Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary for President Donald Trump, said in a Fox News segment Feb. 27 that North Korea tested a missile…
Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary for President Donald Trump, said in a Fox News segment Feb. 27 that North Korea tested a missile every 24 days under President Barack Obama.
“Let me just draw the contrast. During the Obama years, every 24 days on average we saw a missile to get tested, fired from North Korea. Since President Trump’s taken office, it’s been 457-plus days,” Spicer said.
Verdict: False
Depending on the database, the regime tested either 74 or 85 missiles from 2009 through 2016, corresponding to one missile test an average of every 39 or 34 days under Obama. There were no known tests in 2010 or 2011.
No missile tests have been recorded in over 457 days under Trump, although the databases report that the regime did test either 20 or 24 missiles during Trump’s first year in office – an average of about one missile tested every 18 or 15 days.
Fact Check:
Spicer, a senior advisor for the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action, compared the frequency of North Korean missile tests under Trump and Obama as evidence that Trump is making progress on North Korean diplomacy. “This president is getting results for the American people, for the peninsula, for the region and for our world,” he said.
Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to reach a nuclear disarmament deal at the second summit between the two leaders last week in Vietnam.
It is unclear where Spicer got his figures. He did not respond to requests for comment.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) keep databases of North Korean missile tests that show Spicer overstated the frequency of missile tests under Obama.
CSIS counts 85 missile tests from Jan. 20,2009 to Jan. 20,2017, which averages out to about one launch every 34 days. MIIS recorded 74 missile tests over the same period – about one missile tested every 39 days on average.
