When he went out, President Donald Trump took credit for things he hadn’t done and twisted his reputation on jobs, taxes, the pandemic and more. Falsehoods permeated his farewell statements to the country.
Noting that Americans were “ shocked ” by the storming of the Capitol this month, he ignored the encouragement he’d given the crowd in advance and his praise for the attackers as “ very special ” people while still keeping the seat of power.
A look at some of his statements Tuesday:
COVID-19
TRUMP: “Another administration would have taken three, four, five, maybe even ten years to develop a vaccine. We did that in nine months. “
THE FACTS: Actually, the administration didn’t develop any vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies did that. And one of the two American companies that developed vaccines that are now in use has not accepted development funding from the government.
Trump’s claim that a vaccine would have lasted years under a different government stretches credulity. Indeed, COVID-19 vaccines were remarkably fast, but other countries have developed them as well. A vaccine against the coronavirus is not a special achievement of the United States, let alone the Trump administration.
American drug company Pfizer developed its vaccine in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech and eschewed federal funding for development, although it benefited from a prior commitment from Washington to purchase large quantities if the vaccine were to succeed. A vaccine from Moderna, from the US, is also widely used.
But Britain’s AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine is administered in several countries, and vaccines from China and Russia are also used to a limited extent. More than a dozen potential vaccines are in late-stage testing worldwide.
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VETERANS
TRUMP: “We passed VA Choice.”
THE FACTS: No, he failed the Choice program. President Barack Obama did. Trump expanded it. The program allows veterans to receive medical care outside of the Veterans Affairs system under certain conditions. Trump has tried dozens of times to take credit for Obama’s achievement.
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TAXES
TRUMP: “We have passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in US history.”
THE FACTS: His tax cuts are nowhere near the biggest in US history.
It’s a $ 1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the total economy, a tax cut of that magnitude ranks 12th, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cut is the largest, followed by the 1945 tax rollback that financed World War II.
Post-Reagan tax cuts are also among the historically significant: President George W. Bush’s cuts in the early 2000s and Obama’s renewal of them a decade later.
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ECONOMY
TRUMP: “We have also built the largest economy in the history of the world.”
THE FACTS: No, the numbers show it wasn’t the best in US history. And he is the first president since Herbert Hoover in the Depression to leave office with fewer jobs than when he started.
Before the pandemic, had the US ever registered the most jobs? Sure, the population had grown. The 3.5% pre-recession unemployment rate was at a low point of half a century, but the percentage of people working or looking for a job was still below its peak in 2000.
Nobel Laureate Paul Romer looked at Trump’s economic growth. Growth under Trump averaged 2.48% per year before the pandemic, only slightly better than the 2.41% gain made during Obama’s second term. In contrast, the economic expansion that began in 1982 during the Reagan presidency averaged 4.2% per year.
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TRUMP: “We have revived job creation in America and hit record high unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women – almost everyone.
THE FACTS: No inflammation. The number of jobs actually slowed to about 2 million in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, from nearly 2.5 million in 2016, Obama’s last year in office.
The low unemployment figures refer to a pre-pandemic economy that is no longer there. The pandemic cost the U.S. economy 10 million jobs and made Trump the first president since Herbert Hoover to oversee a net job loss. The US now has about 2.8 million fewer jobs than when Trump was inaugurated, losing 140,000 jobs only in December. And job losses have declined disproportionately among black Americans, Hispanics, and women.
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TRUMP: “We rebuilt the US manufacturing base, opened thousands of new factories and brought back the beautiful phrase Made in the USA.”
THE FACTS: That’s a lot. There are now 60,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in the US than when Trump took office. Despite the pre-pandemic gains, the manufacturing base had not exactly been “rebuilt”.
Before the coronavirus, nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs were added under Trump, slightly better than the nearly 400,000 gained during Obama’s second term. Still, even before the pandemic, the US had 4.3 million fewer factory jobs than in 2001, the year China joined the World Trade Organization and a deluge of cheaper imports from that country entered the US.
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CAPITOL INSURANCE
TRUMP: “All Americans were shocked by the attack on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated. “
THE FACTS: That may be the response of most Americans, but it ignores its own part in stirring up the anger of its supporters before waging the violent fight.
For months, Trump falsely claimed the November election was stolen, then invited supporters to Washington and sent them to the Capitol with the exhortation to “fight like hell.”
With the uprising still underway and the speed of the attack evidenced by video and reports of the scene, Trump released a video saying “go home now,” reiterating “this was a fraudulent election” and adding, “We love you. You are very special.”
The House accused Trump of instigating an uprising. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, a political ally of Trump for four years, said Tuesday that Trump supporters were “fed lies” and “provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
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CHINA
TRUMP: “We have imposed historical and monumental tariffs on China. … Our trading relationship changed rapidly, billions and billions of dollars poured into the US, but the virus forced us to go in a different direction. “
THE FACTS: That is a well-known statement, false to its core.
It is incorrect to suggest that the US never collected tariffs on Chinese goods before taking action. The tariffs for Chinese goods are in some cases just higher than before. It is also wrong to suggest that the tariffs are paid by China.
Tariff money that goes into the government’s coffers comes primarily from American companies and consumers, not from China. The rates are mainly, if not entirely, tax paid domestically.
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ISLAMIC STATE
TRUMP: “We destroyed the ISIS caliphate.”
THE FACTS: His suggestion of a 100% defeat is misleading as the Islamic State group is still a threat.
ISIS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and then lost the last of its land holdings in Syria in March 2019, marking the end of the extremists’ self-proclaimed caliphate. Still, extremist sleeper cells have continued to carry out attacks in Iraq and Syria in recent weeks and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings of local officials and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The ongoing attacks are a sign that the militant group is taking advantage of governments that are targeting the pandemic differently and the ensuing drift into economic chaos. The virus has long worried security and UN experts that the group will make a comeback.
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Associated Press authors Josh Boak, Robert Burns, and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
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EDITOR’S NOTE – A look at the veracity of claims made by political figures.
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