10 Lies From Donald Trump’s Speech To Congress
Donald Trump gave his much-anticipated speech to Congress Tuesday night and, in classic Trump fashion, the speech was filled with lies, falsehoods, mistruths and pretty much any other word in the English language for bulls***.
We did our best to compile a list of what we think are the biggest Trump’s lies from his Tuesday night speech. As always, with Trump, it is impossible to catch all the lies, so if we missed one, please drop us a line and let us know.
1. Trump Claims to Have Drained the Swamp
Trump Claim: “We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a 5-year ban on lobbying by Executive Branch officials – and a lifetime ban on becoming lobbyists for a foreign government.”
Truth: This claim is so laughable, that Democratic lawmakers could actually be heard laughing when Trump made the remark.
Donald Trump claims to have drained the swamp, but here’s the problem with that claim – nothing could be further from the truth. Trump promised to ban congressional officials from lobbying after they leave Congress – he hasn’t done that. And Trump’s five-year lobbying ban is hardly a good-government achievement because officials are only barred from lobbying their former agency. But there is nothing to stop them from becoming a lobbyist and just lobbying another agency. And in fact, Trump weakened orders that Presidents Obama and Bush issued.
Not to mention the fact that Trump has filled his government with billionaire Wall Street insiders and radical conservative Republicans who are only favorable to the Washington D.C. conservative lobbyist crowd.
2. Trump Lies About Impacts of Illegal Immigration
Trump Claim: “By finally enforcing our immigration laws we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions and billions of dollars and make our communities safer for everyone.”
Truth: Trump has spent the last several years blaming illegal immigration for just about every problem he can think of in this country. But just like many of Trump’s other claims, the facts don’t hold up.
According to the Washington Post, “Extensive research shows noncitizens are not more prone to criminality than U.S.-born citizens. The vast majority of unauthorized immigrants are not criminal aliens or aggravated felons.”
3. Trump Claims He’s Only Deporting the “Bad Ones”
Trump Claim: “As we speak, we are removing gang members, drug dealers and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our citizens. Bad ones are going out as I speak and as I have promised throughout the campaign.”
Truth: This one is so untrue that literally the first person that was deported after Trump’s executive order was a law-abiding mother who had been checking in regularly for years with ICE – which decided this time she had to be deported.
News reports have confirmed that people are being deported who have committed low-level crime, or being charged of the crime of coming into the country.
4. Trump Claims He’s Creating and Saving Jobs in America
Trump Claim: “Since my election, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed, Intel, Walmart, and many others, have announced that they will invest billions of dollars in the United States and will create tens of thousands of new American jobs.”
Truth: The problem is that Trump didn’t actually convince these companies to do anything new, they’ve planned these investments prior to any discussion with Trump. Trump just keeps taking credit for them.
5. Trump Blames Immigrants for Terrorist Attacks Committed by US Citizens
Trump Claim: “According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. We have seen the attacks at home — from Boston to San Bernardino to the Pentagon and yes, even the World Trade Center.”
Truth: Washington Post reports, “Since 2001, every deadly jihadist attack inside the United States was carried out by a U.S. citizen or legal resident, according to data collected by New America, a Washington-based nonprofit group. ‘Far from being foreign infiltrators, the large majority of jihadist terrorists in the United States have been American citizens or legal residents,’ the group said in a report on its findings.”
And it’s important to point out that the 9/11 attacks were committed by people who came from Saudi Arabia and Egypt – two countries not included in Trump’s Muslim-ban.
6. Trump Claims 94 Million Americans Are Out of the Work Force
Trump Claim: “Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.”
Truth: This Trump claim is ridiculously misleading. To give you a sense of how misleading it is, one could use Trump’s logic to assert that the unemployment rate among kindergarteners is at 100 percent.
Trump arrives at this erroneous number by taking the civilian noninstitutional population of 254.1 million people and subtracting the 159.7 million who are in the labor force. The difference yields the 94.4 million.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that about 7.6 million people were unemployed in January.
But the problem, and with Trump there is always a problem, is he’s counting retired people, students, stay-at-home parents, the disabled and anyone else who has voluntarily taken themselves out of the labor force to claim there are a bunch of people missing from the labor force.
7. Trump Continues to Lie About Violent Crime Statistics
Trump Claims: “The murder rate in 2015 experienced its largest single-year increase in nearly half a century. In Chicago, more than 4,000 people were shot last year alone — and the murder rate so far this year has been even higher. This is not acceptable in our society.”
Truth: Trump again tried to paint a picture of a country plagued with violence. But this is not true. Crime, particularly murder, is at a historic multi-decade low.
Source: CNN
Trump also likes to share anecdotes of violent crimes involving illegal immigrants to claim there is an epidemic when in fact that’s not true.
8. Trump Claims We’ll Have Clean Air and Water
Trump Claim: “My administration wants to work with members in both parties to… promote clean air and clear water…”
Truth: While Trump says he’ll protect clean water and air, hours before his speech he hours signed an executive order aimed at unraveling an Obama-era regulation known as the Clean Water Rule.
9. Trump Slams FDA for Slow Drug Approval Process
Trump Claim: “But our slow and burdensome approval process at the Food and Drug Administration keeps too many advances, like the one that saved Megan’s life, from reaching those in need.”
Truth: According to the Washington Post, “For 2016, the median time was about 10 months for regular approvals and eight months for priority ones, according to the agency. That compared to almost 27 months and 20 months, respectively, in 1993.”
10. Trump Claims Obamacare Is ‘Imploding’
Trump Claims: “So I am calling on all Democrats and Republicans in the Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding Obamacare disaster.”
Truth: Far from imploding, Obamacare has led to a record low of uninsured Americans. And by the way Donald, Obamacare is tremendously popular – especially the individual parts.
According to the LA Times, “this is a major exaggeration” and “the law’s coverage expansion has helped more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans get health coverage.”
New research shows the “law is dramatically improving poor patients’ access to medical care, particularly in states that have used the law to expand their Medicaid safety nets.”
Source: LA Times
According to a new poll released Monday, more than two-thirds of registered voters do not want a complete repeal of Obamacare.
