Now that Trump is president, he continues to make misleading statements, based on incomplete information, inaccurate statistics or flights of fancy. Here’s an accounting of his public statements in the first seven days as president, not counting his error-plagued inauguration speech (which had eight problematic claims). If we wrote a full fact check, we noted the number of Pinocchios the statement received.
“I remember hearing [when I was young] from one of my instructors, ‘The United States has never lost a war.’ And then, after that, it’s like we haven’t won anything. We don’t win anymore.”
— Jan. 21, remarks at the CIA
This is debatable. At the very least, one might count the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the end of the Cold War as victories for the United States.
“I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth. And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community.”
— Jan. 21, remarks at the CIA
On Dec. 9, when The Washington Post reported that intelligence officials had concluded that Russia had sought to undermine Hillary Clinton in the election, the Trump team issued a statement: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” After information leaked that Trump had been briefed that an unverified dossier alleged Russia had embarrassing information about him, Trump lashed out at the intelligence agencies and asked: “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” The media simply reported what Trump said about the intelligence community.
“I looked out, the field was — it looked like a million, million and a half people. … The rest of the 20-block area, all the way back to the Washington Monument, was packed.”
— Jan. 21, remarks at the CIA
Speaking to employees at the CIA, Trump complained about news coverage showing his inauguration crowd was smaller than Barack Obama’s crowd in 2009. Trump’s crowd did not go all the way to the Washington Monument. No matter how you calculate it, Trump’s crowd was significantly smaller than Obama’s crowd — and the Women’s March on Washington the next day.
“We have the all-time record in the history of Time Magazine. … I’ve been on it for 15 times this year.”
— Jan. 21, remarks at the CIA
Trump has been on the cover of Time magazine a total of 11 times. Richard Nixon holds the record — 55. Depending on whether you count small photographs or not, Hillary Clinton has been on the cover between 22 and 31 times.
“Had a great meeting at CIA Headquarters yesterday, packed house, paid great respect to Wall, long standing ovations, amazing people. WIN!”
— Jan. 22, tweet
Trump appeared to be responding to criticism of his heavily political speech in front of the CIA’s fabled memorial wall. He claimed to have received standing ovations, but he never invited the employees to take a seat. So they remained standing the whole time. (Trump later in the week repeated that he got “a standing ovation.”)
“Wow, television ratings just out: 31 million people watched the Inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from 4 years ago!”
— Jan. 22, tweet
Actually, Obama’s ratings in 2009 were 7 million people higher than Trump’s numbers. Second-term inaugurals tend to get lower ratings, so Trump is cherry-picking the comparison.
“I’m a very big person when it comes to the environment. I have received awards on the environment.”
— Jan. 23, remarks during a meeting with business leaders
There is little evidence that Trump received awards for the environment. The White House pointed us to a self-published book by Trump’s former environmental consultant. The only award mentioned in that book was from New Jersey Audubon — but the group denied it ever gave an award to Trump, the Trump National club in Bedminster or any of its employees. (This statement earned Four Pinocchios.)
“We think we can cut regulations by 75 percent. Maybe more.”
— Jan. 23, meeting with business executives
This is clearly a made-up figure. As of the end of 2015, there were nearly 180,000 pages in the code of federal regulations. So, in theory, that means getting it down to 45,000 pages. There were 71,000 pages back in 1975. Even under Ronald Reagan, the number of pages climbed almost 20 percent.
“Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.”
— Jan. 23, remarks to congressional leaders
This is a fantasy, worthy of Four Pinocchios. Trump is obsessed with how he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, and so he keeps making this claim even though there is no evidence to support it.
“This is on the Keystone pipeline. … A lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs. Great construction jobs.”
— Jan. 24, remarks on signing executive memorandum
In contrast to Obama, who always played down the number of jobs that would be created by the Keystone XL pipeline, Trump inflated the numbers. The project would create part-year work in four states for 10,400 workers, the State Department determined. That added up to a total of 3,900 annual construction jobs. About 12,000 other annual jobs would stem from direct spending on the project. So that adds up to 16,000, most of which are not construction jobs. (This statement earned Three Pinocchios.)
“I just signed two executive orders that will save thousands of lives, millions of jobs, and billions and billions of dollars.”
— Jan. 25, remarks at the Department of Homeland Security
