sure how much of it remained to be given away.
That also contrasted with the account last week from Lewandowski, who said that about $4.5 million had been raised and that Trump’s effort had fallen short of the promised $6 million because some unnamed big donors had backed out.
On Tuesday, Trump said no major contributors had reneged. “For the most part, I think they all came through,” he said. “Some of them came through very late.”
Trump also said he had never actually promised that the fundraiser had raised $6 million. “I didn’t say six,” he said.
But, in video of the event, Trump tells the crowd, “We just cracked $6 million! Right? $6 million.”
Trump was told that he did, indeed, say “$6 million.”
“Well, I don’t, I don’t have the notes. I don’t have the tape of it,” he said. “Play [the tape] for me. Because I’d like to hear it.” Before the video could be cued up, Trump had moved on.
The story of his nighttime gift seemed to highlight a unique quality of Trump: his acute sensitivity to losing face on social media. He had routinely rejected questions about the fundraiser for veterans if they were posed in person.
“Why should I give you records?” Trump said in an interview with The Post earlier this month, when he was asked about the money. “I don’t have to give you records.”
Then, on Monday, a Post reporter publicly queried multiple veterans groups on Twitter, asking whether they had received personal donations from Trump. None had.
Hours later, after 10:38 p.m. Eastern time, Trump responded on Twitter: “While under no obligation to do so, I have raised between 5 & 6 million dollars, including 1million dollars from me, for our VETERANS. Nice!”
And sometime that same evening, Trump called to make the donation to James Kallstrom’s group. Sue Kallstrom wasn’t sure what time the call was, only that it happened after she went to bed at 8 p.m.
“I guess he wants to take care of the vets,” she said. Among its other good works, the foundation provides $30,000 educational grants to the children of the fallen. “The foundation is thrilled, because the [money] is going to help a lot of people. Especially the children.”
Trump’s campaign has said the remainder of the donations would be given out by Memorial Day. Trump said he would ask his staff to send The Post a list of the groups that would receive that money, but his staff did not immediately provide it.
But it did appear that Trump’s staff was preparing to disburse more gifts. In Boston on Tuesday, the founder of the city’s annual Wounded Vet Bike Run got a call.
“For some reason, a Trump campaign worker reached out to me today and asked for our nonprofit number, and I gave it to ’em,” said Andrew Biggio, the group’s founder.
The annual motorcycle ride raises money to help veterans and their families, including giving away cars and retrofitting motorcycles for the disabled. He said the staffer did not tell him how much money to expect. “I have no idea what’s coming down the pike,” Biggio said.
In recent weeks, other veterans groups had been struggling to figure out how to ask for some of Trump’s remaining money. Trump had provided no formal way to apply.
Biggio said he had not formally applied but was pretty sure how he had come to be on Trump’s radar.
“I served in Iraq with Donald Trump’s bodyguard’s son,” he said.
Donald Trump made good on his promise to give $1 million dollars to veteran charities, four full months after he claimed he already donated the money.
While a $1 million dollar donation to veterans groups is an amazing gesture, it is hardly altruistic. The televised fundraiser only came about so he could dodge debate questions from Megyn Kelly about his past sexist comments towards women. Then Trump attempted to extort Fox News for an illegal “quid pro quo” donation of $5 million dollars to appear at their Iowa debate. Then for the next 4 months Trump lied again and again when he boasted about his charitable donation to his rallies.
On 1/28, Trump released a press release indicating that Mr. Trump made a $1 million dollar contribution at a special event in Des Moines to benefit vets.
The conservative newspaper The Weekly Standard broke the story on 2/18 that the Trump campaign was refusing to acknowledge how much money was disbursed saying, “You can do your homework and ask the veterans’ organizations.” They did and found out that only about $500,000 was distributed to veterans charities at that time.
On 2/26, the conservative pundit Stuart Varney on Fox Business News corroborated The Weekly Standard’s story with their own investigation by checking with the charities a full month after the fundraiser and found that only $650,000 of the supposed $6 million raised had been distributed to charities.
Two months after the fundraiser on 4/7, the not-very-liberal Wall Street Journal again talked to the veteran charities and found only $2.4 million was distributed.
Then on 5/20, The Washington Post followed up with the 22 veteran charities and only $3.1 million could be accounted for. Furthering the scandal, the Trump campaign confirmed that only $4.5 million and not $6 million was raised while claiming $1 million dollars donated by Trump was already given to the charities but refused to share evidence:
Did Trump make good on his promise to give from his personal funds?
“The money is fully spent. Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said.
To whom did Trump give, and in what amounts?
“He’s not going to share that information,” Lewandowski said.
Then, to the surprise of no one, Trump insulted the reporter who caught him trying to cheat our veterans, then later at a press conference tried to turn this around on the “dishonest” media.
As a side note, this is the first time Donald Trump has given any of his personal money to a charity of any kind in over 5 years.
