WASHINGTON (AP) – In his last remarks as president, Donald Trump tried to give credit to his predecessor’s achievements and even those to be under President Joe Biden.
The deceptions covered his farewell remarks Wednesday morning and the night before, although he was on the spot: “I was not an ordinary administration.”
Also, noticing that the Americans were “terrified” by the assault on the Capitol this month, he went over the encouragement he had given the crowd before and his praise of the attackers as “very special,” while they were still robbing seat of power.
A look at some of his statements to benevolent Joint Base Andrews en route to Florida on Wednesday and to his video address on Tuesday:
COVID-19
TRUMP: “The vaccine was developed in nine months instead of nine years or five years or 10 years, a long time. It had to take a long time. … We have two out, we have another coming almost immediately. “- remarks Wednesday before leaving Washington.
TRUMP: “Another administration would have taken three, four, five, maybe even up to 10 years to develop a vaccine. I did it in nine months. ”- address on Tuesday.
FACTS: In fact, the administration has not developed any vaccine. The pharmaceutical companies did it. And one of the two American companies that came out with vaccines now used has not taken money from the government since development.
Trump’s claim that a vaccine would have lasted for years under another administration extends credibility. COVID-19 vaccines have been remarkably fast, but other countries have developed them as well. A coronavirus vaccine is not a unique achievement of the United States, much less the Trump administration.
American pharmacist Pfizer developed the vaccine in partnership with BioNTech in Germany, avoiding federal money for development, although he benefited from an early commitment from Washington to buy large quantities if the vaccine succeeds. A vaccine from Moderna, USA, is also widely used.
But the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in the UK is administered in several countries, and vaccines in China and Russia are also used to a limited extent. More than a dozen potential vaccines are in the late stages of testing worldwide.
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TRUMP: “I passed VA Choice.” – address on Tuesday.
FACTS: No, he failed to pass the Choice program. President Barack Obama did it. Trump extended it. The program allows veterans to receive medical care outside the Veterans system under certain conditions. Trump has tried to give himself credit for winning Obama dozens of times.
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tax
TRUMP: “We have also achieved tax cuts, the largest tax cuts and reform in the history of our country by far.” – remarks on Wednesday.
TRUMP: “We have adopted the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.” – address on Tuesday.
FACTS: Its tax cuts are not close to the largest in US history.
It’s a $ 1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As part of the overall economy, a tax cut of this size ranks 12th, according to the Committee on a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cut is the largest, followed by the 1945 tax rebate that funded World War II.
Post-Reagan tax cuts are also historically significant: President George W. Bush’s cuts in the early 2000s and their renewal by Obama a decade later.
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ECONOMY
TRUMP: “We have the largest economy in the world.” – remarks on Wednesday.
TRUMP: “We also built the largest economy in the history of the world.” – address on Tuesday.
FACTS: No, the numbers show that it was not the highest in US history. And he is the first president of Herbert Hoover in the Depression to step down with fewer jobs than when he started.
Did the US have the most jobs registered before the pandemic? Of course, the population had grown. The unemployment rate of 3.5% before the recession was at a low level for half a century, but the percentage of people working or looking for work was still below a peak in 2000.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer analyzed Trump’s record for economic growth. Growth under Trump averaged 2.48% annually before the pandemic, just slightly better than the 2.41% gains made during Obama’s second term. By contrast, the economic expansion that began in 1982 during Reagan’s presidency averaged 4.2% per year.
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TRUMP, on the economy after the pandemic: “It’s a rocket up.” – remarks on Wednesday.
FACTS: It’s not like that.
There has been no dramatic V-shaped economic recovery under Trump. Employers lost their jobs during his last December in office. But economists say the additional aid approved in December and the prospect of growth in Biden could cause the strongest growth this year in more than two decades.
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TRUMP: “We relaunched job creation in America and achieved record unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women – almost everyone. – address on Tuesday.
FACTS: It is not an ignition. Job creation actually slowed in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, to about 2 million, compared to almost 2.5 million in 2016, Obama’s last year in office.
Low unemployment rates refer to a pre-pandemic economy that no longer exists. The pandemic cost the US economy 10 million jobs and made Trump the first Hoover president to oversee a net job loss. The United States now has about 2.8 million fewer jobs than when Trump was inaugurated and lost 140,000 in December. And job losses have fallen disproportionately on black Americans, Hispanics and women.
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TRUMP: “We rebuilt the American production base, opened thousands of new factories and brought back the beautiful phrase Made in USA.” – address on Tuesday.
FACTS: This is a stretch. There are now 60,000 fewer jobs in the manufacturing industry in the United States than when Trump took office. Despite the gains before the pandemic, the production base had not been exactly “rebuilt”.
Before the coronavirus, nearly 500,000 jobs in the manufacturing industry were added under Trump, slightly better than the nearly 400,000 earned during Obama’s second term. However, even before the pandemic, the United States had 4.3 million fewer factory jobs than in 2001, the year China joined the World Trade Organization and a flood of more imports entered the United States. cheap from this country.
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CHAPTER INSURANCE
TRUMP: “All Americans have been horrified by the assault on our Chapter. Political violence is an attack on everything we value as Americans. It can never be tolerated. ”- address on Tuesday.
FACTS: This may sum up the reaction of most Americans, but it ignores its part in arousing the anger of its supporters before they organize the violent body.
For months, Trump has falsely claimed that the November election was stolen, then invited supporters to Washington and sent them to the Capitol urging them to “fight like hell.”
With the uprising still going on and the speed of the attack evident in the videos and reports on the ground, Trump released a video telling them to “go home now,” while repeating “these were fraudulent choices” and adding: we love You are very special. ”
The house accused Trump of inciting an insurrection. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, a four-year Trump political ally, said Tuesday that Trump supporters were “fed up with lies” and “provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
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MILITARY
TRUMP: “We rebuilt the United States military.” – remarks on Wednesday.
FACTS: It’s an exaggeration.
It is true that his administration has accelerated a sharp rise in defense spending, including a respite from what the US military believes is limiting spending limits in the context of budget seizures.
But a number of new Pentagon weapons programs, such as the F-35 fighter jet, were started years before the Trump administration. And it will take years for tanks, planes and other newly ordered weapons to be built, delivered and used.
The Air Force’s Minuteman 3 missiles, an essential part of the US nuclear force, for example, have been in operation since the early 1970s, and modernization began under the Obama administration. They are to be replaced with a new version, but not later in this decade.
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TRUMP: “I erased the ISIS caliphate.” – address on Tuesday.
FACTS: His suggestion to defeat 100% is misleading, as the Islamic State group is still a threat.
IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, then lost its last land ownership in Syria in March 2019, marking the end of the self-proclaimed extremist caliphate. However, dormant extremist cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria in recent weeks and are believed to be responsible for the targeted killing 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 otherwise focused on the pandemic and landslide that results in economic chaos. The virus raises long-standing concerns among security and UN experts that the group will make a comeback.
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CHINA
TRUMP: “We have imposed historic and monumental tariffs on China. … Our trade relationship is changing rapidly, billions and billions of dollars are pouring into the US, but the virus has forced us to go in another direction. ”- address on Tuesday.
FACTS: This is a familiar statement, false to the core.
It is false to suggest that the US never collected tariffs on Chinese goods before taking action. Tariffs for Chinese goods are simply higher in some cases than before. It is also wrong to suggest that tariffs are paid by China.
Tariff money entering government houses comes mainly from American businesses and consumers, not from China. Tariffs are mainly, if not entirely, a tax paid domestically.
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Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
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EDITORIAL NOTE – A look at the veracity of the claims of politicians.
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