Category: Not Factual

Trump Reveals He Completely Misunderstood Fox & Friends Pledge of Allegiance Segment

President Donald Trump responded to a Tuesday morning Fox & Friendssegment by promising to restore the peoples’ right to say the Pledge of Allegiance in Minnesota.

“Outrage is growing in the Great State of Minnesota where our Patriots are now having to fight for the right to say the Pledge of Allegiance,” Trump said. “I will be fighting with you!”

Here’s the thing: However Trump might be framing this issue with his tweet, he’s misquoting the story if he’s suggesting that Minnesotans are currently forbidden from saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

The controversy revolves around the city council of St. Louis Park, MN, which voted 5-0 last month to end its practice of kicking off their meetings by reciting the pledge. Local media reports have described outraged reactions from area residents, and the city is considering whether to reverse its decision after protesters flooded the council chambers and berated officials during a recent session.

Fox & Friends covered the story by framing it as a “ban” of the pledge in their lower-third graphic, and took the side of those outraged by the move.

“How could they not think this would not cause outrage?” Ainsley Earhardt said.

[Mediaite]

Trump: ‘Wacky’ UK ambassador a ‘very stupid guy’

President Trump early Tuesday ramped up his criticism of the British ambassador to the United States, who called Trump “inept” in leaked cables, saying Kim Darroch is “a very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool.”

“The wacky Ambassador that the U.K. foisted upon the United States is not someone we are thrilled with, a very stupid guy. He should speak to his country, and Prime Minister May, about their failed Brexit negotiation, and not be upset with my criticism of how badly it was handled,” Trump tweeted.

Trump also again attacked British Prime Minister Theresa May over Brexit, saying he told her “how to do that deal, but she went her own foolish way-was unable to get it done.”

“A disaster!” he continued. “I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool. Tell him the USA now has the best Economy & Military anywhere in the World, by far and they are both only getting bigger, better and stronger…..Thank you, Mr. President!”

Darroch reportedly described Trump as “incompetent” and “inept” in memos and notes sent to the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Barroch also described conflicts within the Trump administration as “knife fights” and said he doesn’t believe the White House will “ever look competent.”

Trump tweeted on Monday after the leaked cables were reported that he would “no longer deal with” Darroch.

“I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him,” he said.

Shortly after Trump’s tweet, an administration official said Darroch was disinvited from a Monday night dinner hosted by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with Trump and the emir of Qatar.

[The Hill]

Donald Trump just shared a tweet with a fake quote from Ronald Reagan praising him

President Donald Trump shared a photo of him and former President Ronald Reagan with a quote praising him falsely attributed to Reagan on Monday, calling it “cute!” on Twitter. 

The tweet he shared was posted in 2017 by a now inactive account called “@reaganbattalion,” which appears to be an impersonation of a larger, verified conservative account called “@ReaganBattalion.”

The meme included a photo of Reagan and Trump shaking hands in the 1980s with the quote, falsely attributed to Reagan, saying, “For the life of me, and I’ll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man I felt like I was the one shaking hands with a president.”

The fact-checking site PolitiFact was able to confirm the authenticity of the photo, dated back to 1987, but thoroughly debunked the supposed Reagan quote as a “pants-on-fire” level lie, verifying with an official from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute that Reagan never uttered that praise of the president. 

Shortly after Trump quote-tweeted the meme, the account that posted it was suspended from Twitter.

After the meme with the false Reagan quote spread around Facebook earlier this year, it was flagged on the site as misinformation. 

While Reagan himself died in 2004, long before Trump became president, Reagan’s son Michael Reagan predicted his father would be “confused” by Trump and “wouldn’t be appreciative of the demeaning style of Donald Trump.”

Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis has sharply criticized Trump in interviews and written several op-eds denouncing Trump’s policies in The Washington Post.

In a March interview with Yahoo News, Davis guessed that her father would be “horrified” by the Trump presidency and accused Trump of “endangering” American democracy, and the GOP of “sitting by the sidelines” and letting it happen.

[Business Insider]

Trump snaps at ‘Sleepy Joe Biden’ after new poll shows president trailing him by 10 points

Donald Trump launched a new attack on former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday just hours after a new poll showed the president was trailing Biden by 10 points in a possible 2020 match-up.

Writing on Twitter, Trump stated, “Sleepy Joe Biden just admitted he worked with segregationists and separately, has already been very plain about the fact that he will be substantially raising everyone’s taxes if he becomes president. Ridiculously, all Democrats want to substantially raise taxes!”

Trump’s tweet followed reporting that Biden has 53 percent support in the Washington Post/ABC News poll, compared to Trump’s 43 percent. Just 3 percent are undecided.

[Raw Story]

Trump Defends Migrant Detention Centers: ‘They’re Really Well Run’

President Donald Trump defended the quality of life at migrant detention centers on Friday when asked about the negative conditions reported from several of them throughout the week.

Speaking with the White House press pool, Trump faced inquiries about how Democratic lawmakers, news reports, and the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s review have painted a horrific picture of the living conditions at detainment centers. Trump said that the centers “are run beautifully.”

“They’re clean, they’re good, they do a great job” Trump said. “They’re crowded because the Democrats will not give us any relief from these loopholes. We have loopholes that are so bad. We have asylum that’s so bad. So these places are — many of them, not all of them – but many of them are incredible. They’re really well run.”

Trump went on to defend Border Patrol on the grounds that they weren’t trained to be caretakers, and he dismissed negative reports about their facilities as he continued to say “they’re doing a phenomenal job.”

“I think they do great with those facilities. You know how it can be taken care of? Number one, tell them not to come,” Trump said. “I think that the Border Patrol has been treated very, very badly by certain members of Congress. For the most part, they’re very respected by Congress, but certain members of Congress say very bad things and lie and exaggerate.”

[Mediaite]

Trump Blames Teleprompter Snafu for Airport Gaffe in Speech: ‘It’s Hard to Look at in the Rain’

President Donald Trump blamed a teleprompter malfunction for a bizarre tangent in his Fourth of July speech where he mentioned airports in the Revolutionary War.

“The teleprompter went out, it went kaput. So I could have said — and actually right in the middle of sentence it went out. That’s not a good feeling,” Trump told reporters Friday shortly before leaving the White House en route to his golf club in Bedminster, NJ.

“I knew the speech very well so I was able to do it without a teleprompter. But the teleprompter did go out. And it was actually hard to look at anyway because it was rain all over it. But despite the rain, that was just a fantastic evening.” he continued.

Trump has often lambasted politicians who use teleprompters for speeches.

“I’ve always said, if you run for president, you shouldn’t be allowed to use teleprompters,” Trump said in 2015. “Because you don’t even know if the guy is smart.”

In 2016, he softened his stance on the technology, saying of teleprompters ““They’re not bad. You never get yourself in trouble when you use a teleprompter. You know the problem is, it’s too easy. We have a president who uses teleprompters, it’s too easy. We should have non-teleprompter speeches only when you’re running for president.”

[Mediaite]

Reality

Trump says he’s considering executive order to force census question

Donald Trump told reporters he is “thinking of” issuing an executive order to force including a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census, according to the White House pool.

Four days ago, the department that oversees the Census, the Commerce department, said it was printing Census forms without the question.

Chaos ensued.

The president said reports that this was happening were fake – even though the Commerce secretary said it was happening – and then a Justice department lawyer had to defend the president’s comment without anyone in the department apparently being briefed on it.

The judge presiding over the case of whether its legal to include a citizenship question in the Census is not happy about how things are playing out.

On Wednesday, just before the Fourth of July holiday, federal district court judge George Hazel convened a call with the attorneys and said:

If you were Facebook and an attorney for Facebook told me one thing, and then I read a press release from Mark Zuckerberg telling me something else, I would be demanding that Mark Zuckerberg appear in court with you the next time, because I would be saying I don’t think you speak for your client anymore.

[The Guardian]

Reality

This would be a constitutional crisis in two ways, first going around the courts, and second the power of the census is given to Congress in Article I while the presidential powers are spelled out in Article II. Trump has no constitutional authority over the census.

Trump Celebrates High Stock Market That Broke Record Under Obama in 2013

The US President Trump is on the wires now, via Twitter, saying: “Today’s Stock Market is the highest in the history of our great Country! This is the 104th time since the Election of 2016 that we have reached a NEW HIGH. Congratulations USA!”

Reality

The stock market had broke it’s all-time high in 2013 under Obama, and continued trending upward until Trump’s trade wars left the stock market mostly flat but highly volatile, with several dives.

Trump says immigrants ‘unhappy’ with detention centers should stay home

President Donald Trump, facing renewed criticism from Democrats and activists over his handling of a migrant crisis on the U.S.- Mexico border, said in a Twitter post on Wednesday that immigrants unhappy with conditions at detention centers should be told “not to come.” 

Democratic lawmakers and civil rights activists who have visited migrant detention centers along the border in recent days have described nightmarish conditions marked by overcrowding and inadequate access to food, water and other basic needs.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general on Tuesday published graphic photos of migrant-holding centers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley crammed with twice as many people as they were meant to hold.

“If Illegal Immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detentions centers, just tell them not to come. All problems solved!” Trump said on Twitter.

The Republican president has made cracking down on illegal immigration a key part of his first-term agenda after campaigning on the issue ahead of the 2016 election.

“Our Border Patrol people are not hospital workers, doctors or nurses,” Trump wrote earlier on Twitter. “Great job by Border Patrol, above and beyond. Many of these illegals (sic) aliens are living far better now than where they … came from, and in far safer conditions.”

Criticism of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency grew after reports this week that current and former agents had posted offensive anti-immigrant comments and targeted lawmakers on a private Facebook group.

Acting Department of Homeland Security chief Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday ordered an investigation, calling the comments “disturbing.” McAleenan said any employee who had “compromised the public’s trust in our law enforcement mission” would be held accountable.

The Facebook posts, first reported by ProPublica, included jokes about immigrants dying and sexually explicit content about U.S. Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who criticized the detention facilities after a tour this week.

[Reuters]

Trump dismisses furor over conditions for migrants

President Trump on Wednesday came to the defense of border agents and scoffed at Democratic lawmakers’ furor after an internal watchdog report found detained migrants are living in dismal conditions in federal detention facilities.

In a series of tweets, Trump credited Border Patrol with doing a “great job” and going “above and beyond.” He blamed Democrats and existing immigration laws for ongoing issues at the border.

He further claimed that many immigrants detained in the overcrowded facilities are “living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions.”

“No matter how good things actually look, even if perfect, the Democrat visitors will act shocked & aghast at how terrible things are. Just Pols,” Trump tweeted. “If they really want to fix them, change the Immigration Laws and Loopholes. So easy to do!”

A report released earlier Wednesday from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General described squalid and overcrowded conditions at detention centers, while reporting little progress in recent months by the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, its parent agency.

The report described standing room only cells for migrants, who were not fed hot meals or given showers. The centers also continue to hold children, some of whom are showing up at the border unattended.

Democrats expressed outrage over the treatment of migrants after a group of lawmakers traveled to the border earlier this week to tour one of the holding centers in Clint, Texas.

A ProPublica investigation published Mondayprovoked additional fury when it detailed a Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents that was filled with derogatory posts targeting migrants and Democratic lawmakers.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said Wednesday he has ordered an investigation into reports of the vulgar messages.

[The Hill]

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