WaPost Fact-Checks Trump’s Speech In Real Time
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Posted On: 03/01/2017 12:31:45 AM
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WaPost Fact-Checks Trump’s Speech In Real Time – Results Are ‘SAD!’
Always worth a copy and paste.
One of the reasons I didn't overreact to the former KY Gov, who actually did effectively defend the ACA as it has worked in his State, is because of stuff like this and because of the fact-checking to come.
My own reaction? Hey, I covered that in one of my posts the other day. I KNOW it's bullshit!
By Natalie Thongrit -
February 28, 2017
Donald Trump has been caught lying again.
Tuesday night, President Trump is delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress, and The Washington Post is fact-checking him in real time.
As usual, it didn’t take long for the president to give the newspaper’s fact checkers something to do. A few highlights from the on-going fact-check are listed below.
Early on in his speech, Trump repeated a lie that WaPo previously awarded Four Pinocchios: that it is because of him that the cost of the F-35 program has gone down.
During his Tuesday evening address, Trump claimed:
‘We’ve saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by bringing down the price of the fantastic new F-35 jet fighter, and will be saving billions more dollars on contracts all across our government.’
In reality, however, as fact checker Michelle Lee pointed out, “the Pentagon had announced cost reductions of roughly $600 million before Trump began meeting with Lockheed Martin’s chief executive.” Basically Trump is, once again, taking credit for something that has very little to do with him.
Trump also spent a significant portion of his speech bragging about the extent to which he has cracked down on immigration since his inauguration. He told the audience:
‘As we speak, we are removing gang members, drug dealers and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our citizens. Bad ones are going out as I speak and as I have promised throughout the campaign.’
Trump promised early on to deport all undocumented immigrants who had criminal convictions, and these deportations have been taking place. However, he is, once again, taking credit for something that he didn’t necessarily have anything to do with.
As Lee points out, “these arrests are routine” because “Immigration and Customs Enforcement has always targeted dangerous criminals in enforcement priorities.”
As far as Trump’s claims that “bad ones” are leaving the country, it is important to note that a significant portion of recent arrests have been for people with lesser charges and noncriminal convictions, such as traffic violations.
Lee is absolutely correct when she says that these individuals are not the “bad ones,” the drug dealers and gang members who are threatening our communities and preying on our citizens.
The president also attacked immigrants again when he pretended that they are the ones who commit the majority of U.S. terror attacks. In reality, though, as fact checker Mark Berman points out, “Since 2001, every deadly jihadist attack inside the United States was carried out by a U.S. citizen or legal resident.”
Trump later went on to claim in his speech that “ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.”
According to fact checker Glenn Kessler, “this is an absurd Four-Pinocchio claim.” Kessler writes that the statistic to which Trump referred comes from The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey, which showed in January 2016 that 94.4 million Americans aged 16 and older were “not in labor force.”
What Trump neglected to mention, though, is that, per last year’s data, 93 percent of those who are not in the labor force do not want a job. This majority is made up of individuals who are retired, students, stay-at-home parents, or disabled.
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