Category: Not Factual

Trump Tweets 9 Deceptive Graphs “Proving” That Obama Failed.

Twitter

Washington Post – We have generally learned that there’s not much utility in fact-checking every tweet that springs to life from the imagination of Donald Trump or which receives his blessing via retweet. Tweets containing factual errors are not as plentiful as those containing exclamation points or disparagement, but they aren’t exactly rare.

But on Thursday evening, Trump retweeted this one, and we — well, I — couldn’t let it stand.

There are nine little graphs embedded in there, with hard-to-read axes and unclear provenance for the numbers, all of which are meant to bolster one argument: Barack Obama’s presidency has been bad.

Look, for example, at the graph at upper left, “Student Loans.” It’s almost impossible to make out the labels on the horizontal axis, but it’s clear that there simply aren’t any until the graph starts to rise. Which is … a bit deceptive. So what I figured I’d do is try my best to recreate these charts with verifiable numbers, to see how this argument stacks up.

Student loans

The vertical axis on this one tells us what we’re looking at. It passed “1.000” at some point recently; the third labeled section of the graph appears to demarcate 2010-2014. (The others, I think: 2000-2004 and 2005-2009.) If it passed 1 recently, then we’re talking about student loan debt, in dollars.

The Federal Reserve has data going back to the first quarter of 2006, allowing us to create a slightly more legible version of the graph.

(We’ve highlighted 2009 on our charts to emphasize the point at which Obama took over.)

On an old page from 2012, we find the trend extending back a bit more.

The trend, then, isn’t a big spike. It’s a steady increase since about 2006 — before Obama was president.

Food stamps

Here, the horizontal axis extends a bit further back, still in those odd five-year chunks. What’s being tallied here is not “food stamps,” which makes no sense, but average participation over the course of each year, in millions. In other words, the average of how many people used the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) each month of the year.

That data is available from the USDA.

There was an uptick — one that began in 2008, which we’ll get to. But notice that the person who made this chart cut it off before the number started to (slowly) drop back down.

There’s a theme you’ll see present itself here: That Obama took office right after the recession began. As a result, he appears to perform poorly on some metrics, like this one. But that’s a natural result of the financial crisis that predated him: more people relied on supplemental assistance.

Federal debt

…And the government took on more debt.

Notice that on the debt chart in the original, the horizontal axis has changed. No longer does it start in the 1980s — instead, it goes back to 1950. Yes, debt increased under Obama by a large amount. But, again, that increase began under his predecessor, George W. Bush, as an effort to address the financial crisis.

What’s more, comparing 1950 to 2000 makes little sense, since the value of the dollar wasn’t equivalent at that point. But compared to the other problems here, that’s relatively minor.

Money printing

This one is probably my favorite. I’m not going to get into the politics of the printing of money and why certain quarters object to the practice. Instead, I’m going to try to figure out what the 4 million figures on the vertical axis indicate — and what the numbers along the bottom are.

The Federal Reserve (naturally) has lots of data on money in circulation, including this chart of print orders by year since 1995. It doesn’t match the graph Trump tweeted.

Data.gov (a great resource, by the way) has the number of notes produced each year from 1980 to 2012 in various denominations. Combined, those numbers don’t result in 4-million-plus of anything — they add up to far more. The Department of the Treasury indicates that it produced 24.8 million notes a day in 2014.

So what is this graph? No idea. If you have an idea, let me know.

Update: We have an answer. Dan Ludwinski of the Cornell University Department of Economics explains what the Trump graph shows.

“The ‘money printing’ graph is assets held by the Federal Reserve,” he wrote in an email. “The majority of these assets are excess reserve balances — money deposited by commercial banks and held by the Federal Reserve. Calling this “money printing” is laughably inaccurate. This is money that is taken out of circulation and held by the Fed. Anyone who has taken econ 101 knows that this is a decrease in the money supply.”

Health-care costs

You’ve probably noticed by now that the pink boxes in the Trump tweet generally approximate the period during which Obama was president. It varies a bit, but that’s generally the case.

So you’ll notice on this one that the creator of the charts cheats, making most of the graph a period during which Obama was president. It starts in 2007 and goes through 2015.

“Healthcare costs” is vague. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a tool that allows you to see expenditures under a number of scenarios since 1960 — but none of its charts appear to sync with the one Trump tweeted.

The Federal Reserve, as always, has some data. In this case, it’s health expenditures per capita. They’ve gone up steadily, at least through 2012. The Kaiser data shows about the same thing.

What’s Trump’s chart? I’m not sure. Notice that the vertical axis on it begins at 105, not zero, making the amount of change seem exaggerated. It’s possible that the figures are percentages, indicating how much costs were relative to the prior year. But while 2011 costs were 103.8 percent of 2010 costs in the Fed’s data, 2012’s was only 104.2 percent of 2011’s. So who knows.

Labor force participation

On this one, the creator of the graphs cheats again, showing a section of the vertical axis. But, for once, it’s clear what’s being talked about.

To calculate unemployment, the government looks at how many people in the labor force have jobs. People not in the labor force don’t come into play in that calculation, and so if people drop out of the labor force — stop looking for work or retire, for example — the unemployment rate can fall faster, because the number of unemployed people in the labor force will have fallen. (That’s precisely why the unemployment rate fell in May.) 

This has been used as a counterpoint to Obama’s trumpeting of the plunging jobless rate.

And it’s accurate. Labor force participation has fallen since Obama took office.

Of course, one could also show how many new jobs were added, or the state of the unemployment rate. But given that this is, at last, accurate and comprehensible, we’ll let it slide.

Black inequality

This is an interesting one. The creator of these graphs uses calculations of what’s known as the “Gini coefficient” for black Americans, data that is again available from the Federal Reserve. What we’re talking about here isn’t inequality in the sense of racial justice; it’s income inequality.

The Gini coefficient estimates how far from a perfectly equitable distribution of income a group happens to be. The formulas for this are complex, so it’s nice that the Fed has already taken care of it.

Here are the coefficients for both whites and blacks since 2002, when the Fed data begins.

Notice that the variation is much more subtle in this chart. That’s because the vertical axis shows a wider range. Yes, income inequality increased, but not that dramatically.

Median family income

This one is refreshingly straightforward. Here’s what the Fed has to say.

This doesn’t match the Trump chart, mind you, and it’s not clear why. Oh well. Here’s the Fed’s data, if you want to look for yourself.

Home ownership

Another straightforward one! This is the percentage of houses that are owner-occupied.

Again, the rate has declined under Obama — a decline that began under Bush.

Why? In part because it was home ownership problems that precipitated the recession. Bad home loans and the rapid expansion of home ownership played key roles in creating the conditions that led to the economic collapse. As a result, home ownership rates dropped.

But this graph, at least, is fairly accurate, if a bit deceptive in where it places the blame. That’s not true for many of the others.

So why did Trump tweet it? Because, as has often been the case, the details are less important than the political point. If a bunch of graphs claim to show how Obama has been bad for the economy, boom. Retweet. If some jerk goes through each one and notes why it’s wrong or skewed, that doesn’t detract from the main point, which is that Obama is bad. If challenged, Trump can simply blame the originator of what he retweeted, which he has often proven willing to do.

And that, in a nutshell, is why fact-checking things like this is so often thankless.

Links

The Washington Post article.

 

 

Trump Tells California ‘There Is No Drought’

Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring, “There is no drought.”

California is, in fact, in midst of a drought. Last year capped the state’s driest four-year period in its history, with record low rainfall and snow.

Speaking at a rally in Fresno, Calif., Trump accused state officials of denying water to Central Valley farmers so they can send it out to sea “to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.”

(h/t SF Gate)

Source

Donald Trump’s California drought conspiracy theory comes straight from lunatic Alex Jones’ InfoWars in an article 3 days prior titled, “Environmentalists Caused California Drought to Protect This Fish.”

The theory that California’s water shortage is all the fault of the Environmental Protection Agency is, like most conspiracy theories, grounded in an actual fact. The EPA has, in fact, caused 800,000 acre-feet of water annually to be flushed into San Francisco Bay to maintain its marine ecosystem. The program, however, dates to the early 1990s, and California’s water system, all told, manages over 40 million acre-feet a year. The practice that Trump describes so darkly involves 2 percent of that—and an economically vital 2 percent at that. California fisheries produce jobs in the hundreds of thousands. But not in Fresno.

Reality

California is now in its fifth year of drought, which has taken a heavy toll on agriculture in particular. Despite an El Niño event that saw an increase last year in snowpacks that supply about one-third of California’s water, 86 percent of the state is still considered to be in drought.

Trump appeared to be referring to disputes over water that runs from the Sacramento River to the San Francisco Bay and then to the ocean. Some farmers want more of that flow captured and diverted to them.

Politically influential rural water districts and well-off corporate farmers in and around California’s Central Valley have been pushing back against longstanding federal laws protecting endangered fish and other species, saying federal efforts to make sure endangered native fish have enough water is short-changing farmers of the water they want and need for crops.

Water authorities say they can’t do it because of the water rights of those upstream of the farmers, and because of the minimum-water allowances needed by endangered species in the bay and by wildlife in general.

The three-inch Delta smelt is a native California fish on the brink of extinction. The smelt has become an emblem in the state’s battles over environmental laws and water distribution.

The farm lobby, a heavyweight player in California’s water wars, also is seeking federal and state approval for billions of dollars in new water tunnels, dams and other projects.

Trump promised that, if he’s elected, he would put their interests first. “If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive,” he said.

California is the country’s No. 1 agriculture producer. The state’s drought is raising the stakes in water disputes among farmers, cities and towns, and environmental interests.

Media

Four Months After Fundraiser, Trump Finally Gives $1 Million to Veterans Group

Almost four months after promising $1 million of his own money to veterans’ causes, Donald Trump moved to fulfill that pledge Monday evening — promising the entire sum to a single charity as he came under intense media scrutiny.

Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, organized a nationally televised fundraiser for veterans’ causes in Des Moines on Jan. 28. That night, Trump said he had raised $6 million,  including the gift from his own pocket.

“Donald Trump gave $1 million,” he said then.

As recently as last week, Trump’s campaign manager had insisted that the mogul had already given that money away. But that was false: Trump had not.

In recent days, The Washington Post and other media outlets had pressed Trump and his campaign for details about how much the fundraiser had actually raised and whether Trump had given his portion.

The candidate refused to provide details. On Monday, a Post reporter used Twitter — Trump’s preferred social-media platform — to search publicly for any veterans groups that had received Trump’s money.

By Monday afternoon, The Post had found none. But it seems to have caught the candidate’s attention.

Later Monday evening, Trump called the home of James K. Kallstrom, a former FBI official who is chairman of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. The charity aids families of fallen Marines and federal law enforcement officers.

Trump told Kallstrom that he would give the entire $1 million to the group, according to Kallstrom’s wife.  Sue Kallstrom said she was not sure whether the money had been transferred yet. However on May 25th it was confirmed the transaction was completed.

Other big donors to Trump’s fundraiser had already made their gifts weeks before. Why had Trump waited so long?

“You have a lot of vetting to do,” Trump said Tuesday in a telephone interview conducted while he was flying to a campaign rally in Albuquerque.

For this particular donation, it would seem that little new vetting was required because Trump already knew the recipient well. The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation had already received more than $230,000 in donations from the Donald J. Trump Foundation — a charity controlled by Trump but largely funded by others. Last year, the group gave Trump its “Commandant’s Leadership Award” at a gala in New York.

When asked Tuesday whether he had given the money this week only because reporters had been asking about it, Trump responded: “You know, you’re a nasty guy. You’re really a nasty guy. I gave out millions of dollars that I had no obligation to do.”

Trump’s call on Monday night stood in contradiction to an account given Friday by campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. “The money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said then. “Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent.”

On Tuesday, Trump said Lewandowski would not have been in a position to know that. “I don’t know that Corey would even know when I gave it out,” he said.

In the same interview, Trump said the fundraiser had raised about $5.5 million for veterans overall. He said he was not sure how much of it remained to be given away.

That also contrasted with the account last week from Lewandowski, who said that about $4.5 million had been raised and that Trump’s effort had fallen short of the promised $6 million because some unnamed big donors had backed out.

On Tuesday, Trump said no major contributors had reneged. “For the most part, I think they all came through,” he said. “Some of them came through very late.”

Trump also said he had never actually promised that the fundraiser had raised $6 million. “I didn’t say six,” he said.

But, in video of the event, Trump tells the crowd, “We just cracked $6 million! Right? $6 million.”

Trump was told that he did, indeed, say “$6 million.”

“Well, I don’t, I don’t have the notes. I don’t have the tape of it,” he said. “Play [the tape] for me. Because I’d like to hear it.” Before the video could be cued up, Trump had moved on.

The story of his nighttime gift seemed to highlight a unique quality of Trump: his acute sensitivity to losing face on social media. He had routinely rejected questions about the fundraiser for veterans if they were posed in person.

“Why should I give you records?” Trump said in an interview with The Post earlier this month, when he was asked about the money. “I don’t have to give you records.”

Then, on Monday, a Post reporter publicly queried multiple veterans groups on Twitter, asking whether they had received personal donations from Trump. None had.

Hours later, after 10:38 p.m. Eastern time, Trump responded on Twitter: “While under no obligation to do so, I have raised between 5 & 6 million dollars, including 1million dollars from me, for our VETERANS. Nice!”

And sometime that same evening, Trump called to make the donation to James Kallstrom’s group. Sue Kallstrom wasn’t sure what time the call was, only that it happened after she went to bed at 8 p.m.

“I guess he wants to take care of the vets,” she said. Among its other good works, the foundation provides $30,000 educational grants to the children of the fallen. “The foundation is thrilled, because the [money] is going to help a lot of people. Especially the children.”

Trump’s campaign has said the remainder of the donations would be given out by Memorial Day. Trump said he would ask his staff to send The Post a list of the groups that would receive that money, but his staff did not immediately provide it.

But it did appear that Trump’s staff was preparing to disburse more gifts. In Boston on Tuesday, the founder of  the city’s annual Wounded Vet Bike Run got a call.

“For some reason, a Trump campaign worker reached out to me today  and asked for our nonprofit number, and I gave it to ’em,” said Andrew Biggio, the group’s founder.

The annual motorcycle ride raises money to help veterans and their families, including giving away cars and retrofitting motorcycles for the disabled. He said the staffer did not tell him how much money to expect. “I have no idea what’s coming down the pike,” Biggio said.

In recent weeks, other veterans  groups had been struggling to figure out how to ask for some of Trump’s remaining money. Trump had provided no formal way to apply.

Biggio said he had not formally applied but was pretty sure how he had come to be on Trump’s radar.

“I served in Iraq with Donald Trump’s bodyguard’s son,” he said.

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Donald Trump made good on his promise to give $1 million dollars to veteran charities, four full months after he claimed he already donated the money.

While a $1 million dollar donation to veterans groups is an amazing gesture, it is hardly altruistic. The televised fundraiser only came about so he could dodge debate questions from Megyn Kelly about his past sexist comments towards women. Then Trump attempted to extort Fox News for an illegal “quid pro quo” donation of $5 million dollars to appear at their Iowa debate. Then for the next 4 months Trump lied again and again when he boasted about his charitable donation to his rallies.

On 1/28, Trump released a press release indicating that Mr. Trump made a $1 million dollar contribution at a special event in Des Moines to benefit vets.

The conservative newspaper The Weekly Standard broke the story on 2/18 that the Trump campaign was refusing to acknowledge how much money was disbursed saying, “You can do your homework and ask the veterans’ organizations.” They did and found out that only about $500,000 was distributed to veterans charities at that time.

On 2/26, the conservative pundit Stuart Varney on Fox Business News corroborated The Weekly Standard’s story with their own investigation by checking with the charities a full month after the fundraiser and found that only $650,000 of the supposed $6 million raised had been distributed to charities.

Two months after the fundraiser on 4/7, the not-very-liberal Wall Street Journal again talked to the veteran charities and found only $2.4 million was distributed.

Then on 5/20, The Washington Post followed up with the 22 veteran charities and only $3.1 million could be accounted for. Furthering the scandal, the Trump campaign confirmed that only $4.5 million and not $6 million was raised while claiming $1 million dollars donated by Trump was already given to the charities but refused to share evidence:

Did Trump make good on his promise to give from his personal funds?

 

“The money is fully spent. Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said.

 

To whom did Trump give, and in what amounts?

 

“He’s not going to share that information,” Lewandowski said.

As recent as 5/23, a day before this story broke, Donald Trump tweeted and was still claiming the money was donated.

And finally 5/24 The Washington Post concluded its investigation which uncovered the story that Trump never gave any money to a veterans charity. Once that fact came to light then, and only then, did Trump cut a check to a single charity.

Then, to the surprise of no one, Trump insulted the reporter who caught him trying to cheat our veterans, then later at a press conference tried to turn this around on the “dishonest” media.

As a side note, this is the first time Donald Trump has given any of his personal money to a charity of any kind in over 5 years.

But Donald Had to Vet the Charity!

Donald Trump donated $100,000 dollars to the same charity in April of 2015. As far as the Trump Organization is concerned, the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation was already a trusted charity.

Media

Links

The Washington Post explains their methodology for uncovering the story.

Trump Brings Up Debunked Vince Foster Conspiracy Theory As “Very Fishy”

Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster suicide.

There’s no such thing as a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump will not believe.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump called the circumstances surrounding former Clinton Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster’s death in 1993 “very fishy,” saying the aide had “intimate knowledge” of events surrounding the Clintons.

I don’t bring [Foster] up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don’t do that because I don’t think it’s fair.

Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., on July 20, 1993.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Donald Trump didn’t want to discuss the Foster conspiracy theory… by discussing it? How is that statement not dishonest?

Vince Foster’s death in 1993 was concluded to have been a suicide by inquiries/investigations conducted by the United States Park Police, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the United States Congress, Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske, CNN, and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who was not a fan of the Clintons. The idea that Vincent Foster’s death was anything other than a suicide flies in the face of all available evidence, including Foster’s own suicide note. But yet this never stops wingnut conspiracy sites like WND, Breibart, and The Daily Mail from keeping fiction alive.

This is not the only false or unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Donald Trump subscribes to. Some examples are:

Trump Promises NRA He Will Remove Gun Free Zones

Donald Trump accepting the NRA endorsement.

Donald Trump on Friday called Hillary Clinton “the most anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment” presidential candidate to ever run for office and likened her posture on the issue to that of a dictator.

“Hillary’s pledged to issue new anti-gun executive orders, you know that. This is the behavior, you could say of a dictator. This is the behavior of somebody, frankly, I think that doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Trump said in a speech at the National Rifle Association Leadership Forum. She’s not equipped to be president in so many different ways. This is the thinking of a person that is not equipped to be the president of the United States. Believe me, she doesn’t understand it.”

He also echoed Bernie Sanders’ attacks on Clinton — the Vermont senator challenged whether the former secretary of state was qualified and had the temperament to be president.

“Bad judgment. We talk about it. She’s got bad judgment. You know where it came from,” Trump said. “It came from me and also came from her current opponent, who’s doing pretty well, I’ll tell you.”

Trump also vowed to get rid of gun-free zones, invoking the July 2015 shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which a gunman opened fire in gun-free zones on military installations there, eventually killing five people. (The FBI later said the attacks were “motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.”)

“That wasn’t part of my speech, I must be honest with you,” Trump admitted. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t read you what I have here. But in fact, if I would have known teleprompters, I would have used them.”

Before Trump began addressing the crowd in Louisville, Kentucky, the NRA formally announced its endorsement of the billionaire, warning of the dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency. But throughout his remarks, the real estate mogul echoed much of what NRA’s leadership said in their comments preceding his appearance.

“Hillary wants to disarm vulnerable citizens in high crime neighborhoods, whether it is a young single mom in Florida or a grandmother in Ohio, Hillary wants them to be defenseless, wants to take away any chance they have of survival,” Trump said. “By the way, you have men and you have women sitting in an apartment. And outside is tremendous crime. Tremendous crimes of all kinds. And they need to be protected. And you know, the only way they are going to be able to protect themselves. And if you take that gun away from them, it’s gonna be a very unfair situation.”

“That’s why we’re going to call her Heartless Hillary. We can do without that,” Trump said, though he added, “I like Crooked Hillary better.”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

Donald Trump claimed that gun-free zones are like “bait” to a “sicko” to much applause to the NRA members in attendance. Actually Trump is echoing the NRA’s own argument that if guns are not allowed near schools and government buildings then shootings cannot be stopped by a “good guy with a gun.” However the empirical evidence is not on Trump’s side.

In 2014 the FBI released a reported titled “A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013” which looked over 13 years of data and a of total of 160 incidents, and concluded the concept of a good guy with a gun was unequivocally proven to be a myth. The number of times a shooting ended after armed citizens exchanged gunfire with the shooters only amounted to 5 times (3.1%). In contrast the number of times unarmed citizens safely and successfully disrupted the shootings was 21 times (13.1%).

Donald Trump also parroted the NRA claim that more guns make Americans safer. Let’s forget for a moment of the NRA’s round-up program, where the NRA’s lobby wing receives money every time a gun is purchased in the United States, this argument again has zero basis in the documented evidence. A review of the academic literature by Harvard University looked at a broad array of evidence and concluded where guns are more available, there are more homicides by firearm.

Instead the FBI and academia recognizes that seeking to prevent these tragedies is clearly the best result.

Media

Trump Campaign Admits It Did Not Raise $6 Million for Veterans

Trump at rally for vets in Des Moines

One night in January, Donald Trump skipped a GOP debate and instead held his own televised fundraiser for veterans. At the end of the night, Trump proclaimed it a huge success: “We just cracked $6 million, right? Six million.”

Now, Trump’s campaign says that number is incorrect.

Campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said the fundraiser actually netted about $4.5 million, or 75 percent of the total that Trump announced.

Lewandowski blamed the shortfall on Trump’s own wealthy acquaintances. He said some of them had promised big donations that Trump was counting on when he said he had raised $6 million. But Lewandowski said those donors backed out and gave nothing.

“There were some individuals who he’d spoken to, who were going to write large checks, [who] for whatever reason . . . didn’t do it,” Lewandowski said in a telephone interview. “I can’t tell you who.”

Lewandowski also said he did not know whether a $1 million pledge from Trump himself was counted as part of the $4.5 million total. He said Trump has given that amount, but he declined to identify any recipients.

The comments appear to be the first acknowledgment — almost four months later — that Trump’s fundraiser had brought in less than the candidate said. Lewandowski said he did not know the exact total raised or how much of it remained unspent.

Even with the lower total, Trump’s fundraiser brought in millions of dollars for veterans’ charities. The Washington Post’s accounting, based on interviews with charities, has found at least $3.1 million in donations to veterans groups.

Trump’s fundraiser Jan. 28 was an indelible moment, a one-night showcase of the GOP front-runner’s boldness and charm.

In a single evening in Des Moines, Trump showed Fox News — the host of that night’s Trump-less debate — that he was powerful enough to spurn the Fox network.

At the same time, he showed a national audience that he could conjure a multimillion-dollar benefit out of nothing, using connections, showmanship and his own wealth.

“Donald Trump — another great builder in New York, now a politician — I can’t stand this, a politician,” Trump said, in his trademark run-on style, after he’d listed a series of gifts from other wealthy friends. “I don’t want to be called a politician. All talk, no action — I refuse to be called a politician. Donald Trump gave $1 million. Okay?”

In the days after the fundraiser, Trump repeated the $6 million figure in TV appearances and at Iowa rallies. “At that rally we raised, in one hour, $6 million. Is that good?” Trump said four days afterward at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

At first, he was very public about giving the money away. In rallies across Iowa, Trump would call representatives of local veterans groups up to the stage and present them with oversize checks.

In some cases, the money came from friends of Trump’s who sent checks directly to veterans groups. In other cases, the money was routed through Trump’s personal foundation.

For the groups that received this money — often dealing with aging veterans from the Vietnam War, along with returning troops from Iraq and Afghanistan — the money was an enormous help.

“It’s all long gone,” said James Kallstrom, a retired FBI official who is the chairman of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. In March, his group received $100,000, which Kallstrom said would go toward $30,000 educational grants for the children of Marines killed on active duty. “I believe there was a helicopter crash that had, oh God, I forget how many there were. . . . They’re all young, and they all have young children.”

But, as the race continued, the checks from the fundraiser began to come less frequently. The most recent check identified by The Post was dated March 25.

In recent weeks, Trump and his campaign repeatedly declined to give new details about how much they have given away.

“Why should I give you records?” Trump said in an interview with The Post this month. “I don’t have to give you records.”

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Trump’s refusal to divulge how much of the money he had distributed raised questions about whether the candidate intended the fundraiser primarily as a public-relations effort for himself.

“That’s just shady. Right? No matter how you cut it, that’s just shady,” Rieckhoff said. “If he was going to make it right, a couple of weeks before Memorial Day would be a good time to do it. It behooves him, not just politically but ethically, to come forward and account for this money.”

Trump provided no official way for charities to apply for the money. Groups around the country still tried, sending letters and hitting up local veterans-for-Trump leaders.

“We haven’t heard anything,” said Judy Schaffer of Heroes to Heroes, a New Jersey-based group that sends veterans on nondenominational trips to Israel to prevent suicide and promote “spiritual healing.” Her group had received a donation from Trump’s personal foundation years before.

“We have a waiting list of over 200 veterans. Many of them have already attempted suicide,” Schaffer said this week. “And it keeps me up at night, not being able to send more people.”

Lewandowski said Trump has decided on about two dozen groups that will get the remainder of the money in the next couple of weeks. He said the groups have been vetted and had been chosen by word of mouth within the Trump campaign or from causes Trump had previously supported.

Lewandowski said Trump should not be faulted for promising $6 million in donations.

“What he said was, ‘We hope to get $6 million.’ He said this at an event where we were trying to get money. It was a best guess,” Lewandowski said. “That was his goal. His goal was to get somewhere around $6 million.”

On the night of the fundraiser, Trump named nine big donors, including himself.

Since then, The Post has found evidence from Trump’s staff, from the donors or from veterans charities that received money that seven of those nine gave money as promised. Those gifts added up to $3.78 million.

On top of that, Trump said small-dollar donors gave $670,000 over the Internet. That adds up to $4.45 million.

So, were those other two big donors among the ones who backed out?

One of them was a shopping-mall magnate from Ohio who did not respond to multiple calls, emails and messages from The Post seeking to confirm his donations. But even if that man did back out, his pledge was so small — $50,000 — that it would make little difference in a tally of millions.

The other donor had made a much bigger promise: Trump, with his vow to give $1 million.

In the past few days, The Post has interviewed 22 veterans charities that received donations as a result of Trump’s fundraiser. None of them have reported receiving personal donations from Trump.

Did Trump make good on his promise to give from his personal funds?

“The money is fully spent. Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said.

To whom did Trump give, and in what amounts?

“He’s not going to share that information,” Lewandowski said.

Reality

Controversy still surrounds Trump’s January fundraiser for vets called “Scared of Debate Questions From Megyn Kelly.” Sorry that was a typo. The fundraiser was called “Rally For Vets” and Trump claimed it raised $6 million dollars, including $1 million of his own money.

Four months later and the Washington Post uncovered the fundraiser only netted $4.5 million and only $3.1 million has been distributed to charities. Furthermore the Trump campaign refuses to provide evidence that Trump donated his promised $1 million dollars.

This is serious stuff. There are real veterans with real physical and psychological problems in need. If Trump continues to claim he’s for vets then this is a lousy way to prove it.

Trump Dodges GI Bill Question

CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Donald Trump how he felt about a sneaky no-roll call vote in Congress to strip money from the G.I. bill and re-appropriate it elsewhere and whether we should keep the bill as it is.

Rather than answer the question outright, Trump appeared to dodge by babbling about how he loves the vets and knows so many vets, and they’re tremendous, etc, etc, etc. Cuomo then asked him straight up whether or not he supported the GI bill – and Trump said no.

CHRIS CUOMO: On the military, you raise an important issue. We tried to get your campaign and the other campaigns to hold forth on whether or not they supported the current G.I. bill. As you know, in the Congress, they did this sneaky vote in the House where there was no roll call, and they were going to cut money from the G.I. bill to allow for other expenditures for vets. The vets were very upset. They said ‘no, don’t take money from us and reallocate it. Find the savings elsewhere.’
Do you support maintaining the G.I. bill the way it is right now and even growing it instead of cutting it?

 

DONALD TRUMP: I don’t want to be hurting our vets. Our vets have been hurt enough. We treat illegal immigrants better than we treat our vets. So I’m going to do nothing to hurt our vets. I’m going to only help the vets —

 

CHRIS CUOMO: So is that a yes? —

 

DONALD TRUMP: — unlike Hillary Clinton, that thinks the vets are getting too much. And they’re not getting too much. I’ve traveled, I’ve seen so many vets, I know so many vets now, and I have a lot of friends — I have developed great friendships among the vets. Our vets are being treated so badly —

 

CHRIS CUOMO: So is that a yes, I do support the current G.I. bill?

 

DONALD TRUMP: No. I want to bring jobs back to our country.

Reality

When asked about the specific legislation to cut and reappropriate G.I. Bill funds, Trump ignored the question and instead started playing his greatest hits. Trade deals, jobs, Hillary Clinton, babble, babble, babble. We conclude that Trump clearly had no idea what the subject was otherwise a direct and coherent answer would have been given.

As a candidate to be Commander-In-Chief it is very important to understand the legislation being put forth that would effect the well-being of the men and women under your command. This is further proof that Trump is highly unprepared for the Presidency.

Trump’s opponents and a lot of left leaning media outlets have jumped on him for saying “no” to supporting the popular G.I. Bill in its current form. We’ve listened to his statement multiple times and we feel his “no” response was very meek and unsure, and earlier Trump did claim he was going to do nothing to hurt the vets. Therefor we cannot make the claim that Trump hates the vets that sites like The Huffington Post made.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsdElAPlipI

Trump Warns of Another 9/11-like Attack from Syrian Refugees

"The Green Line" podcast.

Donald Trump again warned of another 9/11-like attack on the United States if refugees are continually allowed into the country.

In an interview on the National Border Patrol Council podcast “The Green Line” the presumptive Republican nominee said:

Our country has enough difficulty right now without letting the Syrians pour in.

Trump also suggested ISIS is paying for refugees’ cell phone plans.

They all have cell phones so they don’t have money, they don’t have anything, they have cell phones. Who pays their monthly charges, right? They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them.

When asked if he thought it would take an attack similar to 9/11 for the country to “wake up about border security,” Trump agreed.

Bad things will happen; a lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldn’t believe. There will be attacks by the people that are right now coming in to our country.

Trump also spoke about Hillary Clinton’s agenda for immigration reform and his own plans for border control, including his proposal to build a wall at the Southern border. The National Border Control agents’ union made its first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate when it backed Trump in March.

(h/t CNN, Vox)

Reality

The reference to Syrian refugees with ISIS phones appears to be from an article first reported by the Norwegian newspaper The Netavisen, where a few of the refugees had cell phone images with horrors of war, as well as images of flags, symbols and characters that can be linked to the terrorist group ISIS and other terrorist groups. The article was then floated on the conspiracy site Infowars and the British tabloid the Daily Mail that “hundreds” of refugees in Norway were found with photos of ISIS flags on their phones. And finally we have Donald Trump claiming “thousands.” Just like a game of whisper down the alley the reality is it was not “thousands of people” like Trump claimed.

Conveniently omitted from Donald Trump’s claim was the statements from the Norwegian officials in charge of investigating these incidents who say the images are most likely documentation of ISIS’s presence and what the individuals have witnessed, rather than a statement of support. Also the refugees had images of ISIS flags which they could use when passing through ISIS controlled areas as to avoid suspicion.

Trump had proposed a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” in a December press release, but just this week flip-flopped and said the ban was “only a suggestion.”

Media

[spreaker type=standard width=100% autoplay=false episode_id=8510508]

 

Trump Misrepresents New York Times Article on Women

Twitter

Donald Trump blasted a report in The New York Times about how he has treated women in private.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee called it a “lame hit piece” on Twitter, adding that he provided “many names” of women he helped that were not used in the article.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

One of the reporters later called that tweet “factually inaccurate,” saying women suggested by Trump’s office were interviewed.

In the New York Times article there were indeed women,who worked a the Trump Organization and were interviewed.

 

Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag About Himself

Tony Clifton

Donald Trump said Friday that a newly resurfaced recording of a man who sounds like Trump posing as his spokesman isn’t him — even though he has admitted in the past to posing as his own publicist under a pseudonym.

“It was not me on the phone,” Trump told NBC’s “Today” show when the recording was played for him during a live interview. “And it doesn’t sound like me on the phone, I’ll tell you that, and it was not me on the phone.”

NBC was asking Trump about a Washington Post report published earlier Friday that claims Trump routinely made calls to reporters in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s posing as a publicist named John Miller or John Barron, advocating for himself and answering questions about his personal life and business dealings.

The man in the 14-minute recording sounds much like Trump, and the Post pointed to Trump’s long appreciation of the name Barron, including the name of his youngest son.

The Post also cited 1990 court case testimony in which Trump testified, “I believe on occasion I used that name” when asked about Barron. CNN has obtained a copy of Trump’s testimony during that case.

On “Today” Friday morning, Trump at first said he didn’t “think” it was him on the recording.

“This sounds like one of the scams, one of the many scams, doesn’t sound like me,” Trump said. “I don’t think it was me, it doesn’t sound like me.”

When pressed by the anchors, Trump explicitly said it wasn’t him. And then he testily told the journalists to move on.

“You’re going so low to talk about something that took place 25 years ago whether or not I made a phone call?” Trump said. “Let’s get on to more current subjects.”

Thomas Owen, a New Jersey-based forensic audio specialist, told CNN Friday that based on several criteria — including pitch, tone and cadence — Miller’s voice in the audio obtained by the Post is consistent with Trump’s in the early 1990s.

“I can conclude with a fair degree of scientific certainty that it is Donald Trump’s voice,” Owen said, though he noted that due to the recording’s quality, he wasn’t able to use biometric analysis that would make him absolutely certain.

Friday afternoon, Washington Post reporter James Hohmann tweeted that Trump’s telephone line “went silent, then dead, this afternoon when WaPo asked: ‘Did you ever employ someone named John Miller as a spokesperson?'”

“WaPo reporters were 44 mins into a phone interview w Trump abt his finances when asked about John Miller. The phone went silent, then dead,” Hohmann added.

Sue Carswell, a former People magazine reporter whose 1991 interview with Miller was highlighted in the Post article, told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday that she was convinced it was Trump on the tape. She said Trump apologized for posing as a publicist shortly after the article ran, calling it a “joke.”
She speculated that Trump himself leaked the tape to the Post. The paper said it obtained the recording from a source with whom Carswell had shared the microcassette of the call shortly after the interview.

A message left with the Trump campaign seeking a response to Carswell’s claim was not immediately returned.

“Two people had the tape: I had a tape and Trump had a tape,” said Carswell, who is now a reporter for Vanity Fair. “And I don’t have the tape. Well, it didn’t get to The Washington Post through me.”

“It says a lot about Trump,” Carswell added. “I think we should be concerned about his judgment and the fact that he could pull things like this in the future.”

Trump’s history of impersonating his own spokesman has long been an open secret at the Trump Organization and among New York media circles.

At least one former Trump Organization executive has confirmed to CNN that Trump at times responded to media requests personally under the guise of a spokesman.
Trump’s apparent alter ego was quoted repeatedly and prominently in newspapers, magazines and especially in the gossip pages of New York tabloids.

In 1984 and 1985, several New York Times articles attributed quotes about Trump’s business dealings to “John Barron, a vice president of the Trump Organization.”

And Trump’s unofficial biographers also pulled the thin veil off Trump’s cover identity.

Michael D’Antonio wrote in “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success” that “John Barron was a way for Trump to talk himself up.”

“He’d be able to express things that he wanted expressed about himself by someone that wasn’t him,” D’Antonio wrote.
And the audio recording reveals more than just a remarkable likeness to Trump’s own voice, but also in the spokesman’s cadence, word choice and the billionaire’s trademark bravado.

Discussing Trump’s divorce and his prospects with women, “John Miller” said Trump is “somebody that has a lot of options, and, frankly, he gets called by everybody. He gets called by everybody in the book, in terms of women,” according to the audio recording obtained by The Washington Post.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Does it matter that Donald Trump tried to Tony Clifton the press 25 years ago? Probably not. What does matter is that he is lying about it today.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toruN-61dEU

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