Washington
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump delivered his common bombardment of false claims – at the least 20 in all – throughout a Monday dialog with billionaire supporter Elon Musk, which aired on Musk’s social media platform, X.
Many of the falsehoods uttered by the Republican presidential nominee had been claims which have been repeatedly debunked earlier than, a few of them for years. They spanned a broad vary of topics, from immigration to the financial system to international coverage to Trump’s report in workplace to Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent.
Here’s a reality test:
Crime
Trump claimed, “Our crime price’s going by way of the roof.”
Info First: Trump’s declare is fake. Each violent crime and property crime dropped significantly in 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024.
There are limitations to the FBI-published knowledge from native regulation enforcement – the numbers are preliminary, not all communities submitted knowledge and the submitted knowledge usually has some errors – so these statistics could not exactly seize the scale of the current declines in crime. However different knowledge sources make it clear crime has indeed declined to some extent.
The preliminary FBI knowledge for 2023 showed a roughly 13% decline in murder and a roughly 6% decline in total violent crime in comparison with 2022, bringing each homicide and violent crime ranges under the place they had been in Trump’s final calendar yr in workplace in 2020. The preliminary FBI knowledge for the primary quarter of 2024 confirmed a fair steeper drop from the identical quarter in 2023 – a roughly 26% decline in homicide and roughly 15% decline in total violent crime.
Crime knowledge knowledgeable Jeff Asher, co-founder of the agency AH Datalytics, mentioned earlier this yr that if the ultimate 2023 figures present a decline in homicide of at the least 10% from 2022, this could be the quickest US decline “ever recorded.” And he famous that each the preliminary FBI-published knowledge from the primary quarter of 2024 and likewise “crime knowledge collected from a number of impartial sources level to a fair bigger decline in property and violent crime, together with a considerably bigger drop in homicide, thus far this yr in comparison with 2023, although there’s nonetheless time left within the yr for these tendencies to vary.”
After Trump claimed in June that “crime is a lot up,” Anna Harvey, a political science professor and director of the Public Safety Lab at New York College, famous to CNN that the declare is contradicted each by the info from the FBI and from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents 70 giant US police forces. She mentioned: “It will be extra correct to say that crime is a lot down.”
Inflation
Trump mentioned, “I feel we’ve the worst inflation we’ve had in 100 years. They are saying it’s 48 years, I don’t imagine it.”
Info First: Trump framed this as an opinion, nevertheless it’s baseless nonetheless – flawed in two alternative ways. First, even when the inflation price hit its Biden-era peak of 9.1% in June 2022, that 9.1% price was the best since 1981 – between 40 and 41 years prior, actually not “100 years” and never even “48 years.” Second, inflation has declined sharply for the reason that June 2022 peak, and the newest out there price on the time he spoke, for July 2024, was 3.2% – a price that, the Biden presidency apart, was exceeded as recently as 2011.
International warming and sea ranges
Trump argued that the specter of the nuclear conflict is way extra vital than the menace posed by local weather change. And he mentioned: “The most important menace? It’s not world warming, the place the ocean’s gonna rise one eighth of an inch over the subsequent 400 years … and also you’ll have extra oceanfront property, proper?”
Info First: Trump’s declare in regards to the tempo of sea-level rise is wildly inaccurate. The worldwide common sea stage is at the moment rising extra per yr than Trump claimed that it’ll rise in 400 years.
NASA reported in March that the present world common sea-level rise in 2023 was 0.17 inches per yr, greater than double the speed in 1993. And a World Meteorological Group report this year mentioned the speed of sea stage rise between 2014 and 2023 was about 0.19 inches per yr.
In different phrases, sea stage rise is already greater than an eighth of an inch yearly – and it’s accelerating. NASA found a leap of 0.3 inches between 2022 and 2023.
Gary Griggs, a College of California, Santa Cruz professor of earth and planetary sciences who research sea-level rise, said final yr that Trump’s related claims “can solely be described as completely out of contact with actuality” and that Trump “has no concept what he’s speaking about.”
Sea ranges rise by completely different quantities in several places. For the US, sea ranges are expected to rise particularly fast for the east coast and Gulf of Mexico coast – and Trump’s state of Florida, which is bordered by each of these coasts, is anticipated to be affected more severely than many different coastal states.
In reality, Trump’s claims about sea ranges are extremely inaccurate for the realm close to Mar-a-Lago, which is on the Atlantic. Griggs famous in a June e-mail that data from the closest Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide gauge to Mar-a-Lago reveals a rise of an eighth of an inch roughly each 9 months.
Trump has additionally previously made the joke about rising seas creating extra oceanfront property. In actuality, rising sea ranges are anticipated to have devastating penalties not solely for a lot of seafront properties however for areas additional inland – rendering some communities uninhabitable and others extra harmful, growing the frequency and attain of flooding, making hurricanes extra harmful and damaging infrastructure and ecosystems.
The variety of folks listening to the dialog
Trump advised Musk that “you bought lots of people listening” to the dialog – “like 60 million or one thing.” He then requested anyone what the quantity was, however he by no means corrected his preliminary estimate.
Info First: Trump did specific uncertainty in regards to the quantity, however his “like 60 million or one thing” declare is fake. On the time he made this comment, public knowledge on X confirmed that there have been 1.1 million accounts listening to the dialog.
Trump seemed to be referring to one thing completely different: the variety of views on his personal X publish sharing the “house” the place the dialog was performed. However the overwhelming majority of the accounts that seen the publish didn’t truly take heed to the dialog.
Harris and prisoners
Trump claimed of Harris: “She needs to launch all of the prisoners which are in detention, and a few of these guys are actually dangerous. That simply got here out as we speak.”
Info First: That is false. There isn’t a foundation for the declare that Harris “needs to launch all of the prisoners which are in detention.” Trump seemed to be referring to news stories in conservative media that reported that Harris had said in 2019, whereas unsuccessfully operating within the Democratic presidential major, that she wanted to close privately-run immigration detention centers.
Even when Harris continues to carry this place as we speak – she has not addressed the topic since she started her presidential marketing campaign in July – closing privately-run immigration detention facilities wouldn’t end result within the launch of “all” prisoners in immigration detention, not to mention all prisoners in common US jails and prisons; Trump didn’t specify that he was speaking about Harris’ previous stance on sure immigration detention amenities slightly than all prisons.
It’s potential Trump had been misled himself; a brief clip shared by some Republicans on social media this week didn’t embody the a part of Harris’ 2019 remarks the place she specified that she was referring to privately run immigration detention amenities particularly.
However articles by Fox Information and The New York Post appropriately famous that this was what she mentioned.
Harris’ immigration position
Trump claimed of Harris: “She was the border czar, and folks can’t permit them to get away with their disinformation marketing campaign. Now, she’s saying she wasn’t actually concerned … she was completely in cost.”
Info First: That is false. Harris was by no means made Biden’s “border czar,” a label the White Home has all the time emphasised is inaccurate, and was by no means “completely in cost” of the border; Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the official accountable for border safety. In reality, Biden gave Harris a extra restricted immigration-related project in 2021, asking her to guide diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an try to deal with the circumstances that prompted their residents to attempt to migrate to the US.
Some Republicans have scoffed at assertions that Harris was by no means the “border czar,” noting on social media that information articles generally described Harris as such. However these articles had been flawed. Various news outlets, including CNN, reported as early as the primary half of 2021 that the White Home emphasised that Harris had not been put accountable for border safety as an entire, as “border czar” strongly suggests, and had as an alternative been handed a diplomatic activity associated to Central American international locations.
A White Home “reality sheet” in July 2021 said: “On February 2, 2021, President Biden signed an Govt Order that referred to as for the event of a Root Causes Technique.
Since March, Vice President Kamala Harris has been main the Administration’s diplomatic efforts to deal with the foundation causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”
Biden’s personal feedback at a March 2021 occasion asserting the project had been barely more muddled, however he mentioned he had requested Harris to guide “our diplomatic effort” to deal with components inflicting migration within the three “Northern Triangle” international locations (he additionally talked about Mexico that day). Biden listed components in these international locations he thought had led to migration and mentioned that “for those who cope with the issues in-country, it advantages everybody.” And Harris’ feedback that day had been centered squarely on “root causes.”
Republicans can pretty say that even “root causes” work is a border-related activity. However calling her “border czar” goes too far.
Venezuela, crime and migration
Trump claimed: “Venezuela – their crime is down 72%. They’re taking their drug sellers.
They’re taking – frankly, their prisoners, they’re emptying out their prisons. They’re taking their criminals, their murderers, their rapists they usually’re delivering them…”
Info First: Trump significantly overstated the Biden-era decline in crime in Venezuela, at the least in accordance with the restricted statistics which are publicly out there. And whereas it’s sure that at the least some criminals have joined law-abiding Venezuelans in a mass exodus from the nation amid the financial disaster of the final decade, there is no such thing as a proof Venezuela has intentionally emptied prisons for migration functions or deliberately despatched ex-prisoners to the US.
Proper-wing web site Breitbart revealed a obscure 2022 article a couple of supposed federal intelligence report warning Border Patrol brokers about freed violent prisoners from Venezuela who had then joined migrant caravans. However this supposed declare about Venezuela’s actions has by no means been corroborated; specialists have advised CNN, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org that they know of no proof of any such factor having occurred.
“Now we have no proof that the Venezuelan authorities is emptying its prisons or psychological well being establishments to ship them exterior the nation, in different phrases, to the U.S. or some other nation,” Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, an impartial group that tracks violence within the nation, mentioned in an e-mail to CNN in June.
Venezuela’s authorities doesn’t publish dependable official crime statistics, so it’s laborious to get an entire image. However Briceño-León’s group publishes annual knowledge on violent deaths, which incorporates homicides, police killings and deaths nonetheless underneath investigation. It discovered a decline of roughly 26% within the variety of violent deaths from 2021 to 2023.
That’s substantial, however not “72%.” Briceño-León famous in his e-mail that you could possibly discover a decline of roughly 70% by 2023 for those who in contrast 2018 to 2023 – however Trump was US president till early 2021.
And crime tendencies in any nation all the time have a posh mixture of causes; Venezuela is no exception. Briceño-León argued that whereas migration has been an element within the decline, crime has dropped largely as a result of the financial disaster has decreased alternatives for crime.
“Financial institution robberies disappear as a result of there is no such thing as a cash to rob; kidnappings lower as a result of there is no such thing as a money to pay the ransoms; robberies on public transportation cease as a result of vacationers don’t have any cash of their pockets and previous cell telephones [with] no worth,” he mentioned.
Migration numbers
Whereas speaking about unlawful immigration, Trump claimed that, underneath President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, “you will have hundreds of thousands of individuals coming in a month.”
Info First: That is false. There has not been any month underneath the Biden-Harris administration the place even near “hundreds of thousands” of individuals entered the nation illegally. Within the peak month throughout this administration for what the federal government calls border “encounters,” December 2023, there were 370,890 encounters nationwide. Even for those who think about so-called “gotaways,” individuals who evaded the Border Patrol to sneak into the nation, there is no such thing as a foundation for the declare that “hundreds of thousands” of persons are getting into in a single month.
The variety of nationwide encounters was 205,019 in June, the final month for which knowledge is at the moment out there to the general public.
Migration numbers, half two
Trump mentioned of migration underneath Biden and Harris: “I imagine it’s over 20 million folks got here into our nation, many coming from jails, from prisons, from psychological establishments, or an even bigger model of that’s insane asylums.”
Info First: Trump’s “20 million” determine is fake, a serious exaggeration. The overall variety of “encounters” nationwide from February 2021 by way of June 2024, at each authorized ports of entry and in between these ports, was about 10 million – and an “encounter” doesn’t imply an individual was let into the nation; some folks encountered are promptly sent away. As well as, there is no such thing as a foundation for Trump’s declare that “many” of those migrants have are available from jails, prisons or psychological well being amenities.
Even for those who added the estimated variety of Biden-era “gotaways” (individuals who evaded the Border Patrol to enter illegally), which Home Republicans said in May was almost two million, “the totals would nonetheless be vastly smaller than 15, 16 or 18 million,” Michelle Mittelstadt, spokesperson for the Migration Coverage Institute assume tank, mentioned in late June after Trump used these figures.
The “encounters” figures can’t be described as figures on folks efficiently getting into the US. Some encounters contain individuals who are deemed inadmissible at legal ports and are refused permission to enter. Additionally, the identical particular person could be “encountered” a number of occasions in the event that they maintain returning to the border to attempt once more – which is what happened in many cases underneath Biden when the Title 42 rapid-expulsion authority invoked by Trump throughout the Covid-19 pandemic was in place into May 2023.
In 2023, Trump marketing campaign spokesman Steven Cheung cited one supply for Trump’s declare about prisons being emptied for migration functions – the Breitbart article that has not been corroborated. Even when Venezuela particularly had certainly freed prisoners to permit folks to attempt to migrate to the US, that may be inadequate proof for Trump’s declare that some substantial variety of Biden-era migrants are from prisons.
Migration and ‘the Congo’
Trump repeated a declare he has made earlier than about “the Congo” and migration, once more with out specifying whether or not he was referring to the Democratic Republic of Congo or the neighboring Republic of Congo.
He mentioned: “From Africa, from the Congo they’re coming, from the Congo. And, 22 folks got here in from the Congo just lately they usually’re murderers. And so they drop ‘em. They take ‘em out of jails – which may be very costly, you understand, to keep up the jails – they don’t do an excessive amount of sustaining, I can let you know. However they take ‘em out of jails, prisons. They take ‘em out, they usually convey them to the US.”
Info First: Trump’s declare is baseless. Specialists on the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, plus each pro-immigration and anti-immigration organizations within the US, told CNN in March, after Trump made an identical declare, that that they had not seen any proof of Congolese prisons being emptied, not to mention proof of both nation in some way having introduced ex-prisoners into the US. Trump’s presidential marketing campaign and an allied tremendous PAC didn’t reply to requests to offer any proof. A CNN search of two media databases turned up no proof.
“All the pieces he’s saying isn’t true,” Democratic Republic of Congo spokesperson Patrick Muyaya Katembwe advised CNN in a textual content message in March. Requested particularly about Trump’s claims about Congolese prisons being emptied of violent criminals, he mentioned, “By no means ever, it’s not true.” And, he mentioned, “we wish him to cease” telling these tales, since “it’s very dangerous for the nation.”
Serge Mombouli, the Republic of Congo’s ambassador to the US, mentioned in an e-mail to CNN in March: “There isn’t a fact or any signal nor a single reality supporting such a declare or assertion.”
There have been additionally some Congolese migrants apprehended on the US border under Trump. You possibly can learn a extra detailed reality test here.
Deportations to Central America
Trump repeated a narrative he has advised on quite a few earlier events about how, throughout President Barack Obama’s administration, it was not possible to deport violent criminals to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
“Within the case of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, some others, you couldn’t get ‘em again … underneath Obama, you couldn’t get ’em again,” he mentioned. He repeated, “They wouldn’t take ’em again for Obama.”
Info First: This declare stays false. In 2016, Obama’s final calendar yr in workplace, none of those three international locations had been on the list of nations that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thought of “recalcitrant” (uncooperative) in accepting the return of their residents from the US.
The Migration Coverage Institute, a Washington assume tank, famous to CNN in 2019 that within the 2016 fiscal yr, ICE reported that Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador ranked second, third and fourth for the nation of citizenship of individuals being faraway from the US. The identical was true within the 2017 fiscal year, which encompassed the top of Obama’s presidency and the start of Trump’s. ICE didn’t establish any widespread issues with deportations to those international locations.
ICE officers mentioned there have been some exceptions to the three international locations’ normal cooperativeness, however Trump’s normal declaration that the international locations had been uncooperative was by no means true.
The legitimacy of the 2020 election
Trump repeated his common lie in regards to the legitimacy of the 2020 election, saying his opponents have tried to persecute him by way of the courts regardless that he did “nothing flawed” and merely complained a couple of “rigged election.”
Info First: Trump’s declare in regards to the election stays false. The 2020 election was not rigged, Trump misplaced honest and sq. to Biden by an Electoral School margin of 306 to 232, his opponents didn’t cheat and there’s no proof of any fraud even near widespread sufficient to have modified the end result in any state.
We’ll depart apart Trump’s subjective claims about his authorized circumstances.
Europe and assist to Ukraine
Trump once more claimed that European international locations are usually not pulling their weight with regard to help to Ukraine. He mentioned, “With Ukraine, so we’re in for $250 billion they usually’re in for about $71 billion.”
Info First: Trump’s declare is fake. By way of June, European international locations had dedicated and offered extra assist to Ukraine than the US had throughout and simply earlier than the Russian invasion started in early 2022, in accordance with data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economic system assume tank in Germany.
The Kiel Institute, which intently tracks assist to Ukraine, found that, from late January 2022 (simply earlier than Russia’s invasion in February 2022) by way of June 2024, the European Union and particular person European international locations had dedicated a complete of about $205 billion to Ukraine, in army, monetary and humanitarian help, in comparison with about $108 billion dedicated by the US. Europe additionally exceeded the US in assist that had truly been “allotted” to Ukraine – outlined by the institute as assist both delivered or specified for supply – at about $121 billion for Europe in comparison with about $82 billion for the US.
The US led Europe on army assist that had truly been allotted, however very narrowly – about $56.42 billion to $56.35 billion.
It’s vital to notice that it’s potential to give you completely different totals utilizing completely different methodology. However Trump’s declare that the US has dedicated or offered way more assist than Europe just isn’t true regardless.
Commerce with Europe
Trump claimed, “When you construct a automotive in the US, you’ll be able to’t promote it in Europe. You simply can’t promote it. It’s not possible.”
Info First: It’s not true that it’s not possible to promote a US-made automotive in Europe.
In line with a December 2023 report from the European Vehicle Producers’ Affiliation, the EU is the second-largest marketplace for US automobile exports — importing 271,476 US autos in 2022, valued at almost 9 billion euro. (A few of these are autos made by European automakers at plants in the US.) The EU’s Eurostat statistical workplace says that automotive imports from the US hit a brand new peak in 2020, Trump’s final full yr in workplace, at a price of about 11 billion euro.
Iran and funding for terror teams
Touting his report in coping with Iran, Trump claimed, “They’d no cash for Hamas, that they had no cash for Hezbollah, that they had no cash for any of those devices of terror.”
Info First: Trump’s declare that Iran had “no cash” for terror teams throughout his presidency is fake. Iran’s funding for these teams did decline within the second half of his administration, largely as a result of his sanctions on Iran had a major negative impact on the Iranian financial system, however the funding by no means stopped completely, as four experts told CNN in June. Trump’s personal administration mentioned in 2020 that Iran was persevering with to fund terror teams together with Hezbollah.
The Trump administration started imposing sanctions on Iran in late 2018, pursuing a marketing campaign referred to as “maximum pressure.” However Trump-appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned himself in 2020 that Iran was persevering with to fund terror teams.
“So that you proceed to have, regardless of the Iranian management demanding that extra money be given to them, they’re utilizing the assets that they need to proceed funding Hezbollah in Lebanon and threatening the state of Israel, funding Iraqi terrorist Shia teams, all of the issues that they’ve completed traditionally – persevering with to construct out their capabilities even whereas the folks inside their very own nation are struggling,” Pompeo mentioned in a Could 2020 interview, in accordance with a transcript posted on the State Department’s website.
Trump might have pretty mentioned that his sanctions on Iran had made life tougher for terror teams (although it’s unclear how much their operations were affected). As an alternative, he continued his years-old practice of exaggerating even legitimate achievements.
You possibly can learn a extra detailed reality test from June here.
China’s purchases of Iranian oil
Trump repeated his acquainted declare that he efficiently pressured China into now not shopping for oil from Iran.
“Iran was broke as a result of I advised China, ‘When you purchase from Iran…’ Oil, it’s all in regards to the oil, that’s the place the cash is. ‘…When you purchase oil from Iran, you’re not going to do any enterprise with the US.’ And I meant it, they usually mentioned, ‘We’ll cross,’ they usually didn’t purchase oil.”
Info First: Trump’s declare is fake. China’s oil imports from Iran did briefly plummet underneath Trump in 2019, the yr the Trump administration made a concerted effort to deter such purchases, however they by no means stopped – after which they rose sharply once more whereas Trump was nonetheless president. “The declare is unfaithful as a result of Chinese language crude imports from Iran haven’t stopped in any respect,” Matt Smith, lead oil analyst for the Americas at Kpler, a market intelligence agency, mentioned in November, when Trump made an identical declare.
China’s official statistics recorded no purchases of Iranian crude in Trump’s final partial month in workplace, January 2021, and likewise none in most of Biden’s first yr in workplace. However that doesn’t imply China’s imports truly ceased; trade specialists say it’s broadly identified that China has used a wide range of ways to masks its continued imports from Iran.
Smith mentioned Iranian crude is often listed in Chinese data as being from Malaysia; ships could journey from Iran with their transponders switched off after which flip them on when they’re close to Malaysia, Smith mentioned, or transfer the Iranian oil to other ships.
Ali Vaez, Iran undertaking director on the Worldwide Disaster Group, mentioned in a November e-mail: “China considerably decreased its imports from Iran from round 800,000 barrels per day in 2018 to 100,000 in late 2019. However by the point Trump left workplace, they had been again to upwards to 600(000)-700,000 barrels.”
Trump’s tax cuts
Trump repeated his common declare that his signature tax cuts, within the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, had been “the biggest tax reduce” ever offered.
Info First: Trump is wrong. Analyses have discovered that his tax reduce regulation was not the biggest in historical past, both in proportion of gross home product or in inflation-adjusted {dollars}.
The act made quite a few everlasting and momentary adjustments to the tax code, together with lowering each company and particular person revenue tax charges.
In a report released earlier this year, the federal authorities’s Congressional Price range Workplace regarded on the dimension of previous tax cuts enacted between 1981 and 2023. It discovered that two different tax reduce payments had been larger – former President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 package deal and laws signed by former President Barack Obama that prolonged earlier tax cuts enacted throughout former President George W. Bush’s administration.
The CBO measured the sizes of tax cuts by trying on the income results of the payments as a proportion of gross home product – in different phrases, how a lot federal income a invoice reduce as a portion of the financial system – over 5 years. Reagan’s 1981 tax reduce and Obama’s 2012 tax reduce extension had been 3.5% and 1.7% of GDP, respectively. Trump’s 2017 tax reduce, in contrast, was estimated to be about 1% of GDP.
The Committee for a Accountable Federal Price range, a fiscal watchdog group, present in 2017 that the framework for Trump’s tax cuts would make them the fourth largest since 1940 in inflation-adjusted {dollars} and the eighth largest since 1918 as a proportion of gross home product.
Army tools and Afghanistan
After speaking in regards to the state of US army tools, Trump mentioned, “We gave $85 billion of it again to Afghanistan, for those who can imagine it. We gave them $85 billion.”
Info First: Trump’s $85 billion determine is fake. Whereas a major amount of army tools that had been offered by the US to Afghan forces was certainly deserted to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal, the Protection Division has estimated that this tools had been price about $7.1 billion – a bit of the roughly $18.6 billion price of apparatus offered to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021. And a few of the tools left behind was rendered inoperable earlier than US forces withdrew.
As different fact-checkers have beforehand explained, the “$85 billion” is a rounded-up determine (it’s nearer to $83 billion) for the whole amount of cash Congress appropriated throughout the conflict to a fund supporting the Afghan safety forces. A minority of this funding was for tools.
The state of affairs earlier than Proper to Strive
Trump claimed that earlier than he signed a “Proper to Strive” regulation in 2018 to offer terminally unwell sufferers simpler entry to experimental medicines that haven’t but acquired approval from the Meals and Drug Administration, such sufferers would don’t have any recourse if they didn’t have the cash to journey overseas.
He mentioned: “You realize, folks – if that they had cash, they’d go to Asia, they’d go to Europe. In the event that they don’t have cash, they’d go residence and die. That’s what occurred, they’d go residence and die.”
Info First: It isn’t true that terminally unwell sufferers would merely need to go residence and die with none entry to experimental medicines or must go to international international locations searching for such therapies till Trump signed the Proper to Strive regulation. Previous to the regulation, sufferers needed to ask the federal authorities for permission to entry experimental medicines – however the authorities virtually all the time mentioned sure.
Scott Gottlieb, who served as Trump’s FDA commissioner, told Congress in 2017 that the FDA had accredited 99% of affected person requests underneath its personal “expanded entry” program.
“Emergency requests for particular person sufferers are often granted instantly over the cellphone and non-emergency requests are usually processed inside a couple of days,” Gottlieb testified.
The Biden administration and Trump’s authorized circumstances
Trump repeated a declare he has made on quite a few events throughout his marketing campaign – that the Biden administration orchestrated a felony election subversion case that was introduced in opposition to him by an area district legal professional in Fulton County, Georgia, a felony fraud case that was introduced in opposition to him by an area district legal professional in Manhattan, and a civil fraud case that was introduced in opposition to him by the legal professional normal of New York state.
Info First: That is false. There isn’t a proof that Biden or his administration had been behind any of those circumstances. None of those officers studies to the president and even to the federal authorities.
Lawyer Common Merrick Garland testified to Congress in early June in regards to the Manhattan case by which Trump was discovered responsible: “The Manhattan district legal professional has jurisdiction over circumstances involving New York state regulation, utterly impartial of the Justice Division, which has jurisdiction over circumstances involving federal regulation. We don’t management the Manhattan district legal professional. The Manhattan district legal professional doesn’t report back to us. The Manhattan district legal professional makes its personal choices about circumstances that he needs to convey underneath his state regulation.”
As he did in his dialog with Musk, Trump has repeatedly invoked a lawyer on Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s crew, Matthew Colangelo, whereas making such claims; Colangelo left the Justice Division in 2022 to join the district attorney’s office as senior counsel to Bragg. However there is no such thing as a proof that Biden had something to do with Colangelo’s employment determination. Colangelo and Bragg had been colleagues within the New York legal professional normal’s workplace earlier than Bragg was elected Manhattan district legal professional in 2021.
CNN’s Tami Luhby and William Montes contributed to this text.