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Fact Check; Trump lies about cease fire and more

Turkish soldiers stand in attention during a ceremony for soldier Sefa Findik, killed in action with Kurdish fighters in Syria earlier Sunday, during a ceremony at the airport in Sanliurfa southeastern Turkey, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019.It brings Turkey’s military death toll up to seven soldiers in its wide-ranging offensive against Syrian Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

As President Donald Trump describes it, the U.S. swooped into an intractable situation in the Middle East, achieved an agreement within hours that had eluded the world for years and delivered a “great day for civilization.”

It was a mission-accomplished moment that other Republican leaders, Democrats and much of the world found unconvincing.

Trump spent much of the past week trying to justify his decision to pull U.S. troops away from America’s Kurdish allies in Syria, leaving those Kurdish fighters vulnerable on several fronts and already reeling from attacks by Turkish forces.

In the process, Trump exaggerated the scope of a deal bringing a temporary cease-fire to Turkish-Kurdish hostilities, falsely suggested that U.S. troops in Syria will come home and mischaracterized the history of the conflict and even the geography of it.

A look at his rhetoric on that topic and other subjects over the past week as well as a sampling of statements from the latest Democratic presidential debate:

SYRIA

TRUMP: “It’s time to bring our soldiers back home.” — news conference Wednesday.

THE FACTS: That’s not what he’s doing.

While the U.S. has begun what the Pentagon calls a deliberate withdrawal of troops from Syria, Trump himself has said that the 200 to 300 U.S. service members deployed to a southern Syria outpost in Al-Tanf will remain there.

And on Saturday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the current plan calls for all U.S. troops who are leaving Syria to go to western Iraq, not home. They number more than 700.

Asked Sunday why troops weren’t coming home as Trump said they would, his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said: “Well, they will eventually.”

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TRUMP: “This is a great day for civilization. I am proud of the United States for sticking by me in following a necessary, but somewhat unconventional, path. People have been trying to make this ’Deal” for many years. Millions of lives will be saved. Congratulations to ALL!” — tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “A lot of things are in that agreement that nobody ever thought possible.” — remarks at Dallas rally Thursday.

THE FACTS: The agreement he is hailing is not nearly as consequential to the prospects for peace as he claims. It provides for a five-day cease-fire in the Turks’ deadly attacks on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, which began after Trump announced he would withdraw U.S. troops.

The agreement requires the Kurds to vacate a swath of territory in Syria along the Turkish border in an arrangement that codifies nearly all of Turkey’s stated goals in the conflict and relieves it of U.S. sanctions.

It imposes no apparent long-term consequences for Turkey’s move against the Kurds, important U.S. partners in the fight against the Islamic State group. Trump calls that fight a mission accomplished despite the U.S. officials’ fears of an IS resurgence.

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TRUMP, on the Syrian areas of Turkish-Kurdish conflict: “It’s a lot of sand. They’ve got a lot of sand over there. So there’s a lot of sand that they can play with.” — remarks Wednesday.

THE FACTS: The area of conflict is not known for being particularly sandy. In contrast to Trump’s imagery of arid, worthless land that other countries — not the U.S. — should fight over, it’s actually the breadbasket of Syria.

The area is part of what was historically known as the Fertile Crescent, where settled farming and early civilizations first began.

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TRUMP: “We were supposed to be in Syria for one month. That was 10 years ago.” — news conference Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Previous administrations never set a one-month timeline for U.S. involvement in Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition began airstrikes on Islamic State militants in Syria in September 2014. About a year later, the Pentagon said teams of special operations forces began going into Syria to conduct raids and start efforts to partner with the Kurdish forces.

Then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter made it clear to Congress at that time that the Pentagon was ready to expand operations with the Kurds and would continue to do so as needed to battle IS, without setting a specific deadline.

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TRUMP: “Our soldiers are mostly gone from the area.” — news conference Wednesday.

THE FACTS: They’re mostly still there.

Close to 30 U.S. troops moved out of two outposts near the border area where the Turkish attack was initially centered. But the bulk of the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops deployed to Syria are still in the country.

According to officials, most of the U.S. troops have largely been consolidated into a few locations in the north, including an airfield facility in the western part of the country known as the Kobani landing zone. A couple hundred have left in recent days with military equipment, and officials say the withdrawal will take weeks.

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JOE BIDEN: “I would not have withdrawn the troops, and I would not have withdrawn the additional 1,000 troops that are in Iraq, which are in retreat now, being fired on by Assad’s people.” — Democratic debate on Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The former vice president is wrong. There is no evidence that any of the approximately 1,000 American troops preparing to evacuate from Syria have been fired on by Syrian government forces led by President Bashar Assad. A small group of U.S. troops came under Turkish artillery fire near the town of Kobani last week, without anyone being injured, but there is no indication that Syrian troops have shot at withdrawing Americans.

Also, Biden was addressing the situation in Syria, not Iraq.

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WOMEN IN SPACE

TRUMP: “This is the first time for a woman outside of the Space Station. … They’re conducting the first-ever female spacewalk to replace an exterior part of the Space Station.” — speaking to flight engineers Jessica Meir and Christina Koch outside the International Space Station in a teleconference Friday.

THE FACTS: Meir corrected the record, telling Trump: “First of all, we don’t want to take too much credit, because there have been many other female spacewalkers before us. This is just the first time that there have been two women outside at the same time. ”

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AMMUNITION

TRUMP: “When I first got in, a general told me we could have had a conflict with someone. Said, Sir, we don’t have ammunition. And I said I never want to hear a president — I just never want to hear somebody have that statement made to them again as president of the United States. We don’t have ammunition. Think of how bad. Now we have so much ammunition we don’t know what to do with it.” — Dallas rally Thursday.

THE FACTS: Trump periodically quotes unidentified generals as saying things that he wants to hear and that are hard to imagine them actually having said. This is no exception. The U.S. doesn’t go to war without sufficient ammunition.

At most, budget constraints may have restricted ammunition for certain training exercises at times and held back the development of new forms of firepower. It’s not unusual for generals to want more people and equipment at their disposal than they have. But they don’t run out of bullets.

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ECONOMY and TRADE

TRUMP: “Just out: MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME IS AT THE HIGHEST POINT EVER, EVER, EVER! How about saying it this way, IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY!” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Another way of saying it is that median household income has been this high before.

Trump also builds his boast on the records of others.

In the Census Bureau’s definitive annual report on income and poverty, it found that median household income in 2018 matched the previous peak of $63,200, in inflation-adjusted dollars, reached in 1999.

While that was a welcome increase after household income fell sharply in the Great Recession, it also suggests that the median American household went back to where it was 19 years ago. (The median is the point where half of households earn more and half earn less).

Household income began rising in 2014, after falling in the aftermath of the recession, and jumped 5.1% in 2015, making its most significance gains in President Barack Obama’s second term.

It grew just 0.9% in 2018, the slowest in three years. The Census Bureau says its data is difficult to compare with previous years because it changed its methods in 2013.

It released a supplemental report showing that, adjusted for those methodological changes, median incomes in 2018 matched those in 1999. A separate census report, which has fewer details on incomes, said last month that median household income has reached a record high, but those data only go back to 2005.

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TRUMP, on a World Trade Organization ruling allowing the U.S. to tax impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of European imports annually: “I think the WTO award has been testament to a lot of good work by the Trump administration. We never won with the WTO, or essentially never won. Very seldom did we win. And now we’re winning a lot.” — remarks Wednesday before meeting with Italy’s president.

TRUMP: “We didn’t win anything for years practically. Now we’ve won a lot of cases. You know why? Because they know I’ll leave if they don’t treat us fairly.” — Dallas rally Thursday.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect to say the U.S. never or rarely got any WTO victories under other presidents.

The U.S. has always had a high success rate when it pursues cases against other countries at the WTO. In 2017, trade analyst Daniel Ikenson of the libertarian Cato Institute found that the U.S. had won 91% of time it brought a complaint that ended up being adjudicated by the Geneva-based trade monitor. True, Ikenson noted, the countries bringing complaints tend to win overwhelmingly. That’s because they don’t bother going to the WTO in the first place if they don’t have a pretty strong case.

The WTO announcement culminated a 15-year fight over EU subsidies for Airbus — a fight that began long before Trump was in office.

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JULIÁN CASTRO: “Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania actually in the latest jobs data have lost jobs, not gained them.” — Democratic debate.

THE FACTS: No. Figures from the Labor Department show that the former Housing and Urban Development secretary is wrong.

Ohio added jobs in August. So did Michigan. Same with Pennsylvania.

So Castro’s statement is off.

These states do still have economic struggles. Pennsylvania has lost factory jobs since the end of 2018. So has Michigan. And Ohio has shed 100 factory jobs so far this year.

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TRUMP: “MORE PEOPLE WORKING TODAY IN THE USA THAN AT ANY TIME IN HISTORY!” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: True, but it’s due to population growth, not just steady hiring.

A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.

According to Labor Department data , 61% of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in September. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7% in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9% when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

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CLIMATE CHANGE

BERNIE SANDERS: “We’re forgetting about the existential threat of climate change.” ″Right now the CEOs in the fossil fuel industry know full well that their product is destroying this world and they continue to make huge profits.” — Democratic debate.

THE FACTS: Earth’s existence and life on the planet will not end because of climate change, as the Vermont senator suggests. Fossil fuels do not have Earth on a path of destruction.

Science says climate change will cause great harm, but it won’t wipe out everything and won’t end humanity.

“It’s an existential threat for many species,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. “It’s an existential threat for many ecosystems. I don’t think it’s an existential threat for humanity.”

Life will be dramatically altered if the burning of fossil fuels continues unabated, said Oppenheimer, a co-author of many of the most dire international science reports on climate change.

“Existential” has perhaps lost its literal meaning, as politicians in general and Democrats in particular cast many threats as existential ones even when existence is not on the line. In the debate, for example, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker described the closing of two Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio as an existential threat to abortion rights in America.

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GUN CONTROL

PETE BUTTIGIEG: “On guns, we are this close to an assault weapons ban. That would be huge.” — Democratic debate.

AMY KLOBUCHAR: “I just keep thinking of how close we are to finally getting something done on this.” — Democratic debate.

THE FACTS: No, the U.S. is not close to enacting an assault-weapons ban, as Buttigieg claimed, nor close on any significant gun control, as Klobuchar had it. Congress is not on the verge of such legislation. Prospects for an assault-weapons ban, in particular, are bound to remain slim until the next election at least.

Legislation under discussion in the Senate would expand background checks for gun sales, a politically popular idea even with gun owners. But even that bill has stalled because of opposition from the National Rifle Association and on-again, off-again support from Trump. Democrats and some Republicans in Congress say they will continue to push for the background checks bill, but movement appears unlikely during an impeachment inquiry and general dysfunction in Congress. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has made it clear he won’t move forward on gun legislation without Trump’s strong support.

Buttigieg was citing the chance for an assault-weapons ban as a reason for not supporting the more radical proposal by Democratic presidential rival Beto O’Rourke to force gun owners to give up AR-15s and other assault-style weapons. Klobuchar spoke in a similar context.

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RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

ELIZABETH WARREN: “Mueller had shown to a fare-thee-well that this president obstructed justice.” — Democratic debate.

THE FACTS: That’s not exactly what special counsel Robert Mueller showed.

It’s true that prosecutors examined more than 10 episodes for evidence of obstruction of justice, and that they did illustrate efforts by Trump to stymie the Russia investigation or take control of it.

But ultimately, Mueller did not reach a conclusion as to whether the president obstructed justice or broke any other law. He cited Justice Department policy against the indictment of a sitting president and said that since he could not bring charges against Trump, it was unfair to accuse him of a crime. There was no definitive finding that he obstructed justice.

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Associated Press writers Christopher Rugaber, Seth Borenstein, Josh Boak, Robert Burns, Matthew Daly, Eric Tucker and Paul Wiseman in Washington, Lisa Marie Pane in Boise, Idaho, and Amanda Seitz in Chicago contributed to this report.

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As usual, Trump comes up short on facts

With apologies to Netflix.

President Donald Trump muddled the facts Wednesday on America’s withdrawal from Syria and the conditions on the ground there, as he distanced himself and the U.S. from the ongoing Turkish invasion into Syria.

He suggested incorrectly that the Syrian Kurds who fought alongside U.S. forces against the Islamic State group deliberately released IS prisoners and wrongly said Americans have been in the Syria conflict for 10 years.

A look at his claims and the reality:

U.S. INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

TRUMP: “We were supposed to be in Syria for one month. That was 10 years ago.”

THE FACTS: Previous administrations never set a one-month timeline for U.S. involvement in Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition began airstrikes on Islamic State militants in Syria in September 2014. About a year later, the Pentagon said that teams of special operations forces began going into Syria to conduct raids and start up efforts to partner with the Kurdish forces. Then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter made it clear to Congress at that time that the Pentagon was ready to expand operations with the Kurds and would continue to do so as needed to battle IS, without setting a specific timeline for completion.

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PRISON RELEASE

TRUMP: Speaking about IS detainees, Trump said: “People let some go. They opened a couple of doors to make us look as bad as possible.” Later he described the IS detainees as “people that probably the Kurds let go to make a little bit stronger political impact.”

THE FACTS: That’s an exaggeration. There is no evidence that Kurdish forces, who fought IS for years with U.S. and coalition troops, deliberately opened prison doors to let militants out.

According to U.S. and defense officials, fewer than 100 prisoners have escaped and Kurdish fighters are still guarding the prisons. Officials say that some of the Kurdish forces have moved north to fight the invading Turks, but many remain to secure the prisons, which hold about 2,000 foreign fighters and another 10,000 Iraqis and Syrians who fought with IS. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe ongoing military operations.

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LEAVING SYRIA

TRUMP: “Our soldiers are mostly gone from the area.”

THE FACTS: They’re actually mostly still there.

Trump is correct that close to 30 U.S. troops moved out of two outposts near the border area where the Turkish attack was initially centered. But the bulk of the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops deployed to Syria are still in the country.

According to officials, most of the U.S. troops have largely been consolidated into two locations in the north, including an airfield facility in the western part of the country known as the Kobani landing zone. A small number of troops left in recent days with military equipment, and more recently the withdrawal of forces began but so far not in large numbers. Officials say the withdrawal will take weeks.

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COMING HOME

TRUMP: “It’s time to bring our soldiers back home.”

THE FACTS: Despite what Trump suggests, American forces in Syria won’t be returning home in mass numbers anytime soon.

While the U.S. has begun what the Pentagon calls a deliberate withdrawal of troops from Syria, Trump himself has said that the 200-300 U.S. forces deployed to a southern Syria outpost in Al-Tanf will remain there. Also, while the U.S. forces are leaving Syria, that doesn’t mean they are automatically coming home. Instead, military officials are developing plans to station U.S. forces in nearby locations, including Iraq and possibly Jordan, where they will still be able to monitor and, if needed, continue to conduct operations against IS.

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Trump’s outright fiction about whistleblower actions

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump and his GOP allies are making groundless accusations that a whistleblower complaint by a CIA officer was improperly filed because it was not based on first-hand knowledge.

In tweets and public statements, they assert that a whistleblower cannot submit a complaint if it relies on so-called hearsay or second-hand information. They also suggest nefarious behavior — “deep state” as one White House adviser put it — in the circumstances surrounding the form for the complaint, which alleged that Trump abused his office in pressing for a Ukrainian investigation of a Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

Their statements were rebutted Monday by the inspector general for the intelligence community and misrepresent reality.

GOP HOUSE MINORITY LEADER KEVIN McCARTHY: “Whistleblowers were required to provide direct, first-hand knowledge of allegations…but just days before the Ukraine whistleblower came forward, the IC secretly removed the requirement from the complaint form.” — tweet Saturday.

TRUMP: “Who changed the long standing whistleblower rules just before submittal of the fake whistleblower report? Drain the swamp!” — tweet Monday.

STEPHEN MILLER, White House senior adviser: “This is a deep-state operative, pure and simple. People who haven’t been in the federal government, who haven’t worked in the White House may not appreciate this, but the situation is you have a group of unelected bureaucrats who think that they need to take down this president.” — interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

THE FACTS: There was nothing improper in the submission of the whistleblower complaint. No whistleblower law was changed and nothing under that law requires the complaints to have first-hand information. The IG’s office also said Monday that it had determined that the whistleblower did have some first-hand, “direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct.”

It’s not true that the whistleblower could “provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions,” the IG said.

Intelligence community workers have long been able to blow the whistle based on second-hand or “hearsay” information. The law only requires federal workers to have a “reasonable belief” of misconduct in order to file a complaint, according to Debra D’Agostino, a federal employment lawyer.

In this case, the whistleblower flagged in part Trump’s July call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a typed, nine-page document addressed to the House Intelligence Committee. The IG said that while the whistleblower was not a direct witness to the call, the IG separately obtained other information during its preliminary review that supported the allegations to deem them credible.

Pointing to suspicious activity, McCarthy cites the removal of some information from the standardized complaint form, which previously stressed the need for first-hand information for an IG to determine the complaint credible. The IG said it had removed that language from the form earlier this year because it determined that “it could be read – incorrectly – as suggesting that whistleblowers must possess first-hand information in order to file an urgent concern complaint with the congressional intelligence committees.”

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Seitz reported from Chicago.

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Trump’s escalating lies on Ukraine, impeachment

A troubled President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md. A whistle blew, an impeachment inquiry swung into motion and the president at the center of it all rose defiantly to his own defense, not always in command of the facts. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

A whistle blew, an impeachment inquiry swung into motion and the president at the center of it all rose defiantly to his own defense, not always in command of the facts.

A CIA officer, in a complaint filed under federal whistleblower protections that preserve anonymity, alleged President Donald Trump abused his office in pressing for a Ukrainian investigation of a Democratic rival, Joe Biden. That revelation persuaded Democrats to move ahead with an inquiry that could produce articles of impeachment. Trump has reacted with anger, with weekend tweets that made the groundless accusation that Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the Intelligence Committee chairman taking the lead in the impeachment review, criticized him “illegally.”

A look at Trump’s recent words on impeachment, Ukraine and other subjects:

UKRAINE

TRUMP: “Liddle’ Adam Schiff … fraudulently and illegally inserted his made up & twisted words into my call with the Ukrainian President to make it look like I did something very wrong. He then boldly read those words to Congress and millions of people, defaming & libeling me.” — tweets Saturday.

THE FACTS: He is exaggerating Schiff’s exaggerations. The California Democrat, in what he said was a parody during a committee hearing, mocked and overstated the president’s pleas in his July 25 call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as Trump does with his critics routinely. Schiff’s remarks are not illegal nor would it be defamatory or libelous, because lawmakers are shielded from liability for comments made in the course of Congress under the “speech or debate” clause in the Constitution, which seeks to foster political debate.

During Thursday’s House intelligence committee hearing, Schiff made clear he was providing an account that was in “essence” what he believed Trump was conveying to Zelenskiy when “shorn of its rambling character.”

No exact transcript of Trump’s comments with Ukraine’s president actually exists, just a rough transcript released by the White House.

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TRUMP, describing the July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart: “Another Fake News Story! See what was said on the very nice, no pressure, call.”— tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “My call was perfect.” — remarks to reporters Thursday.

THE FACTS: It’s a big stretch for Trump to say he placed no pressure on Zelenskiy in that phone call — a conversation marked by Trump’s blunt remark: “I would like for you to do us a favor,” according to a White House account of the call.

Trump repeatedly prodded Zelenskiy to help investigate Biden and son Hunter, as well as to look into a cybersecurity firm that investigated the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee and concluded it was carried out by Russia.

The call followed a monthslong campaign by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, conducted on Trump’s behalf to get Ukrainians to scrutinize Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine when Joe Biden was vice president. It also followed Trump’s abrupt suspension of military aid for Ukraine that Congress had approved. The aid was recently released.

When Zelenskiy thanked Trump for past U.S. aid and suggested his country might need more, Trump switched the topic to the investigation he wanted Ukraine to do. He asked Zelenskiy to work with Attorney General William Barr and Giuliani on the matter.

As for the call being “perfect,” it was actually worrisome enough so that White House attorneys moved a rough transcript of it to a highly secure system where fewer officials would have access to it than is normally the case for conversations between Trump and world leaders.

The call and the broader effort to win a foreign government’s help on a matter that could benefit Trump’s reelection are what sparked the impeachment inquiry.

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TRUMP, denouncing information from the whistleblower: “All second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate.” — tweet Friday.

THE FACTS: The whistleblower’s accusations have not been shown to be incorrect. Several key details have actually been corroborated. For example, the White House account of the July 25 phone call showed that the whistleblower had accurately summarized the conversation, as relayed by unidentified U.S. officials, in the complaint sent to the acting director of national intelligence.

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TRUMP: “I want to see other countries helping Ukraine also, not just us. As usual the United States helps and nobody else is there.” — remarks to reporters Wednesday.

TRUMP: “I’d withhold again, and I’ll continue to withhold until such time as Europe and other nations contribute to Ukraine. Because they’re not doing it; it’s the United States. … Why is it only the United States putting up the money?” — remarks to reporters Tuesday.

THE FACTS: It isn’t only the U.S. putting up money. It’s false to say “nobody else is there.”

European Union institutions have provided far more development assistance than the U.S.— compared with $204 million from Washington. EU members, Japan and Canada also contribute significantly.

Since 2014, the EU and European financial institutions have mobilized more than $16 billion to help Ukraine’s economy, counter corruption, build institutions and strengthen its sovereignty against further incursions by Russia after its annexation of Crimea.

The U.S. is a heavy source of military assistance. The aid package held back by Trump, and recently released, amounted to nearly $400 million in such aid. But NATO also contributes a variety of military-assistance programs and trust funds for Ukraine. In most such cases, the programs are modest and NATO countries other than the U.S. take the lead.

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TRUMP, in the July 25 call with Ukraine’s leader: “Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk.” — according to White House account of the conversation, released Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Germany is the third largest bilateral donor to Ukraine, after the EU and the U.S.

“Anyone who views this soberly will conclude Germany is strongly involved,” said German foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul.

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GUN CONTROL

TRUMP: “It is disgraceful what the Do Nothing Democrats are doing (the Impeachment Scam), but it is also disgraceful what they are NOT doing, … Gun Safety … and much more!” — tweet Saturday.

TRUMP, speaking of the Democratic senator from Connecticut: “Chris Murphy — who I’ve been dealing with on guns — you know, so nice. He’s always, ‘Oh, no, we want to work it out. We want to work it out.’ But they’re too busy wasting their time on the witch hunt.” — news conference Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is the main holdup on gun control legislation as he mulls whether to endorse expanded background checks.

The Democratic-controlled House passed a bill in February that would require background checks on all gun sales, including those between strangers who meet online or at gun shows. But Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said it’s not clear the Senate would be able to pass the legislation or that Trump would sign it into law. Earlier this month, McConnell stressed that Congress would remain “in a holding pattern ” on gun control as lawmakers await proposals from the White House.

A proposal being floated by Barr on Capitol Hill would require background checks on all commercial gun sales, including at gun shows. But Trump told reporters this month the plan was one of many ideas under consideration and he would go “very slowly.”

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ECONOMY and TRADE

TRUMP: “How do you impeach a President who has created the greatest Economy in the history of our Country.” — tweet Saturday.

TRUMP: “Our country is the strongest it’s ever been economically.” — news conference Wednesday.

THE FACTS: It isn’t.

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth reached 7.2% in 1984. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under President Barack Obama — and hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

The unemployment rate is near a 50-year low of 3.7%, but the proportion of Americans with a job was higher in the 1990s. Wages were rising at a faster pace back then, too. More Americans are now out of the workforce, taking care of children or relatives, or going to school, while others became discouraged about their job prospects and stopped looking. The government doesn’t count people as unemployed unless they are actively searching for jobs.

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VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: “We have before the Congress what will be the largest trade deal in American history. … It’s time for Congress to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and pass it this year.” — remarks Thursday in Indianapolis.

THE FACTS: It’s not the largest trade deal ever made.

It covers the same three countries as the North American Free Trade Agreement, which the Trump administration is seeking to replace. In contrast, the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations concluded in 1994 created the World Trade Organization and was signed by 123 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found the following year that the WTO’s initial membership accounted for more than 90 percent of global economic output.

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TRUMP on the effects of the impeachment inquiry: “The stock market went up when they saw the nonsense. All of a sudden the stock market went down very substantially when they saw a charge. After they read the charge, the stock market went up very substantially.” — remarks to reporters in New York on Wednesday.

THE FACTS: First, he’s not actually charged with anything. He’s saying the market went down Tuesday when the impeachment drive was announced and up after the White House memo on his phone call with Ukraine’s president came out. That’s roughly right, but it’s wrong to tie the market fluctuations solely — or even primarily — to the impeachment episode.

The market cares even more about the economy, and currently the biggest wild card for the U.S. economy is how much Trump’s trade war with China could curtail growth. Since it began last year, the stock market has fallen with each escalation of tensions and risen when the two sides appeared close to resolving the dispute.

The 142-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Tuesday was partly due to the impeachment developments but was also tied to Trump taking a hard line on China in a speech to the United Nations, which seemed to dim the prospects that coming talks would resolve the trade standoff. While the market did move higher Wednesday after the release of the memo, the Commerce Department released some solid numbers on the housing market around the same time.

Moreover, just after the comment on the stock exchange, Trump told reporters a deal with China “could happen sooner than you think,” and the Dow quickly doubled its gain.

The economic-political dynamic was evident in the impeachment inquiries of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. After the initial inquiry of Nixon in October 1973, the S&P 500 index fell 33% the next year. But the S&P 500 gained 39% after the Clinton impeachment inquiry started in October 1998. The difference: The economy was headed toward a recession in the mid-1970s, while the economy was growing strongly in the late 1990s. For Trump, the U.S. economy slowed to growth of about 2% in the second quarter from 3% in the first quarter and current estimates are for 2% growth in the third quarter.

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TRUMP: “In America, the result was 4.2 million lost manufacturing jobs … the United States is now taking that decisive action to end this grave economic injustice.” — address Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly.

WHITE HOUSE: “The president is getting rid of the disastrous North American Free Trade Agreement and replacing it with a better deal, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Our country has lost 4 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA went into effect.” — news release Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The loss of factory jobs is not all due to NAFTA.

Trump is correct that the United States has lost nearly 4 million factory jobs since that pact took effect in January 1994. But most economists attribute the losses to other factors — the recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009, automation that lets machines replace workers and low-cost competition from China.

Trump’s proposed NAFTA replacement is hardly expected to create a jobs boom. The independent International Trade Commission estimates that the new deal would create 176,000 jobs over six years, a rounding error in a country with 152 million nonfarm jobs.

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BEAUTY PAGEANT

TRUMP, recalling his days as the owner of the Miss Universe pageant: “It’s a great thing. And we had a winner from Ukraine.” — remarks Wednesday before a meeting with Zelenskiy.

THE FACTS: A Ukrainian woman has never won the Miss Universe title. Several made the top 10 during Trump’s tenure at the pageant, which he bought in 1996 and sold in 2015. But none took the prize in the pageant’s history, which dates to 1952. Ukrainian Olesia Stefanko was first runner-up in 2011.

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Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Zeke Miller, and Paul Wiseman in Washington and Paul Harloff in New York contributed to this report.

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Trump’s lies keep piling up too

President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

A whistle blew, an impeachment inquiry swung into motion and the president at the center of it all rose defiantly to his own defense, not always in command of the facts.

A CIA officer, in a complaint filed under federal whistleblower protections that preserve anonymity, alleged President Donald Trump abused his office in pressing for a Ukrainian investigation of a Democratic rival, Joe Biden. That revelation persuaded Democrats to move ahead with an inquiry that could produce articles of impeachment. Trump has reacted with anger.

A look at Trump’s words this past week on impeachment, Ukraine and other subjects:

UKRAINE

TRUMP, describing the July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart: “Another Fake News Story! See what was said on the very nice, no pressure, call.”— tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “My call was perfect.” — remarks to reporters Thursday.

THE FACTS: It’s a big stretch for Trump to say he placed no pressure on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in that phone call — a conversation marked by Trump’s blunt remark: “I would like for you to do us a favor,” according to a White House account of the call.

Trump repeatedly prodded Zelenskiy to help investigate Biden and son Hunter, as well as to look into a cybersecurity firm that investigated the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee and concluded it was carried out by Russia.

The call followed a monthslong campaign by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, conducted on Trump’s behalf to get Ukrainians to scrutinize Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine when Joe Biden was vice president. It also followed Trump’s abrupt suspension of military aid for Ukraine that Congress had approved. The aid was recently released.

When Zelenskiy thanked Trump for past U.S. aid and suggested his country might need more, Trump switched the topic to the investigation he wanted Ukraine to do. He asked Zelenskiy to work with Attorney General William Barr and Giuliani on the matter.

As for the call being “perfect,” it was actually worrisome enough so that White House attorneys moved a rough transcript of it to a highly secure system where fewer officials would have access to it than is normally the case for conversations between Trump and world leaders.

The call and the broader effort to win a foreign government’s help on a matter that could benefit Trump’s reelection are what sparked the impeachment inquiry.

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TRUMP, denouncing information from the whistleblower: “All second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate.” — tweet Friday.

THE FACTS: The whistleblower’s accusations have not been shown to be incorrect. Several key details have actually been corroborated. For example, the White House account of the July 25 phone call showed that the whistleblower had accurately summarized the conversation, as relayed by unidentified U.S. officials, in the complaint sent to the acting director of national intelligence.

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TRUMP: “I want to see other countries helping Ukraine also, not just us. As usual the United States helps and nobody else is there.” — remarks to reporters Wednesday.

TRUMP: “I’d withhold again, and I’ll continue to withhold until such time as Europe and other nations contribute to Ukraine. Because they’re not doing it; it’s the United States. … Why is it only the United States putting up the money?” — remarks to reporters Tuesday.

THE FACTS: It isn’t only the U.S. putting up money. It’s false to say “nobody else is there.”

European Union institutions have provided far more development assistance than the U.S.— $425 million in 2016-2017 compared with $204 million from Washington. EU members, Japan and Canada also contribute significantly.

Since 2014, the EU and European financial institutions have mobilized more than $16 billion to help Ukraine’s economy, counter corruption, build institutions and strengthen its sovereignty against further incursions by Russia after its annexation of Crimea.

The U.S. is a heavy source of military assistance. The aid package held back by Trump, and recently released, amounted to nearly $400 million in such aid. But NATO also contributes a variety of military-assistance programs and trust funds for Ukraine. In most such cases, the programs are modest and NATO countries other than the U.S. take the lead.

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TRUMP, in the July 25 call with Ukraine’s leader: “Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk.” — according to White House account of the conversation, released Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Germany is the third largest bilateral donor to Ukraine, after the EU and the U.S.

“Anyone who views this soberly will conclude Germany is strongly involved,” said German foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul.

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GUN CONTROL

TRUMP, speaking of the Democratic senator from Connecticut: “Chris Murphy — who I’ve been dealing with on guns — you know, so nice. He’s always, ‘Oh, no, we want to work it out. We want to work it out.’ But they’re too busy wasting their time on the witch hunt.” — news conference Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is the main holdup on gun control legislation as he mulls whether to endorse expanded background checks.

The Democratic-controlled House passed a bill in February that would require background checks on all gun sales, including those between strangers who meet online or at gun shows. But Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said it’s not clear the Senate would be able to pass the legislation or that Trump would sign it into law. Earlier this month, McConnell stressed that Congress would remain “in a holding pattern ” on gun control as lawmakers await proposals from the White House.

A proposal being floated by Barr on Capitol Hill would require background checks on all commercial gun sales, including at gun shows. But Trump told reporters this month the plan was one of many ideas under consideration and he would go “very slowly.”

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ECONOMY and TRADE

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: “We have before the Congress what will be the largest trade deal in American history. … It’s time for Congress to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and pass it this year.” — remarks Thursday in Indianapolis.

THE FACTS: It’s not the largest trade deal ever made.

It covers the same three countries as the North American Free Trade Agreement, which the Trump administration is seeking to replace. In contrast, the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations concluded in 1994 created the World Trade Organization and was signed by 123 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found the following year that the WTO’s initial membership accounted for more than 90 percent of global economic output.

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TRUMP on the effects of the impeachment inquiry: “The stock market went up when they saw the nonsense. All of a sudden the stock market went down very substantially when they saw a charge. After they read the charge, the stock market went up very substantially.” — remarks to reporters in New York on Wednesday.

THE FACTS: First, he’s not actually charged with anything. He’s saying the market went down Tuesday when the impeachment drive was announced and up after the White House memo on his phone call with Ukraine’s president came out. That’s roughly right, but it’s wrong to tie the market fluctuations solely — or even primarily — to the impeachment episode.

The market cares even more about the economy, and currently the biggest wild card for the U.S. economy is how much Trump’s trade war with China could curtail growth. Since it began last year, the stock market has fallen with each escalation of tensions and risen when the two sides appeared close to resolving the dispute.

The 142-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Tuesday was partly due to the impeachment developments but was also tied to Trump taking a hard line on China in a speech to the United Nations, which seemed to dim the prospects that coming talks would resolve the trade standoff. While the market did move higher Wednesday after the release of the memo, the Commerce Department released some solid numbers on the housing market around the same time.

Moreover, just after the comment on the stock exchange, Trump told reporters a deal with China “could happen sooner than you think,” and the Dow quickly doubled its gain.

The economic-political dynamic was evident in the impeachment inquiries of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. After the initial inquiry of Nixon in October 1973, the S&P 500 index fell 33% the next year. But the S&P 500 gained 39% after the Clinton impeachment inquiry started in October 1998. The difference: The economy was headed toward a recession in the mid-1970s, while the economy was growing strongly in the late 1990s. For Trump, the U.S. economy slowed to growth of about 2% in the second quarter from 3% in the first quarter and current estimates are for 2% growth in the third quarter.

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TRUMP: “Our country is the strongest it’s ever been economically.” — news conference Wednesday.

THE FACTS: It isn’t.

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth reached 7.2% in 1984. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under President Barack Obama — and hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

The unemployment rate is near a 50-year low of 3.7%, but the proportion of Americans with a job was higher in the 1990s. Wages were rising at a faster pace back then, too. More Americans are now out of the workforce, taking care of children or relatives, or going to school, while others became discouraged about their job prospects and stopped looking. The government doesn’t count people as unemployed unless they are actively searching for jobs.

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TRUMP: “In America, the result was 4.2 million lost manufacturing jobs … the United States is now taking that decisive action to end this grave economic injustice.” — address Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly.

WHITE HOUSE: “The president is getting rid of the disastrous North American Free Trade Agreement and replacing it with a better deal, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Our country has lost 4 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA went into effect.” — news release Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The loss of factory jobs is not all due to NAFTA.

Trump is correct that the United States has lost nearly 4 million factory jobs since that pact took effect in January 1994. But most economists attribute the losses to other factors — the recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009, automation that lets machines replace workers and low-cost competition from China.

Trump’s proposed NAFTA replacement is hardly expected to create a jobs boom. The independent International Trade Commission estimates that the new deal would create 176,000 jobs over six years, a rounding error in a country with 152 million nonfarm jobs.

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BEAUTY PAGEANT

TRUMP, recalling his days as the owner of the Miss Universe pageant: “It’s a great thing. And we had a winner from Ukraine.” — remarks Wednesday before a meeting with Zelenskiy.

THE FACTS: A Ukrainian woman has never won the Miss Universe title. Several made the top 10 during Trump’s tenure at the pageant, which he bought in 1996 and sold in 2015. But none took the prize in the pageant’s history, which dates to 1952. Ukrainian Olesia Stefanko was first runner-up in 2011.

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Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Zeke Miller, and Paul Wiseman in Washington and Paul Harloff in New York contributed to this report.

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Dems play fast and loose with facts in debate

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., right, listens as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, and former Vice President Joe Biden, right, speak Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019, during a Democratic presidential primary debate. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Ten Democrats seeking the presidency tripped over some details Thursday night as they sparred in a debate thick with policy and personal stories. Several made provocative accusations that President Donald Trump inspired the deadly shooting in El Paso, Texas, last month.

On the policy front, Bernie Sanders claimed his approach to health care has a stamp of approval from everyone who studies such matters, which is not the case. Joe Biden misrepresented recent history when he said the administration he served as vice president didn’t put migrant kids in “cages.”

Here’s a look at some of the assertions in the third round of Democratic primary debates, the first to have all qualifying contenders square off in one night:

BETO O’ROURKE, former U.S. representative from Texas, on last month’s mass shooting in El Paso: “Everything that I’ve learned about resilience, I’ve learned from my hometown of El Paso, Texas, in the face of this act of terror, that was directed at our community, in large part by the president of the United States. It killed 22 people, and injured many more, we were not defeated by that. Nor were we defined by that.”

JULIAN CASTRO, former U.S. housing secretary: “Look, a few weeks ago a shooter drove 10 hours inspired by this president to kill people who look like me and people who look like my family.”

THE FACTS: Nobody has claimed that Trump “directed” the shooting, as O’Rourke suggested.

Earlier in the debate, O’Rourke had said the shooter was “inspired to kill by our president,” an accusation also made by Castro.

It is hard to know for sure what led the gunman to open fire inside a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people. The suspect posted a manifesto online before the shooting that echoed Trump’s comments on immigration. Yet he said his own views “predate Trump and his campaign for president.”

The screed spoke of what the suspect called a “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” railed against immigrants and warned of an imminent attack. Nearly all of the victims had Latino last names.

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BERNIE SANDERS: “We have the highest child poverty rate of almost any country on Earth.”

THE FACTS: This oft-repeated line by the Vermont senator is an exaggeration.

There are nearly 200 countries in the world, many with people mired in extreme poverty that most Americans would struggle to fathom. Poverty is also a relative measure in which someone who is poor in one nation might look rather prosperous in another.

But the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development updated its child poverty report in 2018. The United States had an above average level of child poverty, but it was not at the bottom of the 42 nations listed in the report. The United States still fared better than Russia, Chile, Spain, India, Turkey, Israel, Costa Rica, Brazil, South Africa and China.

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JOE BIDEN: “We didn’t lock people up in cages, we didn’t separate families.”

THE FACTS: His comment about cages is wrong.

The “cages” — chain-link enclosures inside border facilities where migrants have been temporarily housed, separated by sex and age — were built and used by the Obama administration. The Trump administration has been using the same facilities as the Obama administration.

Democrats routinely accuse Trump of using cages for children without acknowledging the same enclosures were employed when Biden was vice president.

The Obama administration also separated migrant children from families under certain limited circumstances, like when the child’s safety appeared at risk or when the parent had a serious criminal history.

But family separations as a matter of routine came about because of President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” enforcement policy last year. More than 2,500 children were separated from their parents at the border and a government watchdog has said it’s possible thousands more were separated. Obama had no such policy.

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SANDERS: “Every study done shows that ‘Medicare for All’ is the most cost-effective approach to providing health care to every man, woman and child in this country.”

THE FACTS: Not exactly.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report earlier this year that total spending under a single-payer system, such as the one proposed by Sanders, “might be higher or lower than under the current system depending on the key features of the new system.”

Those features involve details about payment rates for hospitals and doctors, which are not fully spelled out by Sanders, as well as the estimated cost of generous benefits that include long-term care services and no copays and deductibles for comprehensive medical care.

A report this year by the nonprofit Rand think tank estimated that “Medicare for All” would modestly raise national health spending, the opposite of what Sanders intends.

Rand modeled a hypothetical scenario in which a plan similar to legislation by the Vermont senator had taken effect this year. It found that total U.S. health care spending would be about $3.9 trillion under “Medicare for All” in 2019, compared with about $3.8 trillion under the status quo.

Part of the reason is that “Medicare for All” would offer generous benefits with no copays and deductibles, except limited cost-sharing for certain medications. Virtually free comprehensive medical care would lead to big increases in the demand for services.

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KAMALA HARRIS, on Trump: “The only reason he has not been indicted is because there was a memo in the Department of Justice that says a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime.”

THE FACTS: We don’t know that it’s the only reason. Former special counsel Robert Mueller didn’t go that far in his report on Russian intervention in the 2016 election and obstruction of justice.

Harris, a California senator, is referring to a Justice Department legal opinion that says sitting presidents are immune from indictment. Mueller has said his investigators were restrained by that rule, but he also said that they never reached a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.

In Mueller’s congressional testimony in July, he said his team never started the process of evaluating whether to charge Trump.

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Colleen Long, Michael Balsamo, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Mary Clare Jalonick and Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.

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Trump campaigns with usual lies, distortions on economy, trade

President Donald Trump arrives on stage at the Crown Expo for a campaign rally, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019, in Fayetteville, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump is sticking to his distorted picture of the consequences of his trade war with China, refusing to acknowledge the U.S. is feeling any pain.

His remarks at a rally in North Carolina on Monday night revisited many of his familiar fabrications and exaggerations. A sampling:

TRUMP on China’s economy: “They’ve had now the worst year in 57 years.”

THE FACTS: That’s not true. China is far from the impoverished disaster of a half century ago, when it was reeling from the massive famine caused by Mao Zedong’s radical economic policies and heading into the chaos of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

China’s economy is indeed slowing from Trump’s taxes on Chinese imports, as well as its own campaign to constrain runaway debt. The International Monetary Fund expects the Chinese economy to grow 6.2% this year. That’s the slowest growth for China in nearly 30 years. But it’s still markedly faster than U.S. growth.

And since overhauling its economy in the late 1970s, China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, established a growing middle class and surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-biggest economy.

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TRUMP: “Hundreds of billions of dollars have been and are coming into our country in the form of tariffs, and China is eating the cost.”

THE FACTS: Americans are also eating the cost.

As he escalates a trade war with China, Trump refuses to recognize that tariffs are mainly, if not entirely, paid by companies and consumers in the country that imposes them.

In a study in May , the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with Princeton and Columbia universities, estimated that tariffs from Trump’s trade dispute with China were costing $831 per U.S. household on an annual basis, before tariffs were recently escalated. Analysts also found that the burden of Trump’s tariffs falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imported products.

A report last month by JPMorgan Chase estimated that tariffs would cost the average American household $1,000 per year if tariffs on an additional $300 billion of U.S. imports from China proceed in September and December. Trump has since bumped up the scheduled levies even higher, probably adding to the U.S. burden.

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TRUMP: “We passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.”

THE FACTS: His tax cuts are nowhere close to the biggest in U.S. history.

It’s a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the total economy, a tax cut of that size ranks 12th, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cut is the biggest, followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II.

Post-Reagan tax cuts also stand among the historically significant: President George W. Bush’s cuts in the early 2000s and President Barack Obama’s renewal of them a decade later.

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TRUMP: “More Americans are working today than ever before in the history of our country.”

THE FACTS: He’s correct, but that’s driven by population growth. A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still below record highs.

According to Labor Department data , 60.9% of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in August. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7% in April 2000.

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TRUMP: “We passed something they wanted to do for half a century: We passed VA Choice.”

THE FACTS: No, it was President Barack Obama who won passage of the Veterans Choice program, which gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the VA medical system at government expense. Congress approved the program in 2014, and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

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Another fact check, another set of Trump lies

President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron wrap up a joint press conference at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Monday, Aug. 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Donald Trump on Monday assailed the Obama administration for being hoodwinked by Iran, making his case with a frequently told and false story about the U.S. giving billions of dollars to Tehran.

In an extended news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron and other remarks at the G-7 summit, Trump also asserted inaccurately that the U.S. has the cleanest air, as well as energy riches that only he brought to life. Many countries outperform the U.S. on measures of air quality. Energy production surged under President Barack Obama.

Here’s a look at some of Trump’s statements and how they compare with the facts:

IRAN

TRUMP on Iran: “We gave them $150 billion and $1.8 billion and we got nothing. … Look at what they did to John Kerry and to President Obama. Look what happened, where they’re bringing planeloads of cash, planeloads, big planes, 757s, Boeing 757s coming in loaded up with cash. What kind of a deal is that?” — news conference with Macron.

THE FACTS: It’s the kind of deal that did not actually take place.

When Iran signed the multinational deal to restrain its nuclear development in return for being freed from sanctions, it regained access to its own assets, which had been frozen abroad. There was no $150 billion gift from the U.S. treasury or other countries. Iran was allowed to get its money back.

The $1.8 billion refers to a separate matter, also misstated by the president going back to before the 2016 election.

A payout of roughly that amount did come from the U.S. treasury. It was to pay an old IOU.

In the 1970s, Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic relations ruptured. After the nuclear deal, the U.S. and Iran announced they had settled the matter, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with about $1.3 billion in interest.

The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane. The arrangement provided for the interest to be paid later.

In Trump’s telling, one cargo plane with $400 million that was owed to Iran has become “big planes, 757s, Boeing 757s,” loaded with a $1.8 billion giveaway.

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CLEAN AIR

TRUMP: “We’re, right now, having the cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet.” — remarks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

THE FACTS: That’s not true. Air quality hasn’t improved under the Trump administration and dozens of nations have less smoggy air than the U.S.

Water? One measure, Yale University’s global Environmental Performance Index, finds the U.S. tied with nine other countries as having the cleanest drinking water.

But after decades of improvement, progress in air quality has stalled. Over the last two years the U.S. had more polluted air days than just a few years earlier, federal data show.

There were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last year and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016, the four years when the U.S had its fewest number of those days since at least 1980.

The Obama administration set records for the fewest air-polluted days.

The non-profit Health Effects Institute’s State of Global Air 2019 report ranked the United States 37th dirtiest out of 195 countries for ozone, also known as smog, worse than the global average for population-weighted pollution. Countries such as Britain, Japan, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Albania, Cuba, Russia, Vietnam, New Zealand and Canada have less smoggy air.

The U.S. ranks eighth cleanest on the more deadly category of fine particles in the air.

On environmental quality overall, the Yale index put the U.S. 27th, behind a variety of European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia and more. Switzerland was No. 1.

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ENERGY

TRUMP: “I feel that the United States has tremendous wealth. The wealth is under its feet. I’ve made that wealth come alive. … We are now the number one energy producer in the world.” — news conference with Macron.

THE FACTS: Sole credit to himself is not accurate. The greatest energy revolution of the past half-century happened on Obama’s watch as U.S. petroleum and natural gas production achieved pre-eminence.

In 2013, the U.S. became the world’s top producer both of natural gas and petroleum hydrocarbons, says the government’s U.S. Energy Information Administration. As for crude oil specifically, the agency says the U.S. became the world’s top crude oil producer last year. That is largely attributed to the shale oil boom that began late in George W. Bush’s administration and proceeded apace during the Obama years.

The boom came because of fracking and other technology, such as horizontal drilling, that made it possible to find much more oil and gas without drilling more holes. As well, Obama lifted a decades-long ban on shipping U.S. oil overseas in 2015, helping increase demand for U.S. crude.

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TRUMP, on addressing climate change: “I feel that the United States has tremendous wealth. The wealth is under its feet. … I’m not going to lose it on dreams, on windmills, which frankly aren’t working too well.”

THE FACTS: In criticizing wind power, Trump misidentified his target. Wind turbines produce energy. Windmills mill grain and flummox Don Quixote.

Trump has ascribed a variety of evils to wind power over the years, usually with scant evidence, while praising coal, a well-documented cause of health problems.

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NORTH KOREA

TRUMP on North Korea’s leader: “With respect to North Korea — Kim Jong-un, who I’ve got to know extremely well, the first lady has gotten to know Kim Jong-un and I think she’d agree with me, he is a man with a country that has tremendous potential.” — news conference with Macron.

THE FACTS: Melania Trump doesn’t know Kim. They have never met.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham clarified the president’s comment, saying Trump confides in his wife on his relationship with Kim and “feels like she’s gotten to know him, too.”

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Michael Biesecker contributed to this report.

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Fact Check: More Trump lies about economy, Chinese tariffs

President Donald Trump smiles during a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Donald Trump is painting a false picture of a U.S. economy unaffected by his trade war with China and other countries.

He describes a blue-sky world in which rapidly escalating tariffs have no impact on American consumers even as a raft of businesses and economists say otherwise, chastising those who caution of potential weakness in the economy as partisans.

“Our Country, economically, is doing great – the talk of the world!” he tweeted Sunday.

He’s glossing over the facts.

Some economists have put the costs to an average U.S. household from Trump’s pending tariffs on imports from China at $1,000 per year or more, not taking into account the most recent tax hike the president announced Friday of up to 30% on goods. Trump also insisted that economists don’t believe his trade disputes with China could spur recession, but in fact most analysts believe a downturn could start in the next two years.

The claims capped a week in which Trump repeatedly misrepresented his administration’s record, also citing false progress on veterans’ health care, boasting misleadingly about his judicial nominations and blaming President Barack Obama for a policy of separating migrant families that he himself started.

A look at the claims:

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “I think our tariffs are very good for us. We’re taking in tens of billions of dollars. China is paying for it.” — remarks Friday night to reporters before leaving for the Group of Seven summit in France.

TRUMP: “It’s coming in by the billions. We never got 10 cents from China.” — remarks Sunday with the British prime minister at G-7 summit.

TRUMP: “The tariffs have cost nothing, in my opinion. …And we’re not paying for the tariffs; China is paying for the tariffs, for the one-hundredth time.” — remarks on Aug. 18 to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.

THE FACTS: Americans, in fact, are paying for the tariffs. It’s also false to say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before Trump took action; they are simply higher in some cases than they were before.

As he escalates a trade war with China, Trump refuses to recognize a reality that his own chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has acknowledged. Tariffs are mainly, if not entirely, paid by companies and consumers in the country that imposes them. China is not sending billions of dollars to the U.S. treasury.

In a study in May, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with Princeton and Columbia universities, estimated that tariffs from Trump’s trade dispute with China were costing $831 per U.S. household on an annual basis, before tariffs were recently escalated. Analysts also found that the burden of Trump’s tariffs falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imported products.

A report this month by JPMorgan Chase estimated that tariffs would cost the average American household $1,000 per year if tariffs on another $300 billion of U.S. imports from China proceed in September and December. Trump has since bumped up the scheduled levies even higher, likely adding to the U.S. burden. He announced Friday that tariffs on the $300 billion in goods would increase from 10% to 15%; existing tariffs on another $250 billion in Chinese imports would go from 25% to 30% on Oct. 1 after public feedback.

Trump also has threatened anew to place tariffs on French wine imports to the U.S. in a spat over France’s digital services tax; the European Union promised to retaliate. On Sunday, after saying he had “second thoughts” about the trade war with China, the White House later made clear his only regret was that he didn’t raise tariffs higher.

The Congressional Budget Office said last week that “trade policies” were weighing on U.S. economic activity, particularly business investment.

“Businesses’ uncertainty about trade policies is expected to continue to weigh on private investment and, thus, output,” it said.

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TRUMP, asked if he should take responsibility for a 600-point drop Friday in the Dow Jones industrial average spurred by his escalating trade war: “Not at all. Because if you look at from November 9th — the day after the election — we’re up 50% or more. We’re up many, many points. We were at about sixteen or seventeen thousand. We’re at 25,000.” — remarks Friday night to reporters.

TRUMP, on the news media: “They are trying to force a Recession, they are trying to ‘will’ America into … bad Economic times.” — tweets Sunday.

THE FACTS: He’s inflating the stock market performance since he was elected.

The Dow closed at 18,590 on Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Trump’s election, and it closed at 25,627 last Friday — a 38% increase.

While Trump now regularly praises a rising stock market and blasts those who try to promote “bad economic times,” he wasn’t always such a big cheerleader.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump derided the economic recovery under Obama as a mirage, dismissing stock gains and warning of recession. “The only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that’s going to come crashing down,” Trump said in Sept. 2016. “We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble.”

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TRUMP: “I don’t think we’re having a recession. We’re doing tremendously well … And most economists actually say that we’re not going to have a recession.” — remarks to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.

THE FACTS: Actually, most economists — about 74% — do expect a recession in the U.S. by the end of 2021.

The economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics mostly didn’t share Trump’s optimistic outlook for the economy. Thirty-four percent of the economists said they believe a slowing economy will tip into recession in 2021. That’s compares with 25% in the February survey.

An additional 38% of those polled predicted that recession will occur next year, down slightly from 42% in February. An additional 2% of those polled expect a recession to begin this year.

The 226 economists responding work mainly for corporations and trade associations.

The economists have previously expressed concern that Trump’s tariffs and higher budget deficits could eventually slow the economy.

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on goods from many key U.S. trading partners, from China and Europe to Mexico and Canada. On Friday, Trump escalated his trade fight with China by raising retaliatory tariffs and ordering American companies to consider alternatives to doing business there, maintaining that the tariffs will help the administration gain more favorable terms of trade. But U.S. trading partners have also retaliated with tariffs of their own.

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TRUMP: “The Economy is doing really well. The Federal Reserve can easily make it Record Setting! The question is being asked, why are we paying much more in interest than Germany and certain other countries?” — tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “Germany sells 30 year bonds offering negative yields. Germany competes with the USA. Our Federal Reserve does not allow us to do what we must do. They put us at a disadvantage against our competition.” — tweet Thursday.

THE FACTS: Trump misrepresents the impact of Federal Reserve policies and is mistaken about Germany’s economy, suggesting that it enjoys some kind of advantage. In fact, the negative yields are a sign of that economy’s weakness.

The German economy shrank in the previous quarter and there are expectations from investment banks that Germany soon could fall into a recession. Nor is the phenomenon isolated to Germany. Japan and much of Europe are also struggling with interest rates on government debt that are negative or close to negative.

Investors are betting that stimulus efforts by the European Central Bank will keep rates persistently low. But the negative interest rates on German bonds also reflect that government’s aversion to issuing debt, even though the borrowing would allow it to spend more on roads and bridges to spur stronger economic growth.

By having even slightly positive interest rates compared to the rest of the world, the United States is in a better position to attract global investment.

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MIGRANTS

TRUMP: “President Obama had separation. I’m the one that brought them together. This new rule will do even more to bring them together. But it was President Obama that had the separation.” — remarks Wednesday to reporters.

THE FACTS: Trump is distorting the truth. The separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents resulted from his “zero tolerance” policy. Obama had no such policy. After a public outcry and a court order, Trump generally ceased the practice and largely reunited families his policy had driven apart.

Zero tolerance meant that U.S. authorities would criminally prosecute all adults caught crossing into the U.S. illegally. Doing so meant detention for adults and the removal of their children while their parents were in custody. During the Obama administration, such family separations were the exception. They became the practice under Trump’s policy, which he suspended a year ago.

His administration is now moving to end an agreement limiting how long migrant children can be kept in detention. The new rules being adopted by the Homeland Security Department seek to keep families together by holding children in detention longer than the generally held limit of 20 days set by a federal court settlement.

Before Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known to have a criminal record. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns.

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GUN VIOLENCE

TRUMP, on prospects for gun control after mass shootings in Texas and Ohio: “We have very, very strong background checks right now. … And we’re looking at different things. And I have to tell you that it is a mental problem. And I’ve said it a hundred times: It’s not the gun that pulls the trigger; it’s the person that pulls the trigger.” — remarks Tuesday with Romania’s president.

TRUMP: “I don’t want people to forget that this is a mental health problem. … Just remember this: Big mental problem, and we do have a lot of background checks right now.” — remarks Sunday to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.

THE FACTS: He’s oversimplifying the role of mental illness in public mass shootings and playing down the ease with which Americans can get firearms.

Most people with mental illness are not violent and they are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators, according to mental health experts. They say that access to firearms actually is a big part of the problem.

Arthur Evans, chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association, said that red flag laws urged by Trump, which are also known as extreme risk protection orders, are a worthwhile step. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have such laws, according to the nonprofit Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence; some have used the laws to temporarily disarm people who have threatened violence.

But Evans and others said assigning too much blame to those with mental illness adds to stigma that keeps people from getting treatment.

A country’s rate of gun ownership is a far better predictor of public mass shootings than indicators of mental illness, said Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama criminologist who published a 2016 analysis of data from 171 countries.

“The key of what’s going on here is access to guns for people who are dangerous or disturbed,” Lankford said. Red flag laws make it easier to disarm people believed to be a danger to themselves or others, “but sometimes there are not clear warning signs or those signs are not reported to the authorities until after an attack,” he said.

Last month, the U.S. Secret Service released a report on mass public attacks in 2018, finding that “no single profile” can be used “to predict who will engage in targeted violence” and “mental illness, alone, is not a risk factor.”

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AUTOS

TRUMP: “The Legendary Henry Ford and Alfred P. Sloan, the Founders of Ford Motor Company and General Motors, are ‘rolling over’ at the weakness of current car company executives.” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect that Sloan is the founder of General Motors.

William Durant started GM in 1908, combining several companies that produced Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and other vehicles. Sloan was a longtime president, CEO and chairman of GM, leading the company from the 1920s to the 1950s.

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TRUMP: “My proposal to the politically correct Automobile Companies would lower the average price of a car to consumers by more than $3000, while at the same time making the cars substantially safer. Engines would run smoother. Very little impact on the environment! Foolish executives!” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is inflating the projected savings to consumers under his plan to freeze Obama-era fuel economy requirements at 2021 levels. He’s also minimizing the potential environmental harm.

His administration, in documents proposing to freeze the standards, puts the cost of meeting the Obama-era requirements at around $2,700 per vehicle. It claims buyers would save that much by 2025, over standards in place in 2016. But that number is disputed by environmental groups and is more than double the estimates from the Obama administration.

Trump’s tweet also is ignoring money that consumers would save at the gas pump if cars get better mileage. A study released Aug. 7 by Consumer Reports found that the owner of a 2026 vehicle will pay over $3,300 more for gasoline during the life of a vehicle if the standards are frozen at 2021 levels. The administration’s proposed freeze would hold the average fuel economy for the new-vehicle fleet at 29.1 mpg in real-world driving, while the Obama-era standards would raise it to 37.5 mpg by 2026, according to Consumer Reports.

Trump claims his proposal would cause little environmental harm, but documents from his administration say that U.S. fuel consumption would increase by about 500,000 barrels per day, a 2% to 3% increase. Environmental groups predict even more fuel consumed, resulting in higher pollution.

Trump’s statement that cars would be substantially safer also is in dispute. His administration argues that lower-cost vehicles would allow more people to buy new ones that are safer, cutting roadway deaths by 12,700 lives through the 2029 model year. But Consumer Reports says any safety impact from changes in gas mileage standards are small and won’t vary much from zero.

And there’s little basis for Trump’s claim that engines would run more smoothly. Early versions of cars with more fuel-efficient transmissions, turbochargers and technology that stops engines at red lights were rough, but those have been refined. “The automakers have figured out how to use this technology and make the cars smoother driving, too,” said Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports director of auto testing.

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VETERANS

TRUMP: “My administration has worked aggressively to boost veterans employment, and we’re setting records. … Veterans unemployment has reached the lowest level ever recorded.” — remarks Wednesday at AMVETS convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

THE FACTS: It’s true that the unemployment rate for veterans fell to 2.3% in April, matching the low set in May 2000 under President Bill Clinton. But this figure is volatile on a monthly basis, not adjusted for seasonal changes, and has since risen. The figure stood at 3.4% in July, according to the Labor Department.

Veterans’ unemployment has fallen mostly for the same reasons that joblessness has dropped generally: strong hiring and steady economic growth over the past decade dating to the Obama administration.

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TRUMP: “The VA is now providing same-day emergency mental health care and mental health screenings to every patient that walks through the door.” — AMVETS convention.

THE FACTS: Same-day mental health service started at VA before Trump took office in January 2017.

VA’s effort to provide same-day primary and mental-health care when medically necessary at every VA medical center was publicized in April 2016, during the Obama administration. By late 2016, the department’s blog announced that goal would be achieved by year’s end.

A Dec. 23, 2016, article in the Harvard Business Review cites new same-day services at all VA hospitals as evidence of notable progress at the department. Former VA Secretary David Shulkin told Congress in late January 2017 the services already were fully in place.

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TRUMP: “Veterans Choice, as you’ve been trying to get that for 44 years, they say — 44 years. I guess it’s longer than that; probably earlier than that. But for 44 years, at least, that we know of. And you got it.” — AMVETS convention.

THE FACTS: You wouldn’t know from Trump’s boasting that it was Obama who won passage of the Veterans Choice program, which gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the VA medical system at government expense. Congress approved the program in 2014, and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it. Its ultimate scope remains uncertain, in part because of questions of money.

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JUDGES

TRUMP: “We will have, within another 90 days, 179 federal judges. And I say, ‘Thank you very much, President Obama.’ Because he was unable to get them filled. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was unable. So, President Obama did not do his job.” — remarks on Aug. 18 to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.

TRUMP: “Within about two months, we’ll be at 179 federal judges and two Supreme Court judges.” — AMVETS convention on Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump does have a stronger record than Obama so far in picking federal judges, but it isn’t due to complacency from the Obama administration. Instead, unprecedented lack of action by the Republican-controlled Senate on Obama’s judicial nominees in his last two years in office left Trump more vacancies to fill.

Of the 71 people whom Obama nominated to the district courts and courts of appeals in 2015 and 2016, only 20 were voted on and confirmed, said Russell Wheeler, an expert on judicial nominees at the Brookings Institution. Trump entered office in January 2017 with more than 100 vacancies on the federal bench, about double the number Obama had in 2009. Trump has since been aided by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has pushed through Trump’s nominations of appeals court judges in particular.

Wheeler said Trump has had 146 judges confirmed and seated — a pace that is solid but not extraordinary . At least four other presidents — Clinton, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in modern times as well as George Washington — surpassed him at comparable points in their terms in the number of appointees as a percentage of “authorized judgeships,” or the total judicial seats created by Congress.

Wheeler doesn’t put much stock in Trump’s claim of reaching 179 federal judges within two months. Twenty-five nominees have had their Senate hearings and may be ready to be voted on soon, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. “It’s a moving target,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington, Tom Krisher in Detroit and Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd
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Copyright © 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Trump continues to play fast and loose with ‘facts’

President Donald Trump is misrepresenting the facts about his proposal to freeze Obama-era fuel economy requirements at 2021 levels.

In multiple tweets Wednesday, Trump blasted auto executives as “foolish” and weak and accused the companies of being “politically correct” for resisting the plan, which two of his agencies are putting together in a final regulation.

Trump favors a freeze to the standards put in place under former President Barack Obama that gradually rise through 2026. But automakers have repeatedly said they want one national standard with gas mileage increases that give them flexibility because consumers are moving away from more efficient cars to SUVs and trucks. Four automakers, Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen, have signed an agreement with California to back higher standards.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California has the right to set its own mileage and pollution standards, but the Trump administration wants to challenge that. Automakers fear having two standards will force them to pay more to design different models for California — and any other states that opt to impose higher standards — and the rest of the nation. Companies also fear a long court battle that would make the standards uncertain.

A look at Trump’s claims and reality:

TRUMP: “My proposal to the politically correct Automobile Companies would lower the average price of a car to consumers by more than $3000, while at the same time making the cars substantially safer. Engines would run smoother. Very little impact on the environment! Foolish executives!”

TRUMP: “The Legendary Henry Ford and Alfred P. Sloan, the Founders of Ford Motor Company and General Motors, are ‘rolling over’ at the weakness of current car company executives willing to spend more money on a car that is not as safe or good, and cost $3,000 more to consumers. Crazy!”

THE FACTS: Trump is inflating the projected savings to consumers under his plan, minimizing the potential environmental harm and may be exaggerating the safety benefits. He’s also incorrect that Sloan founded General Motors; in fact, it was William Durant who founded the company in 1908, combining several companies that produced Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and other vehicles. Sloan was a longtime president, CEO and chairman of GM, leading the company from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Trump’s own administration, in documents proposing to freeze the standards, puts the cost of meeting the Obama-era requirements at around $2,700 per vehicle. It claims buyers would save that much by 2025, over standards in place in 2016. But that number is disputed by environmental groups and is more than double the estimates from the Obama administration.

Trump’s tweet also is ignoring money that consumers would save at the gas pump if cars get better mileage. A study released Aug. 7 by Consumer Reports found that the owner of a 2026 vehicle will pay over $3,300 more for gasoline during the life of a vehicle if the standards are frozen at 2021 levels. The administration’s proposed freeze would hold the average fuel economy for the new-vehicle fleet at 29.1 mpg in real-world driving, while the Obama-era standards would raise it to 37.5 mpg by 2026, according to Consumer Reports.

A White House spokesman had no immediate comment on how Trump came up with his claims.

In regards to the environment, Trump claims his proposal would cause little harm, but documents from his own administration say that U.S. fuel consumption would increase by about 500,000 barrels per day, a 2% to 3% increase. Environmental groups predict even more fuel consumed, resulting in higher pollution.

Trump’s statement that cars would be substantially safer also is in dispute. His administration argues that lower-cost vehicles would allow more people to buy new ones that are safer, cutting roadway deaths by 12,700 lives through the 2029 model year. But Consumer Reports says any safety impact from changes in gas mileage standards are small and won’t vary much from zero.

There’s little basis for Trump’s claim that engines would run more smoothly. Early versions of cars with more fuel-efficient transmissions, turbochargers and technology that stops engines at red lights were rough, but those have been refined.

“The automakers have figured out how to use this technology and make the cars smoother driving, too,” said Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports director of auto testing.

___

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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Copyright © 2019 Capitol Hill Blue

Copyright © 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved