Trump's new milestone: 3,251 false or misleading claims Another month, another 250 false or misleading claims from President Trump. The Fact Checker just updated its database that...
| |  | | Democracy Dies in Darkness | | | | | | | | | | The truth behind the rhetoric | | | | | | Trump's new milestone: 3,251 false or misleading claims Another month, another 250 false or misleading claims from President Trump. The Fact Checker just updated its database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks all of Trump's suspect statements. We counted 3,251 false or misleading claims since Trump took the oath of office. That's a lot! Getting through the database takes 54 hours if you spend a minute on each claim. That's an entire workweek, and then half a day, and then two hours. Here's our searchable, interactive graphic for anyone up to the challenge. Like a snowball rolling downhill, this fact-checking project has become more laborious since we started. In his first 100 days, Trump averaged 4.9 claims a day. Now Trump is about to hit the 500-day mark, and his rate has climbed to 6.5 a day. May was a productive month. Trump averaged eight claims a day, including an astonishing 35 claims in his rally in Nashville on May 29. He more than tripled the projected savings from a plan to repeal Obamacare and said the individual mandate was unconstitutional even though the Supreme Court upheld it in 2012. He once again falsely said he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history, when it's only in eighth place. He offered a long list of false statements about immigration, ranging from mischaracterizing the visa lottery to whether his long-promised wall is being built. (It's not.) For some reason, Trump even said he "grew up" on Long Island. He didn't. He's from Queens. |  | | Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here for the weekly newsletter. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. | | The government didn't lose 1,500 kids — and Democrats aren't separating families Trump blames Democrats for a law that separates undocumented immigrant children from their families. Some Democrats blame Trump's administration for losing track of nearly 1,500 immigrant kids. None of this is accurate. The president repeatedly and falsely claims Democrats authored laws that force him to separate immigrant children from their parents. They didn't, and in any case, no law or court precedent requires Trump to separate immigrant families. It's actually a new policy by his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, forcing these separations. An immigration claim from Democrats — that the Trump administration lost 1,500 kids — is a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened. The Department of Health and Human Services resettled more than 7,600 immigrant children from October through December 2017. Although the law doesn't require it, HHS called all the parents or guardians who took custody of those children after 30 days. In 1,475 cases, the calls weren't returned. But this doesn't mean the kids vanished. They were all resettled and HHS did not have custody of them. Their parents or guardians could be undocumented and may not want to answer calls from federal agencies. | | | Keeping up with fake news Arkady Babchenko, a Russian journalist and outspoken critic of the government, collaborated with Ukrainian authorities to stage his own murder. This incredible stunt led to the capture of one individual who allegedly was plotting to murder Babchenko for real on behalf of Russia. So, the assassination of a journalist appears to have been foiled. But the caper raised a series of questions. Can people trust Ukrainian authorities to tell the truth? Should journalists collaborate with the government when it saves their lives but spreads a falsehood? Was there another way to protect Babchenko, perhaps one that did not give Russia license to cry "fake news" about its real abuses of power? The Atlantic Council distills the debate. Reporters Without Borders spoke out against the move. | | Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. — Salvador Rizzo | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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