News Reporter: Fact Checker: Two years ago today, Trump announced his presidential run. Here's everything he flip-flopped on since.

Friday, 16 June 2017

Fact Checker: Two years ago today, Trump announced his presidential run. Here's everything he flip-flopped on since.

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

Two years ago today, Trump announced his presidential run. Here’s everything he flip-flopped on since.

On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended on the Trump Tower escalator and announced he was running for president. Trump had toyed with the idea for years, and trademarked “Make America Great Again” days after Mitt Romney lost against Barack Obama in November 2012. (Here’s our fact check of his announcement speech, in which we described Trump as “a fact checker’s dream — and nightmare.”)

For our two-year anniversary of fact-checking Trump, we created compiled everything he promised in his announcement speech that he flip-flopped on as president:

the unemployment rate (he called it “nonsense” on the campaign trail; now he touts it as legitimate);
China currency devaluation (he no longer blames them for devaluing their currency, which was false to begin with);
Mexico paying for the wall (he now equivocates, saying Mexico will pay “eventually,” “at a later date,” in “some form”);
criticizing then-President Obama for playing golf (Trump has golfed 17 times since Inauguration Day — more than twice the number of times Obama golfed at this point);
and immigration (he promised to end Obama’s executive order granting deferred action to children of undocumented immigrants, which he now says he won’t do).

Of course, when you're running for president, it's easy to lob baseless rhetoric. Many of Trump's flip-flops as president appeared to result from being confronted with facts he needs to accept in order to do his job. It reminds us of the lyric in "Hamilton" the musical: "Winning was easy … governing is harder."

Check out our Fact Checker video on Trump’s flip flops since exactly two years ago.

(giphy.com)

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A Geppetto Checkmark of truth for Trump!

Trump held a media opportunity with his Cabinet this week, and repeated many claims that we previously debunked. But then he said a new talking point that sounded fishy — but upon digging, turned out to be correct: That the confirmation process has been “record-setting long.”

Trump's full Cabinet was filled on April 27. Technically, that's one day sooner than Barack Obama in 2009. But that's largely because Obama had to start over for two Cabinet posts, including two misfires for secretary of commerce. What's more interesting is that the median wait between nomination and Senate vote for Trump was 25 days. By contrast, Obama's nominees faced a median wait of two days, George W. Bush had a median wait of zero days and Bill Clinton had a median wait of 1 day.

Some of the delay may be due to the administration's own handling of ethical vetting procedures, as well as his proclivity to name controversial choices. But Trump also faced unusually sustained opposition for a new president, including cloture votes demanded for 14 of his choices.

As readers know, we award the coveted Geppetto Checkmark sparingly, for claims that are surprisingly correct. Trump earned it this week.

(giphy.com)

We’re always looking for fact-check suggestions! You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@myhlee, @GlennKesslerWP or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker or myhlee). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up here for our weekly Fact Checker newsletter.

Scroll down for this week’s Pinocchio roundup.

— Michelle Ye Hee Lee

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