Donald Trump’s marathon handle to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday was suffering from false claims, a lot of them falsehoods he has beforehand said, been corrected on, and continued to repeat regardless. Listed below are among the most important statements he made which can be simply not true.
The US has not given Ukraine $350bn since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022
The president repeated one among his new favourite lies: that the USA has given Ukraine $350bn since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and Europe has given simply $100bn.
In truth, as Jakub Krupa and Pjotr Sauer reported for the Guardian final month, a operating tally stored by the Kiel Institute for the World Financial system exhibits that the US has spent about $120bn, whereas Europe – counted because the sum of the EU and particular person member states – has allotted practically $138bn in assist for Ukraine. When the contributions from non EU international locations, just like the UK, are included, Europe’s share is even bigger.
Final week, on three consecutive days, three visiting world leaders corrected Trump on this false assertion whereas sitting subsequent to him within the Oval Workplace: the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump didn’t cease ‘$45m for variety, fairness and inclusion scholarships in Burma’
One in a litany of spending on overseas help tasks that Trump introduced as ridiculous was “$45m for variety, fairness and inclusion scholarships in Burma”.
There is no such thing as a proof that any such scholarships have been deliberate. As the previous consultant Tom Malinowski identified, when this declare was first made by Elon Musk’s “division of presidency effectivity”, this seems to be a reference to a really completely different program, USAid’s Lincoln Scholarships, which helped educate younger folks struggling for freedom towards Burma’s navy dictatorship.
It isn’t clear why Trump or Musk wrongly thought that these have been variety, fairness and inclusion scholarships, however, as Malinowski famous, the USAid undertaking description did specify that the students have been Burmese college students “from various backgrounds”. That looks like an essential coverage, provided that the navy dictatorship in Burma has exploited ethnic and non secular divisions to remain in energy.
Trump wrongly advised that tens of millions of useless folks is perhaps getting social safety funds
Trump drew consideration to the truth that a Social Safety Administration database contains tens of millions of people that can be over 110 years outdated.
However, because the Guardian has reported beforehand, when Musk claimed that “a cursory examination of social safety” confirmed that “we’ve obtained folks in there which can be 150 years outdated”, it is a deeply deceptive means of speaking about about actual flaw within the social safety system which might allow fraud, however apparently doesn’t.
That flaw was revealed in a 2015 report by the unbiased inspector basic for the social safety administration who found that the company didn’t have dying information for tens of millions of people that had handed away. As of 2015, the inspector basic discovered, there have been “roughly 6.5 million numberholders age 112 or older who didn’t have dying data” on their recordsdata.
Based on the report, social safety funds have been nonetheless being made to only 13 individuals who had reached the age of 112. At the very least a kind of folks was definitely nonetheless alive, and tweeting, on the time the report’s information was compiled in 2013.
When the report was issued in 2015, the oldest particular person with a social safety quantity and no dying file on their file was born in 1869, however there was no file of funds nonetheless being made to that particular person, who would have been practically 150.
In truth, the social safety administration already has in place a process to conduct interviews with anybody who reaches the age of 100, to confirm that they’re alive and their account just isn’t being utilized by another person to gather fraudulent funds.
Trump incorrectly claimed {that a} center college in Florida had ‘socially transitioned’ a 13-year-old little one
Trump mentioned that January Littlejohn, a mom from Tallahassee, Florida, had found that her 13-year-old little one’s center college had secretly socially transitioned her from feminine to non-binary with out notifying the dad and mom.
Whereas Littlejohn made that case in a lawsuit, the swimsuit was dismissed by a federal choose, and emails obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper confirmed that Littlejohn had written to the college in 2020 to inform a instructor that her little one needed to alter pronouns.
The emails confirmed that Littlejohn labored with a instructor to find out how finest to navigate the state of affairs, and thanked the instructor for his or her assist.
Trump cherrypicked an out-of-date ballot to counsel that almost all Individuals say the US is now stepping into the fitting route
“Now, for the primary time in trendy historical past,” Trump proclaimed early in his handle, “extra Individuals consider that our nation is headed in the fitting route than the improper route.”
In truth, Trump seemed to be citing a single ballot, revealed three weeks in the past by the Republican-leaning polling agency Rasmussen, which confirmed a 47%-46% edge for the fitting route over the improper route. Nevertheless, that very same polling agency’s most up-to-date survey, this week, exhibits that 45% of Individuals now say the nation is heading in the right direction, and 50% say it’s on the improper monitor.
Because the polling skilled Nate Silver famous final yr, when it was revealed that Rasmussen was secretly exhibiting its outcomes to the Trump marketing campaign, “this form of express coordination with a marketing campaign, coupled with ambiguity about funding sources, signifies that we’re going to label Rasmussen as an intrinsically partisan (R) pollster going ahead”.
Different polling companies, not related to the Republican get together, present that extra Individuals say that the nation is on the improper monitor now than heading in the right direction.
The newest Reuters/Ipsos ballot, in late February, exhibits that 49% of Individuals say that the nation is headed off on the improper monitor, and simply 34% say that the nation is headed in the fitting route.
An Economist/YouGov ballot final week discovered that fifty% of Individuals say the nation is headed within the improper route, with simply 38% saying it’s heading in the right direction.
The newest Morning Seek the advice of ballot, revealed on Sunday, exhibits that the present unfold is 56% improper to 44% proper. Within the remaining week of the primary Trump administration in 2021, Morning Seek the advice of discovered that 81% of Individuals mentioned the nation was on the improper monitor, with simply 19% saying it was heading in the right direction.
Trump falsely claimed Musk’s cost-cutting had ‘discovered tons of of billions of {dollars} of fraud’
Because the begin of its work, Musk’s “division of presidency effectivity” initiative has repeatedly claimed to have uncovered “fraud” solely to have examples it cited grow to be incorrect of invented. Essentially the most eye-catching instance, that the federal government deliberate to spend $50m to ship condoms to Gaza, turned out to be fully fictional.
Because the New York Occasions reported on Monday, receipts posted on-line by Musk’s “division of presidency effectivity” doc lower than $9bn in financial savings from cancelled authorities contracts, none of which concerned fraud.
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