WASHINGTON — It was déjà vu on Wednesday: President Trump traveled to Detroit and Nashville for campaign-style rallies, sat down for an interview with Fox News and criticized a federal judge for blocking his travel ban.
Through it all, Mr. Trump repeated a series of misleading assertions and falsehoods, such as when he seemed simultaneously to walk back and yet double down on his accusation that President Barack Obama had wiretapped him.
“That really covers surveillance and many other things. Nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes,” he said on Fox News before adding, “I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront in the next two weeks.”
Here’s an assessment of some of his recent claims.
Mr. Trump cited news reports as evidence for his wiretapping claims.
“I’ve been reading about things. I read I think it was a Jan. 20 article in The New York Times — they were talking about wiretapping.”
This is misleading. The Times article Mr. Trump referred to did use the word “wiretap” but it did not assert that Mr. Obama had ordered surveillance of Mr. Trump, nor did it even mention Mr. Obama. Rather, the story referred to intercepted information collected overseas.
The headline in print read, “Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides.” And the word appeared twice in the text of the article: “intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House” and “If Mr. Sessions is confirmed, he will for a time be the only person in the government authorized to seek foreign intelligence wiretaps on American soil.”
Mr. Trump characterized his military spending increase as historic.
“Our budget calls for one of the single largest increases in military spending history in this country.”
False. Mr. Trump has proposed to add $54 billion to the Pentagon’s budget, which amounts to a 10 percent increase. There have been at least 10 larger increases to the base defense budget since the 1977 fiscal year and four since 2002.
Factoring in war spending, Mr. Trump’s claim is even less credible. There have been 27 years since 1940 in which the military spending was as high or higher than the proposed increase. As a percentage of gross domestic product, there have been roughly 35 years in which military spending matched or surpassed what Mr. Trump is calling for.
Mr. Trump talked up his executive actions reviving two major oil pipelines.
“I have already authorized the construction of the long, stalled and delayed Keystone and Dakota Access Pipeline. A lot of jobs. I have also directed that new pipelines must be constructed with American steel.”
This needs context. Mr. Trump cleared the way for the pipelines previously blocked by the Obama administration early in his presidency and has previously specified that the two will create “tens of thousands of jobs.”
Keystone, according to a 2014 State Department estimate, would support 42,000 temporary jobs, about 3,900 in construction, and 35 permanent jobs. But Mr. Trump’s presidential directive on using American steel does not apply to Keystone.
Mr. Trump criticized the previous administration for pursuing undocumented immigrants who had committed violent crimes and the media for ignoring their victims.
“As I traveled all across this country, I met with many American families whose loved ones were viciously and violently killed by illegal immigrants because our government refused to enforce our already existing laws. These American victims were ignored by the media.”
This is misleading. Mr. Obama began targeting unauthorized immigrants who had been convicted of serious crimes, who were considered national security threats and who had recently arrived, in 2014. By the end of his presidency, about 90 percent of those deported had criminal records.
The individuals killed by undocumented immigrants mentioned by Mr. Trump in his joint address to Congress, for example, have received widespread coverage. Here are New York Times stories on Jamiel Shaw Jr., Danny Oliver and Michael Davis.
Mr. Trump defended his travel ban, asserting that hundreds of immigrants had been implicated in terrorism.
“Hundreds of people from outside the country have been related to terrorism-related offenses.”
This is misleading. Independent analyses do not support Mr. Trump’s claim. The New America Foundation identified 12 jihadist terrorists who had killed people in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. All were American citizens or permanent residents and none had ties to the countries named in Mr. Trump’s executive order.
Out of the nearly 400 nondeadly jihadist terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11, perpetrators were linked to Iran or Somalia in three cases. Both countries were named in the travel ban.
According to Charles Kurzman, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, immigrant Muslim extremists have accounted for 16 out of 240,000 murders in the United States since 9/11.
Mr. Trump promoted tax cuts in the Obamacare repeal and replace bill.
“It repeals hundreds of billions of dollars in Obamacare taxes.”
This needs context. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the bill would repeal $883 billion in Affordable Care Act taxes. Nearly $275 billion would come from tossing out a payroll tax increase and a tax on net investment income that affect just the top 5 percent of earners.
The other big cut, $145 billion, comes from the repeal of the health insurance sales tax, which affects everyone. According to the Tax Policy Center, two-thirds of the cuts would benefit the top 20 percent of taxpayers, with 40 percent going to the top 1 percent of income earners.
“They’re changing the way the benefits and costs are distributed,” said Roberton Williams, an analyst at the Tax Policy Center. “It’s hard to argue that the rich won’t do well.”
Mr. Trump suggested that his negotiations had saved the Pentagon hundreds of millions of dollars on an order of F-35 jets.
“On the airplanes, I saved $725 million dollars. Probably took me about half an hour if you add it up all of the time.”
This is misleading. The Defense Department announced $728 million in reductions in February, two months after Mr. Trump criticized the high cost. Mr. Trump certainly accelerated the negotiations, but the costs began to go down in 2011.
Mr. Trump claimed that trade policies block American cars from being sold abroad.
“We take them — ‘Come on in, folks. Come on in. No tax. Don’t worry about it.’ We make cars; they don’t take us.”
This is misleading. Mr. Trump has previously specified this claim to Japan. American cars are very rare in Japan, though this is not a result of Japanese policies or trade barriers but rather the price and reputation of American cars.
In fact, the United States adds a 2.5 percent tariff on Japanese cars while Japan has no border tax on automobiles from the United States.
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