Former President Donald J. Trump, in his first public appearance since leaving the White House, mounted inaccurate attacks on his successor and revived familiar falsehoods in a speech on Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
In a speech filled with false and misleading claims, Trump again repeated the lie that he had won the 2020 election, falsely claiming that President Biden and the Democrats “just lost the White House”.
Here is a fact check.
What Mr. Trump said
“We brought illegal crossings to historic lows.”
False. Seizure of unauthorized migrants is the best indicator of illegal border crossings. Under Mr. Trump, there were 200,000 seizures on the southern border in fiscal 2020; just over 850,000 in 2019; just under 400,000 in 2018; and about 300,000 in 2017. None of these numbers are unprecedented.
The figure for fiscal year 2020 – during which a pandemic began – was the lowest since the 1970s, while the numbers for Trump’s first two years in office were on a par with those of President Barack Obama.
what Mr. Trump said
“First Fauci said that you don’t need masks, without masks, it’s not a good thing. So suddenly, now he wants double masks. “
This is misleading / exaggerated. The government’s initial guidance on wearing the mask was confusing, but health agencies promoted the practice long before Biden took office.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in the early days of the pandemic that they did not recommend that the general public wear masks. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, said last March that “there is no reason to walk around with a mask” because that could lead to a shortage of health professionals, but he “does not it was against “the practice.
But in April, when the virus spread more quickly across the country, Dr. Fauci and the CDC began to encourage the use of cloth masks. (Mr. Trump, meanwhile, avoided wearing a mask and made fun of Mr. Biden for doing so in the fall.)
Dr. Fauci said earlier that Mr. Trump misrepresented his comments, noting that he had consistently been “begging” people to wear masks for months.
what Mr. Trump said
“He effectively ordered the closure of the ICE, halting virtually all deportations. Everyone, murderers, everyone. “
False. The Biden government has ordered a 100-day break in deportations, but it does not apply to “murderers” and everyone. In a memo in February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it would “focus the agency’s civil immigration removal and enforcement capabilities on threats to national security, borders and public security.” This would include anyone convicted of an aggravated crime, such as murder.
In addition, the deportation of immigrants is not the agency’s sole function. As ICE reduced removal operations, it continued to conduct investigations into other illegal activities.
what Mr. Trump said
“Border security is just one of many issues where the new administration has already betrayed the American people. He didn’t talk about those things. I debated with him. He was not talking about this. He was not – what he signed with those executive orders, were not things that were discussed. “
This is misleading. Immigration policy was briefly discussed during the second presidential debate. Biden was not questioned and did not mention most of his proposals, but Trump is wrong to say that Biden’s executive immigration orders are a surprise. In fact, Trump explicitly criticized and ran ads attacking those same proposals.
Trump has repeatedly warned – and often misrepresented – Biden’s plans to increase refugee admissions, put a moratorium on deportations and create a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants.
what Mr. Trump said
“And when I asked the questions on television, in the debate, Chris Wallace, in this case, and others refused to let him answer.”
This is misleading. During the first presidential debate, Trump repeatedly interrupted Wallace, the Fox News anchor and moderator, to ask Biden questions and then repeatedly interrupted Biden while he tried to answer them – prompting Wallace to intervene in several instances. But none of those questions were about immigration policy.
Mr. Trump interrupted to ask Mr. Biden about Roe v. Wade; whether he agreed with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on health; whether he was “in favor of law and order”; and on how to package the Supreme Court, the H1N1 flu pandemic and their son Hunter. Mr. Biden tried to answer all of these questions.
what Mr. Trump said
“With me at the top of the ticket, not a single Republican member of Congress lost his run for the first time in decades.”
False. Although no Republican in the House lost his run for a Democrat, Republicans lost two Senate seats in the November elections, while Trump was running for president. Martha McSally of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado lost their re-election proposals to Mark Kelly and John Hickenlooper.
Other claims
Mr. Trump repeated a series of statements that The New York Times had previously denied:
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He falsely said that “no one knows anything about” refugees and “we have no records of crimes, we have no health records” for them. (Refugee background checks take one to two years to complete.)
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He said the Keystone XL pipeline created “42,000 well-paying jobs”. (This is an estimate of the temporary jobs the pipeline would support in two years.)
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He wrongly claimed that Biden changed his position from opposing fracking during the Democratic primaries to saying “we love fracking” during the general election. (Mr. Biden has always said that he opposes hydraulic fracturing on public land.)
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He falsely blamed “the windmill calamity” for the blackouts in Texas and criticized the windmills for killing birds. (Wind power is not the main reason for power outages, and birds die much more frequently in collisions with buildings and cars than with windmills.)
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He wrongly claimed that the United States has become the main “energy superpower on earth” under his supervision. (The United States became the world’s largest oil producer in 2013 and overtook Russia as the world’s largest gas producer as early as 2009.)
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He falsely claimed credit for the “strongest economy in the history of the world”. (Metrics did not show a historical record.)
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He misinterpreted the tariffs as “withdrawing billions and billions of dollars from China”. (Rates are paid by American consumers, not China.)
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He said that “we used to lose $ 504 billion in trade deficit with China”. (This was a reference to the trade deficit in goods – which does not include services and is not a “loss” – with China, which has grown to $ 538 billion under its supervision.)
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He falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants and the dead are voting for “massive” numbers. (There is no evidence of this.)
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He falsely claimed that there were “more votes than people” in Detroit and Pennsylvania. (This is not true for any of the locations.)
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