Here's a thread on just some of the false claims Trump made in his 115-false-claim week. Again, the variety, audacity and sheer pointlessness of the lying and exaggerating is remarkable. thestar.com/news/world/ana…
"I was with U.S. Steel. They're opening up eight plants, eight." (U.S. Steel has announced major investments in two plants since Trump’s tariffs. Trump initially lied in June that they were opening six plants, then made it seven, then made it eight.)
“The farmers have been shut out from the EU...They've been shut out from Canada, as you know...They've been shut out, to a large extent, in China.” (Canada is the #1 export market for U.S. agriculture. China is #2. The EU is #5.)
“Obama said there's no such thing as a manufacturing job essentially any more.”
Obama said *some* jobs were gone, but boasted in the same paragraph about how well manufacturing was doing: “More manufacturing jobs created since I've been president than any time since the 1990s."
Obama said *some* jobs were gone, but boasted in the same paragraph about how well manufacturing was doing: “More manufacturing jobs created since I've been president than any time since the 1990s."
"Jon Tester voted against our incredible Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. How do you do that? First in his class at Harvard. First in his class at Oxford. And he decides, I think I'll vote no."
(Gorsuch was not in the top 50 at Harvard. Oxford PhD students do not get ranked.)
(Gorsuch was not in the top 50 at Harvard. Oxford PhD students do not get ranked.)
"Now -- and it looks very good for justice -- for Judge Kavanaugh to be justice...And we have Justice Gorsuch...In 18 months, I have two. Nobody -- I don't think anybody has done that." (Obama had confirmed two justices by now.)
"From what I understand it's in contracts that you have to stand for the national anthem. In fact, they have somewhere, it says you will stand, you will have the helmet on the ground and the hand on the heart." (NFL contracts don't require standing, let alone with hand on heart.)
"You know, when I won the election, the New York Times, all their subscribers were leaving." (NYT subscriptions soared after Trump's election. The paper reported adding more than 50,000 subscribers in the two weeks following voting day.)
"We've added over 400,000 new manufacturing jobs...that number is going to very shortly, with what's happening in certain areas, be well over 600,000 manufacturing jobs." (348,000 manufacturing jobs were added between Jan. 2017 and Aug. 2018. 378,000 jobs since Nov. 2016.)
"We're building the wall, not only building it, we've already started it. We've started the wall: $1.6 billion last year, $1.6 billion this year...rapidly in San Diego and other parts of the country." (Wall hasn't started, only fence-replacement. Only $1.6 billion is secured.)
"...Lawyers standing at the border saying, 'Repeat after me. Read the statement. I have been abused...' Oh, OK, congratulations. You've just become a citizen of the United States of America.” (Even if there were widespread asylum fraud, citizenship takes more than 4 years.)
...and asylum claimants fill out detailed paperwork, are subjected to a background check, have an interview with the government. If they're approved, they have to wait a year to seek a green card. Then additional years to seek citizenship.
"You know, when Abraham Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address speech, the great speech, do you know he was ridiculed? He was ridiculed. He took the horse and carriage up from the White House..." (Lincoln took a train to Gettysburg.)
"They've (Iran) got demonstrations in every city. This is far worse than it was years ago when President Obama could've maybe crushed Iran...Well, these demonstrations are larger." (These demonstrations are much smaller than and more scattered than the 2009 protests.)
"Soybeans, they dropped 50 per cent five years before my election, they came down 50 per cent." (The price of soybeans fell 16 per cent from November 2011 to election day in November 2016.)
"They respect us now, because they couldn't believe -- for years, NATO spending was going like this [draws a downward line with his hand]." (NATO spending rose 3% the year before Trump took office and 2% the year prior.)
"And our tax cut saves family farms and ranchers and small businesses from unfair estate tax, also known as the death tax...We got rid of that tax." (Trump hasn't gotten rid of the estate tax, merely raised the threshold for it. A tiny number of farmers paid it before.)
"We passed Veterans Choice..And we also passed the landmark V.A. Accountability Act. They've been trying to pass both of them for more than 45 years. I got them both passed." (Choice was passed 4 years ago under Obama. The law Trump signed modified the program, didn't create it.)
"I have books that are stacked up this high. Actually, the ones that are really good are number one, two, and three on the bestsellers list, right?" (A book by a Trump foe - McCain, Omarosa, Rick Wilson - was in the top three on every major bestseller list at the time.)
"NFL first game ratings are way down over an already really bad last year comparison. Viewership declined 13%, the lowest in over a decade." (This was a 9-year low. Trump perpetually turns 8-year or 9-year lows into "over a decade" lows.)
"We make missiles that can knock missiles out of the air from thousands of miles away...And they have a 96%. If you shoot two of them up, which the company likes, but if you shoot two of them up...you have 100%." (Per disputed estimates, it's 60% for one missile, 84% for two.)
"Japan would not deal with Obama. He wouldn't deal with President Obama. They wouldn't deal. They said, 'No, we're not going to talk trade.'" (Japan negotiated an entire trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with the Obama administration.)
"I beat Hillary, who stole it from Bernie. Bernie should have won, but that's OK. They stole it. Superdelegates." (Clinton won more votes, states and pledged delegates than Sanders.)
"Kris (Kobach) is a good man, so I endorsed him, and he won...He was down 11. He was down 11 when I endorsed him with about a week, with about three days left." (Trump endorsed Kobach the day before the vote. Kobach was down 2 in one recent poll, up 7 in another.)
Ending this thread, but there are so many more. This is one week! This is bonkers.
