News Reporter: Fact Checker: Trump’s shift on Ukraine this week was based on falsehoods

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The truth behind the rhetoric.

By Glenn Kessler

In a remarkable shift in U.S. foreign policy this week, President Donald Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia three years ago. In doing so, Trump is echoing the Russian position that it was pushed into the conflict. It's akin to saying Japan was forced into attacking Pearl Harbor because the United States imposed a trade embargo in 1940, depriving Japan of oil. The trade embargo came after Japan's provocative actions in the Pacific, such as the 1931 occupation of Manchuria following a Japanese-manufactured incident.

But Trump's position is based on falsehoods and incorrect facts. We checked a number of his statements, including:

Zelensky is "down at 4 percent approval rating" (The latest poll shows approval at 57 percent)
Zelensky "talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn't be won. … The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe." (The United States has spent $174 billion and European nations have spent more than that.)
Zelensky "admits that half of the money we sent him is 'MISSING.'" (Zelensky never said this and Trump's envoy to Ukraine says this is not true).

You can read the full report by clicking this link.

Read the full fact check

Also: A guide to the Trump administration lexicon. Transparency, free speech and fraud have different meanings under Trump, so we offered an interpretation.

You can read the full report by clicking this link.

Read the full fact check

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The absurdity of claims blaming Trump, Biden for plane crashes

Readers might have felt whiplash when they saw these dueling statements.

"No president has had more planes crash in their first month in office than Donald Trump."— Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California), Feb. 17
"Air crashes happen. But there were more under Biden than under Donald Trump."— Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy, a day later

The collision between a jetliner and a helicopter that killed 67 people and the Trump administration's high-profile cuts in the federal workforce, including at the Federal Aviation Administration, have led to some anxiety about flight safety. The quotes above illustrate how politicians are attempting to address those concerns.

But both of these comments are based on a misleading metric — just one month of data, easily manipulated depending on the parameters that are used. We dug into the numbers. The bottom line is that commercial aviation is extremely safe in the United States, no matter who is president.

To read the full fact check and learn the Pinocchio rating, please click the link below.

Read the full fact check

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About the cats: It's a Friday and sometimes our fact checks deal with heavy subjects. So we hope to bring a smile to your face.

Scroll down to read other fact checks on foreign policy.