FactCheck: Trump's Phoenix fiction
The president gave a revisionist account of his remarks about Charlottesville, exaggerated his accomplishments, and made a series of false and misleading claims.
President Trump delivered a raucous, error-filled speech in Arizona on Aug. 22, just days after he was uniformly criticized for blaming "both sides" for the deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The president gave a revisionist account of his remarks about Charlottesville, exaggerated his accomplishments, and made a series of false and misleading claims:
Trump cherry-picked excerpts from his past statements about Charlottesville to put a positive spin on his remarks. But in his retelling, Trump failed to say he blamed "both sides" for the violence that left one counterprotester dead and 19 others injured.
Trump also wrongly suggested that the media didn't report that he had said "racism is evil," a quote from his second statement — on Monday, Aug. 14 — on the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. That quote was widely reported by the media.
Trump, who spent a large part of the rally bashing the media, also wrongly claimed CNN's ratings "are going down." In fact, they've gone up.
The president falsely claimed that wages "haven't gone up for a long time." Average weekly earnings for all private workers went up 4 percent during the last four years of President Obama's tenure.
Trump exaggerated when he claimed that he has created "way over 1 million" jobs since taking office. The actual increase is 1,074,000 jobs — a little less than the more than 1.2 million that were added during the same time frame a year ago.
The president also said the nation's economy under his leadership has surged, describing the estimated 2.6 percent growth in the nation's real gross domestic product for the second quarter as "shocking." In fact, it is below the growth rate for eight of the last 18 quarters.
Trump claimed "we were one vote away from repealing" the Affordable Care Act. But the vote would have sent a placeholder "skinny repeal" bill to a conference committee with the House. The House and Senate would have had to agree upon final legislation.
Trump said by allowing insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines, "your prices go way down." But experts have disputed that idea.
Trump claimed the U.S. has "become an energy exporter for the first time ever just recently." That's false. The U.S. still imports more energy than it exports. The Energy Information Administration projects the U.S. will become a net exporter of energy — in 2026.
Trump also boasted that he has "obtained [a] historic increase in defense spending." He hasn't. His proposed budget for fiscal 2018 would increase defense spending by 5 percent — far less than the double-digit increases under Presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
The president touted that he has signed 50 bills and boasted that he doesn't "believe that any president has accomplished as much as this president." In fact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 76 bills in his first 100 days, including the kinds of major legislation that Trump lacks.
Trump said "both of the countries" — Mexico and Canada — have "such great deals" under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Actually, the U.S. had a trade surplus in goods and services with Canada for the last two years.
Revising History on Charlottesville
The president spoke to supporters in Phoenix, Arizona — one in a series of rallies staged by his campaign since he became president. Trump also has held campaign rallies in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio — states that he won and needs to maintain if he wants to win reelection more than three years from now.
The Arizona speech came just days after the president was criticized by members of both parties for blaming "both sides" for violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump blamed the "dishonest" news media for cherry-picking his words to distort his statements on Charlottesville, when, in fact, the president cherry-picked his words from his past statements to put a positive spin on his much-criticized remarks.
Trump first spoke about Charlottesville on Aug. 12, the day of the white nationalist rally, and then again on Aug. 14 and 15. He read excerpts from each of his remarks to his Arizona audience, but he omitted key phrases that caused a political backlash.
First, Trump spoke of his remarks on Aug. 12, a Saturday.
Actually, Trump said, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides." In his retelling, Trump left out the words in bold. His Aug. 12 remarks were criticized at the time even by members of his own party, who faulted the president for blaming both sides and not singling out by name the hate groups that organized the rally.
Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado tweeted, "Mr. President – we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism." Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, tweeted, "We should call evil by its name. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home."
It wasn't until two days later that Trump condemned "the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups" by name. But Trump followed that with remarks on Aug. 15 that again blamed both sides.
On Aug. 15, Trump said this of the rally organizers and others who protested the planned removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville: "[Y]ou had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, responded to Trump's remarks with a six-part tweetstorm that began, "The organizers of events which inspired & led to #charlottesvilleterroristattack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons." Rubio went on to say, "Mr. President,you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame.They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain."
In his retelling of his Aug. 15 remarks, Trump focused on selected excerpts and again ignored key phrases — such as "both sides" and "very fine people" — that caused another round of political criticism.
That quote was actually from his second set of remarks, on Aug. 14, which he repeated on Aug. 15 before blaming both sides.
Trump explained his point in reading excerpts from his past statements on Charlottesville: "But the point is, that those were three different — there were two statements and one news conference. The words were perfect. They [media outlets] only take out anything they can think of, and for the most part, all they do is complain. But they don't put on those words. And they don't put on me saying those words."
It's his opinion, of course, that his "words were perfect." But he distorts the facts by omitting key phrases that caused a political backlash and by claiming that media outlets "take out" his words, when in fact he is guilty of exactly that.