Fact check: At briefings, Trump engages in a routine of false pretenses and exaggeration

08/13/2020 World


At Wednesday’s edition, Trump reiterated at least 12 false statements he made earlier. They went over his usual array of topics: the coronavirus pandemic, voting via mail, China, and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump devoted a substantial portion of his comments to the pandemic, but you would not confuse this event for informal information to the public interest. He spent most of the time rowing over himself, defending his pandemic response with an array of false and misleading claims, and attacks from Democrats, including vice presidential candidates. Kamala Harris.

Trump said that under a Biden administration, “everyone’s taxes” would increase significantly.

“If Biden were to win,” the president said, “he would double everyone’s taxes, double that.”

Facts first: Even if this is a campaign bluster, it’s wrong. Biden’s plan would increase taxes for people making more than $ 400,000 a year. He has promised not to increase taxes for those who make less, although they may see an impact through his plan to increase the top corporate tax rate.

Part of Biden’s plan would include the 12.4% tax added by being shared by employers and employees to individuals earning more than $ 400,000 a year. He would also increase the top income tax rate for those individuals from 37% to 39.6%.

Biden’s plan to increase the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% could indirectly affect households on lower and middle incomes through lower wages.

The Liberal-leaning Tax Policy Center estimates that under Biden’s plan, middle-income earners would see an average annual tax increase of $ 260, or 0.4% of income after tax, while lower-income earners would see an average annual tax increase of just $ 30. , as 0.2% of income after tax.
According to estimates by the Lending Tax Foundation, Biden’s tax plan would result in “around 0.6 percent less income after tax” for all income groups below the top 5%.

Unemployment benefits

Trump said he had signed an order to “provide a total of $ 400 extra support to Americans who are unemployed” because of the coronavirus.

Facts first: The number is likely to be $ 300 for many Americans seeking unemployment benefits.

Originally, states were in favor of 25% of the benefit, but the administration said Tuesday that it had adjusted the plan so that states that already had $ 100 in state unemployment benefits did not add that amount to Trump’s new order.

Coronavirus trends

Trump continued to press on the false narrative that several states are in ‘fantastic shape’ when it comes to the coronavirus.

“If you look at some of the states that have had a flare-up recently, they are all doing very well,” the president said. “Florida is going down. Arizona is going down, way down. They’ve done a fantastic job. California is going down, as you know.”

Facts first: While the figures of new cases of coronavirus in Florida en Arizona are downward trending, they are not back to levels for June. California is not “going down”; by some measures it experienced some periods of brief decline in new cases, but at present the average number of daily new cases is on the rise again.

Evictions, Democrats and Trump’s orders

Trump said, “I want to make it unequivocally clear that I want to protect people from evictions. They did not want to do that – the Democrats did not want to do protection against emissions.” The president tout his executive order, which he said “targeted” other administration owners to “assure tenants and homeowners that they can stay safe in their homes. They will not be delayed. They will not delay.”

Facts first: It’s not true that Democrats did not want eviction protection. And while we do not know what Trump told the administration owners privately, it is his executive order hinders no one in itself postponed. After all, it just directs administration officials to “consider” or “measures that stop temporary burglary from any tenants for not paying rent are reasonably necessary to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.”

When he told people “they will not be fired,” Trump may have made a future promise instead of simply describing the executive order. But he at least left the impression that the order itself prevents evictions.

Democrats support measures to prevent evictions. House Democrats support the expansion of the eviction moratorium that expired July 24 and proposed a $ 100 billion rent-seeking program.

Trump also repeats versions of these false pretenses that we have previously checked:

Mail-in votes

Trump claimed that mailing-in-the-vote is fraught with fraud and corruption.

Facts first: It is not; fraud is very rare.

A congress primarily in New York

Trump claimed there were fraudulent votes in Democratic primary New York won by rep. Carolyn Maloney.

Facts first: There is no proof of fraud in this race. There was a legal dispute over non-fraud issues, such as missing signatures and late postage stamps.

The Democrats and the election

Trump said that while the focus is on “Russia, Russia, Russia,” China and Iran regarding election mediation, “your biggest problem will be with the Democrats.”

Facts first: This is nonsense. There is no basis for the suggestion that the Democrats, legal participants in the elections, are doing everything remotely comparable to the unauthorized interference of Russia.

Tests and cases

Trump reiterated that the number of coronavirus cases in the US has only increased “because we do so many tests and we find” and that the US has more cases than just other countries “because we have many more tests than what country in the world. ”

Facts first: Testing does not make cases, only confirms their existence; the number of confirmed cases in the US has increased since mid-June because the virus has spread; experts say peerlands have fewer cases because they did better in managing their outbreaks.)

Eruptions elsewhere

Trump called “massive outbreaks” in countries that “set the media up as a shining example of success.”

Facts first: While many countries are indie experience upticks in cases the upticks in countries have been widely praised by the media pale in comparison to the ongoing American crisis. For example, South Korea reported 54 new cases on Wednesday; that is indeed an increase for South Korea, but the US had tens of thousands of new cases on Wednesday.

Penalties for damage to monuments

Trump claimed he had “imposed a 10-year prison sentence” for closing statues.

Facts first: Trump has not created all new fines; 10 years is a maximum sentence, not an automatic fine, under existing laws on damage to federal property and to monuments of U.S. veterans.

Obama, Biden and the campaign

Trump claimed that former President Barack Obama and Trump’s opponent of 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden, had spied on his 2016 campaign.

Facts first: There is no proof Obama and Biden were personally involved in the legal oversight carried out by the FBI as part of its investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia.

Manufacturing

Trump claimed that the Obama administration claimed that manufacturing was “dead” in the United States.

Facts first: That did not happen. Obama said in 2016 that some employment jobs could not be returned from abroad, but he stressed how many were being made in the US.

China and the pandemic

Trump claimed that China had spread the virus internationally, but prevented it from spreading within China.

Facts first: Every region of China had confirmed fallen by late January. China took strict measures to curb the domestic spread, but it did not limit the virus to Wuhan, where it originated.

Rates in China

Trump said the money from his tariffs on Chinese products is being paid for by China.

Facts first: Study after study has found that Americans bear most of the cost of the tariffs, and U.S. importers make the actual payments to the government.

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