Washington
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump held a information convention on Thursday wherein he continued to be extremely dishonest – once more making greater than 20 false claims, as he additionally did in his Monday conversation with Elon Musk.
A lot of Trump’s inaccurate Thursday claims have been debunked for years. However a few of them have been comparatively new. At one level, he claimed that his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, was answerable for a California coverage he claimed permits folks to rob shops.
“They’d a latest article, and I didn’t know this, however you’re allowed to rob a retailer so long as it’s no more than $950. Has everybody ever heard of that? You’ll be able to rob a retailer, and you’ve got these thieves going into shops with calculators calculating how a lot it’s. As a result of if it’s lower than $950 they will rob it and never get charged. That was her that did that,” Trump mentioned.
Information First: This declare is fake in two vital methods.
First, theft underneath $950 stays unlawful in California; it’s a misdemeanor punishable by as much as six months in jail. It’s actually true that some misdemeanor circumstances are by no means prosecuted, however Trump on the very least left open the impression that the state – and Harris herself – made theft underneath $950 authorized.
Second, Harris was not the one who “did that.” In 2010, the Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a law that elevated the greenback threshold to set off felony grand theft fees from the previous level of $400 to a new level of $950. Then, in 2014, California voters affirmed that $950 threshold (and created a new crime of shoplifting) as a part of a referendum, accredited with practically 60% help, that diminished penalties for quite a lot of non-violent offenses.
Harris did not take a public position on the referendum, deciding to remain impartial in her function as state lawyer common.
Some critics of Harris and the poll proposal, referred to as Proposition 47, have argued that she implicitly supported the proposal by having her workplace write a good poll abstract for the proposal. Regardless, that’s a good distance from Trump’s declare.
Here’s a reality test of another false claims Trump made Thursday.
Walz and loos: Trump claimed that Harris’ operating mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “signed a invoice that boys’ loos – all boys’ loos in Minnesota – could have tampons.” However as PolitiFact has reported, the invoice Walz signed in 2023 doesn’t say “all boys’ loos” could have tampons.
Fairly, the invoice requires that tampons be offered to “all menstruating college students” in fourth grade by twelfth grade in loos college students recurrently use – and leaves it as much as college districts to determine the best way to comply. Districts can, for instance, present tampons to transgender boys by inserting the objects in unisex loos. A spokesperson for the state’s largest college district told Minneapolis’ Star Tribune newspaper earlier this month that it doesn’t present tampons in boys’ loos, as an alternative offering them in “nongendered loos,” ladies’ loos and by way of well being employees.
The Supreme Court docket’s immunity determination: Trump claimed, “As , the Supreme Court docket dominated lately on immunity, and I’m immune from all the stuff that they charged me with.”
Flawed. The Supreme Court docket didn’t give Trump blanket immunity towards “all” of the fees he’s going through, even in his federal election subversion case specifically; the court docket ruled that he has immunity for “official acts” taken throughout his presidency however that “the President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and never all the pieces the President does is official.” Trump’s personal lawyer conceded to the court that a number of the acts at difficulty within the case weren’t official.
The case has now been despatched again to a federal district court docket decide to determine how the Supreme Court docket’s immunity ruling applies to the particular allegations towards Trump.
“Lock her up” chants: Trump, complaining that Democrats wish to put him in jail, falsely claimed he discouraged his supporters’ “lock her up” chants about Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton throughout the 2016 election marketing campaign, asserting that he would reply, “Straightforward, simply simple.” In fact, Trump typically mentioned “lock her up” himself, typically referred to as for Clinton’s imprisonment utilizing completely different language and lots of different occasions paused his speeches and stood in silence to permit the chants to proceed.
US power: Trump claimed “we don’t have power.” That’s fallacious even when he’s solely referring to fossil gas manufacturing. The US is producing more crude oil than any country ever has.
Mortgage charges: Trump claimed mortgage charges are “now at 10%.” The usual, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.49% in the week that ended on August 15, mortgage financing giant Freddie Mac said Thursday.
Inflation underneath Trump: Trump claimed he handed Harris and President Joe Biden an economic system “with no inflation.” That’s additionally not true. Inflation was about 1.4% within the month Trump left workplace, which is low however not nonexistent, and cumulative inflation underneath Trump was about 8%.
His civil fraud case: Trump repeated a false declare about his civil fraud trial, claiming he “gained the case” at an appeals court docket however a decrease court docket decide nonetheless required him to pay a big high quality. He did not win the case at the appeals court.
Harris’ immigration function: Trump claimed that Harris has been “border czar” throughout her vice presidency. In actuality, Harris was given a extra restricted immigration-related task, main diplomacy with Central American international locations in an try to deal with the “root causes” of their residents’ migration; Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been in control of border safety throughout the Biden administration.
Consciousness of Harris: Arguing that Harris’ help will decline when Individuals get to know her higher, Trump repeated a earlier declare that “no person” even is aware of her final identify is Harris. That is apparent nonsense.
The 2020 presidential election: Trump claimed that he acquired 10 to 12 million extra votes within the 2020 election he misplaced than he did within the 2016 election he gained, which is correct (it was about 11.2 million extra votes) – however then added, “And that’s not together with different votes, that we will discuss it one other day.” There isn’t a pool of reliable “different votes” that weren’t included in Trump’s whole.
Overseas governments and immigration: Trump repeated his common baseless declare that overseas international locations are intentionally “bringing” criminals and other people “from psychological establishments and insane asylums” to the US as migrants, even “driving them by” the border. Trump’s own campaign hasn’t been able to substantiate these claims, and specialists say they’ve discovered no proof for them.
China, Iran and Hamas: Trump repeated an everyday declare that in his presidency, “Hamas had no cash as a result of Iran had no cash,” suggesting this was as a result of he efficiently pressured China and others to cease shopping for oil from Iran. In actual fact, Iran’s funding for Hamas and different terror teams never stopped during his presidency, although it did decline, and China by no means stopped shopping for oil from Iran, although its purchases did decline earlier than rebounding later in his presidency.
Nord Stream 2: Trump falsely claimed, “I ended Nord Stream 2. The pipeline was lifeless.” He didn’t kill the pipeline. He signed sanctions associated to the mission into regulation about three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already about 90% full, and the state-owned Russian firm behind the mission announced in December 2020 that building was resuming.
Navy tools and Afghanistan: Trump repeated his acquainted wild exaggeration that the US left $85 billion in army tools to the Taliban upon the Biden-era withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Protection Division has estimated that this tools was valued at about $7.1 billion – a piece of the roughly $18.6 billion price of kit offered to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021.
Cash from Russia: Trump repeated his baseless declare that Biden acquired $3.5 million from the spouse of a former mayor of Moscow. This cash was despatched to a agency related to Biden’s son Hunter Biden, whose former enterprise companion has testified that it was meant for him and never Hunter Biden; regardless, it didn’t go to Joe Biden.
Chris Wallace and this cash from Russia: Trump repeated his false declare that journalist Chris Wallace, now of CNN and previously of Fox Information, tried to cease him from speaking about this cash from Russia throughout a presidential debate Wallace moderated in 2020, saying, “You shouldn’t be speaking about that.” Wallace by no means mentioned that; because the transcript shows, Wallace interjected throughout this debate change to attempt to get Trump to permit Biden to reply a query concerning the cash, to not cease Trump from asking the query.
Tariffs on China: Trump claimed he took in “a whole lot of billions of {dollars} in tariffs from China” and that no earlier president had taken in “10 cents” from tariffs on China. Each claims are fallacious. Study after study has discovered that Individuals paid the overwhelming majority of the price of Trump’s tariffs, and the US was generating billions per year in revenue from tariffs on China before Trump took office.
Trump’s commerce cope with China: Trump’s claimed that, throughout his presidency, China was “adhering to” the phrases of a commerce deal he made, wherein China was supposed to purchase tens of billions price of further US exports. China did not come close to dwelling as much as its buy commitments.
Deportations to Central America underneath Obama: Trump repeated his ordinary inaccurate story about how the Obama administration supposedly couldn’t deport violent criminals to Central American international locations; he didn’t identify the international locations this time, however told the same story on Monday about Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. In 2016, Obama’s final calendar yr in workplace, none of those three international locations have 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.