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AP FACT CHECK: Trump and his oh-so-familiar falsehoods

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President Donald Trump says Mexico is paying for the wall (it isn’t), health care choice for veterans came from him (it didn’t) and his tax …
President Donald Trump says Mexico is paying for the wall (it isn’t), health care choice for veterans came from him (it didn’t) and his tax cut stands as the biggest in American history (nowhere close). These are among his touchstones – the falsehoods that span his presidency – and he’s giving them another go in the final days of his relentless campaigning. He’s got fresher false material, too, claiming “incredible” numbers in the pandemic response despite record infections, rising deaths and a statement from his chief of staff Sunday that the government cannot bring the coronavirus under control. He warned darkly of voting fraud in the Nov.3 election without offering evidence that malfeasance is in play. In weekend rallies, Trump also portrayed Democratic rival Joe Biden as the helmsman of a Marxist party who lined his own pockets with $3.5 million via Moscow. This didn’t happen. A look at rhetoric from the weekend: THE VIRUS TRUMP: “Even without vaccines, we’re rounding the turn. It’s going to be over.” – on C-SPAN, Sunday. TRUMP: “We’re rounding the turn. It’s going to be over.” – New Hampshire rally Sunday. TRUMP: “We’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great. Our numbers are incredible.” – North Carolina rally Saturday. THE FACTS: The numbers have turned harrowing, not “incredible.” The U.S. set a daily record Friday for new confirmed coronavirus infections and nearly matched it Saturday with 83,178, data published by Johns Hopkins University show. Close to 8.6 million Americans have contracted the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and about 225,000 have died; both totals are the world’s highest. About half the states have seen their highest daily infection numbers so far at some point in October. “We’re not going to control the pandemic,” Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, said on CNN. “We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.” He did not share his boss’ view that the pandemic is turning a corner or that it will, absent a vaccine. ___ TRUMP on how long he may be immune to reinfection from the coronavirus: “With me it was for four months. If it was anybody else they’d say for life.” – Ohio rally. TRUMP: “Now it used to be that if you had it, you were immune for life, right? For life. With me, they say I’m immune for four months. In other words, once I got it, the immunity went down from life to four months. I don’t know. They don’t know either.” – North Carolina. THE FACTS: The only truth in these statements is that “they don’t know.” Trump is suggesting here that experts are saying he is only immune from reinfection for four months because they don’t like him. But the science of immunity is not about him and the uncertainty is not a conspiracy against him. Public-health authorities don’t have final answers on how long or well people who had COVID-19 are protected from it again. While there’s evidence that reinfection in unlikely for at least three months even for those with a mild case of COVID-19, very few diseases leave people completely immune for life. Antibodies are only one piece of the body’s defenses, and they naturally wane over time. THE WALL TRUMP: “And by the way, Mexico is paying for the wall.” – New Hampshire rally. TRUMP: “No, they are paying for it. Totally.” – North Carolina rally. TRUMP: “We got it financed. Mexico will be paying for it because we’re going to charge a fee.” THE FACTS: The U.S. is paying for it. Mexico isn’t. The Mexican government flatly refused to contribute to extending or reinforcing barriers on U.

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