Here’s everything Donald Trump got factually wrong in his first week as president. It’s been a whirlwind of a week at The Fact Checker. As regular readers know, candidate Donald Trump had difficulty with facts — and we learned this week that President Trump does, too. It started with Trump’s inauguration speech; we fact-checked eight errors and exaggerations. Then, every day in his first week, Trump either said or tweeted something that was factually inaccurate or exaggerated. We issued several Four-Pinocchio ratings this week to the new president. Below are some factual lowlights of Trump’s first seven days as president — including claims exaggerating his inauguration crowd size and false claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election. For more, read our round-up of 24 claims from Presidet Trump’s first seven days. 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. "They say I had the biggest crowd in the history of inaugural speeches. … We had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches."
Crowd estimates are difficult, but attendance for Trump's speech appears to be at least 80 percent smaller than Obama's 2009 swearing-in, 70 percent smaller than Lyndon B. Johnson's inauguration and 60 percent smaller than Obama's second inauguration in 2013. In terms of TV viewership, Trump ranks fifth, far behind Ronald Reagan. Even online estimates don't boost him to "biggest audience." "I'm a very big person when it comes to the environment. I have received awards on the environment."
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. "NAFTA has been a terrible deal, a total disaster for the United States from its inception, costing us as much as $60 billion a year with Mexico alone in trade deficits."
The trade-deficit number is close to correct, but Trump apparently does not understand the meaning of "trade deficit." He often suggests this money could be used to pay for his planned wall along the southern border. But that's nonsensical. A trade deficit only means that people in one country are buying more goods from another country than people in the second country are buying from the first country. No money passes from government to government. "Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote."
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. Trump and his staff continues to cite a 2012 Pew research study in an attempt to back up claims about widespread voter fraud. But the study did not address voter fraud –as we've covered here, here, here, here and here. | 
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