AP FACT CHECK: Trump inflates benefits of Saudi arms deal, makes unsupported claims about migrant caravan, distorts climate change and Russia probe circumstances in AP interview.
President Donald Trump inflated the projected benefits of an arms deal with the Saudis as he defended his wait-and-see attitude about Saudi complicity in the disappearance of a journalist whose apparent murder has sparked world outrage.
On immigration enforcement, the president made the unsubstantiated claim that migrants are being paid to mass at the border and somehow disrupt the Nov. 6 elections in the United States. This claim followed his distortions in an Associated Press interview about climate change and the Russia investigation.
A look at how some of his words over the past week stack up with the facts:
MIGRANTS
TRUMP, on a caravan of Central American migrants trying to reach the U. S.: « A lot of money’s been passing through people to come up and try to get to the border by Election Day because they think that’s a negative for us. » — Montana rally Thursday.
TRUMP on the caravan: « Can you believe this, and what Democrats are allowing to be done to our Country? » — tweet Thursday.
THE FACTS: Trump was riffing off of an unsupported allegation by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida that people were being paid in Honduras to join the caravan and « storm the border @ election time, » as Gaetz tweeted.
Gaetz tweeted a video on Wednesday of men handing out money to people standing in a line, without evidence that it illustrated his claim. Questioned about the video’s origin, Gaetz posted a correction on Twitter, saying, « This video was provided to me by a Honduran government official. Thus, I believed it to be from Honduras. »
Neither man has produced evidence that the migrants are being paid to come to the border.
Mexico’s government says migrants with proper documents can enter Mexico and those who don’t either have to apply for refugee status or face deportation.
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SAUDI ARMS DEAL
TRUMP: « Frankly they have a tremendous order — $110 billion. Every country in the world wanted a piece of that order. We got all of it. And what are we going to do? Again, I’ve had some senators come up and some congressmen that said, ‘Well, you know, sir, I think what we should do is we should not take that order.’ I said, ‘Who are we hurting? It’s 500,000 jobs.' » — interview Wednesday with Fox Business News.
TRUMP, on possible action against Saudi Arabia: « I’ll be working on this with Congress…. But I would prefer that we don’t use as retribution canceling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs…. I went there to get that order. » — remarks Friday at a defense event in Arizona.
THE FACTS: Trump’s wrong to suggest that he has $110 billion in military orders from Saudi Arabia. A far smaller amount in sales has actually been signed. His State Department has also estimated much fewer U. S. jobs than Trump’s figure of 500,000 to 600,000, projecting « potentially tens of thousands. »
Details of the $110 billion arms package, partly negotiated under the Obama administration and agreed upon in May 2017, have been sketchy. At the time the Trump administration provided only a broad description of the defense equipment that would be sold. There was no public breakdown of exactly what was being offered for sale and for how much.
The Congressional Research Service described the package as a combination of sales proposed by Obama and discussed with Congress and new sales still being developed.
The Pentagon said this month that Saudi Arabia has signed « letters of offer and acceptance » for only $14.5 billion in sales, including helicopters, tanks, ships, weapons and training. Those letters, issued after the U. S. government has approved a proposed sale, specify its terms.
Regarding economic impact, Trump’s claim of about 500,000 jobs involved — he later upped that figure to 600,000 — is questionable given the tenuous nature of the orders. A May 20,2017, State Department fact sheet on the proposed $110 billion deal estimated it could end up « potentially supporting tens of thousands of new jobs in the United States. »
Trump’s repeated claims that he’s signed $110 billion worth of new arms sales to Riyadh are « just not true, » said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and former CIA and Defense Department official. « Very little has changed hands. »
Trump has pledged unspecified « severe punishment » should the U. S. determine Saudi involvement in the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had written columns critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But Trump has said he does not want to halt the arms sale to Saudi Arabia because it would harm U. S. manufacturers. Saudi Arabia is indeed a major U. S. ally and arms customer.
Trump on Friday called Saudi Arabia’s announcement that suspects in Khashoggi’s death are in custody a « good first step. » Saudi Arabia has claimed that Khashoggi was killed in a « fistfight » at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
Trump said that before he decided what to do next, he wanted to talk to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
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MONTANA SENATE RACE
TRUMP, speaking about the failed nomination of White House doctor Ronny Jackson to be Veterans Affairs secretary: « Ever since his vicious and totally false statements about Admiral Ron Jackson, the highly respected White House Doctor for Obama, Bush & me, Senator John Tester looks to be in big trouble in the Great State of Montana! He behaved worse than the Democrat Mob did with Justice K! » — tweet Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Trump misleads by seeking to place the blame for Jackson’s failed nomination entirely on Tester, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. It also remains unclear whether the late-surfacing allegations against Jackson are « totally false » because the Pentagon inspector general is continuing to review some of them.
Jackson, a Navy rear admiral, withdrew his nomination in April after Tester released results of committee interviews he conducted with military personnel who raised questions about Jackson’s prescribing practices and leadership ability. The interviews were done with the knowledge and support of Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the committee considering Jackson’s nomination.
The time period covered Jackson’s tenure as a White House physician dating to 2006 and involved his current and former colleagues who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Jackson, who broadly denied allegations of bad behavior, had already faced tough questions from several committee Republicans about whether he had the experience to manage the massive VA.
The allegations were referred to the Pentagon’s inspector general for evaluation. After an initial assessment and review, the inspector general’s office in June decided a formal investigation was warranted. That probe is continuing, according to the office.
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CLEANEST AIR
TRUMP: « I want the cleanest air on the planet and our air now is cleaner than it’s ever been. » — AP interview Tuesday.
THE FACTS: He’s wrong about the air being the cleanest ever, according to his own administration. While the air generally has been getting cleaner since the 1970s, the downward trend in pollution has made a bit of a U-turn since Trump took office.
His Environmental Protection Agency released data that showed traditional air pollution — soot and smog — increased in 2017 and that the air is not the cleanest it has ever been.
The days with an unhealthy number of small pollution particles, often called soot and linked to heart and lung problems and deaths, jumped from 2016 to 2017 in 35 major metropolitan areas. In 2017, there were 179 unhealthy soot days, up 85 percent from 97 in 2016.Last year had the most unhealthy soot days since 2011.
The number of days with unhealthy smog levels was down from 2016, but higher than 2015,2014 and 2013.
The number of days when the air quality index was unhealthy was 729 in 2017. It’s higher than a year because it counts each city’s unhealthy reading on a certain day as one and there are numerous cities involved. Last year’s level was the highest since 2012 and a 21 percent increase over the cleanest air in 2014.
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CLIMATE CHANGE
TRUMP, when asked about a dire U. N. report this month on climate change that said dangerous warming has already happened and that with each degree, the many harms to Earth will get even more treacherous: « No, no. Some say that and some say differently, I mean you have scientists on both sides of it. » — AP interview Tuesday.
THE FACTS: He’s wrong to suggest the scientific community is substantially split. Scientists from around the world wrote the recent report, and it was unanimously accepted by government representatives around the world, including in the United States, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author of the report.
The Trump administration last year also released the National Climate Assessment, which painted a similar picture.
University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, a lead author of that national report, emailed that « there is no debate AT ALL going on about this within the scientific community. »
« Trump might as well be saying that there are scientists on ‘both sides of the gravity debate,' » Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said in an email. « Dangerous climate change impacts are already apparent. Of course there are uncertainties. There always are. There are uncertainties in the science of gravity (we have never measured a graviton, the fundamental unit of gravity).
