Trump made 1,950 false or misleading claims in 347 days
WASHINGTON: As of Jan. 1, President Trump has made 1,950 false or misleading claims since taking office. He now averages 5.6 per day. Here are the five he says most regularly.
With just 18 days before President Trump completes his first year as president, he is now on track to exceed 2,000 false or misleading claims, according to our database that analyses, categorises and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president, reported The Washington Post.
As of Monday, the total stood at 1,950 claims in 347 days, or an average of 5.6 claims a day. The president has a tendency to repeat himself — often. There are now more than 60 claims that he has repeated three or more times.
The president’s impromptu 30-minute interview with the New York Times over the holidays, in which he made at least 24 false or misleading claims, included many statements that we have previously fact-checked.
We currently have a tie for Trump’s most repeated claims, both made 61 times. Both of these claims date from the start of Trump’s presidency and to a large extent have faded as talking points.
One of these claims was some variation of the statement that the Affordable Care Act is dying and “essentially dead.” The Congressional Budget Office has said that the Obamacare exchanges, despite well-documented issues, are not imploding and are expected to remain stable for the foreseeable future. Indeed, healthy enrollment for the coming year has surprised health-care experts.
Trump used to say this a lot, but he’s quieted down since his efforts to repeal the law flopped. Trump also repeatedly takes credit for events or business decisions that happened before he took the oath of office — or had even been elected. Sixty-one times, he has touted that he secured business investments and job announcements that had been previously announced and could easily be found with a Google search.
With the successful push in Congress to pass a tax plan, two of Trump’s favourite talking points about taxes — that the tax plan will be the biggest tax cut in US history and that the United States is one of the highest-taxed nations — have rapidly moved up the list.
Trump repeated the falsehood about having the biggest tax cut 53 times, even though Treasury Department data shows it would rank eighth. And 58 times Trump has claimed that the United States pays the highest corporate taxes (25 times) or that it is one of the highest-taxed nations (33 times). The latter is false; the former is misleading, as the effective US corporate tax rate (what companies end up paying after deductions and benefits) ends up being lower than the statutory tax rate.
We also track the president’s flip-flops on our list, as they are so glaring. He spent the 2016 campaign telling supporters that the unemployment rate was really 42 percent and the official statistics were phony; now, on 46 occasions he has hailed the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years. It was already very low when he was elected — 4.6 percent, the lowest in a decade — so his failure to acknowledge that is misleading.
An astonishing 85 times, Trump has celebrated a rise in the stock market — even though in the campaign he repeatedly said it was a “bubble” that was ready to crash as soon as the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates. Well, the Fed has raised rates three times since the election — and yet the stock market has not plunged as Trump predicted. It has continued a rise in stock prices that began under President Barack Obama in 2009. Again, Trump has never explained his shift in position on the stock market.
We maintain the database by closely reading or watching Trump’s myriad public appearances and television and radio interviews. The interviews are especially hard to keep up with, in part because the White House does not routinely post on them on its website. In fact, a recent redesign of the White House website appears to make it difficult to find transcripts of Trump’s remarks at the White House.
This project originally started as a first-100-days database, but by popular demand we extended it to one year. We will soon face a decision about whether to maintain it beyond one year, even though it strains the resources (and weekends) of our staff. In at least one instance, the database was used for academic analysis. We welcome thoughts from readers about whether it remains a worthwhile endeavor.
Pakistan can review cooperation with US if it is not appreciated, says Maleeha Lodhi
APPJanuary 03, 2018
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Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Maleeha Lodhi condemned the United States (US) administration's aggressive remarks against Pakistan and said that Islamabad could "review its cooperation if it is not appreciated".
Referring to US Ambassador to the UN
Nikki Haley's comments a day earlier where she had accused Pakistan of playing a "double game" with the US, Lodhi cautioned against "shifting the blame for [the US'] own mistakes and failures onto others".
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Lodhi said that Pakistan has "contributed and sacrificed the most in fighting international terrorism".
The diplomat added that Pakistan's role in the war against terrorism did not depend on US aid but on "national interests and principles".
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Worsening relations
A war of words was triggered after Trump, in his
first tweets on New Year's day, lashed out against Pakistan, calling the country a "liar".
Elaborating on Trump's tweets, Haley on Tuesday said that the US had withheld $255 million of military aid to Pakistan for the latter's alleged "harbouring of terrorists".
On the same day, US Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said at a press briefing that a detailed policy will be
announced within the next 24-48 hours.
While announcing his
national security policy last year, the US president had been quick to remind Pakistan of its 'obligation' to help America "because it receives massive payments" from Washington every year.
"We have made clear to Pakistan that while we desire continued partnership, we must see decisive action against terrorist groups operating on their territory. And we make massive payments every year to Pakistan. They have to help," he had said.
A Pentagon report to the US Congress, released to the media on Dec 17, had said
Washington would also take 'unilateral steps' in areas of divergence with Pakistan while expanding cooperation between the two countries where their interests converge.
Subsequently, US Vice President Mike Pence had, in a surprise visit to Afghanistan's Bagram airbase on Dec 22, warned that
Trump has "put Pakistan on notice" in what was the harshest US warning to Islamabad since the beginning of the Afghan war over 16 years ago.
The Pakistan Army spokesman, Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, had at a press conference last week asserted that the aid Pakistan received from the US was "reimbursement for support we gave to the coalition for its fight against Al Qaeda."
"Had we not supported the US and Afghanistan, they would never have been able to defeat Al Qaeda," he had said.
His briefing was considered perhaps the strongest-ever reaction from Islamabad since US functionaries began alluding to the possibility of unilateral action.
Hitting back at the US, the civilian-controlled Foreign Office (FO) had also warned against the "malicious campaign" being "used to trivialise Pakistan's achievements in the war against terrorism", and noted that
"allies do not put each other on notice".
The FO had further complained that US statements are "at variance with the extensive conversations we [Islamabad] have had with the US administration".
