News Reporter: Fact Checker: President Trump's 100 days, by his fulfilled/broken promises and false/misleading claims

Friday, 28 April 2017

Fact Checker: President Trump's 100 days, by his fulfilled/broken promises and false/misleading claims

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

The first 100 days of the Trump presidency, in promises and false/misleading claims

Happy Day 99 of President Trump’s administration. As we approach Day 100, we took inventory of his promises and his false or misleading claims, both of which we have been tracking since his first day in office.

We’ve been tracking the progress of 60 pledges Trump made during his campaign — and whether he achieved his goals. So far, the president has kept six promises and broken five. Another 11 are launched, three are stuck, and one reached a compromise. He has not yet started on more than half of his promises.

One notable fulfilled promise was to begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, from a list of 20 possible nominees that he issued during the campaign. Trump began the process on Jan. 31 by nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch, who ultimately was confirmed by Senate with a vote of 54-45.

A key broken promise was to fully repeal and replace Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, in his first 100 days. On his first day as president, Trump signed an executive order designed to set the repeal in motion. Trump then threw his support behind a House GOP plan to replace Obamacare, but the bill was heavily criticized by conservatives and moderates in the party. House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill because it lacked sufficient votes, prompting Ryan to say Obamacare remains the law of the land.

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As of April 27, we counted 452 false or misleading claims uttered by the president since Inauguration Day. We started our 100 Days of Trump claims project in an effort to understand the new president’s relationship with the truth. What are the most common topics for his false or misleading claims? In what settings does he make his most outrageous claims?

Trump repeatedly — at least 23 times — took credit for projects involving Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and other companies that were announced or planned long before he took office. We gave him Four Pinocchios for this series of claims, and are keeping a running list of corporate decisions about jobs and investments that were made separate from his election, but for which he claims credit.

Among his other most repeated claims was that Obamacare is failing or imploding — a variation of which he made at least 13 times. Credible estimates suggest Obamacare boosted the number of people with health insurance by 20 million. The individual market would be stable in most markets at least for the next 10 years under Obamacare, according to the Congressional Budget Office. We dug into this and other common Obamacare bloopers by Trump here.

There were few days since Jan. 20 when Trump logged no false or misleading claims. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of them were golf days, at one of his golf courses.

Are undocumented immigrants criminals?

This week, we fact-checked a go-to talking point by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) that “undocumented immigrants are not criminals.”

We found her claim lacks context. The act of being in the United States without permission is not a criminal violation of the law, but a civil infraction. That is what Harris is referring to when she says this.

But some undocumented people have violated criminal law in relation to their immigration status or their undocumented presence. Illegally entering the country (for example, illegally crossing the border), re-entering the country after being removed or falsifying documents to enter the country are all criminally punishable. That means some undocumented people have, indeed, been committed (and some have been convicted for) crimes. We awarded Two Pinocchios.

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