Fact check: Trump’s 654 false claims during coronavirus pandemic

Fact check: Trump’s 654 false claims during coronavirus pandemic

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He was dishonest about the test. He was dishonest about his travel restrictions. He was dishonest about the supplies his predecessor left behind, about what his opponents said about the pandemic, even about what he himself said.

During the 14 weeks from Monday, his coronavirus task force began meeting on January 27 to Sunday, May 3, making 654 false allegations – 215 of them specifically about the pandemic. (Many others have been on related topics, such as the economy and China.)

We usually publish an outline of Trump’s dishonesty over a period of seven days. In this article, we address his dishonesty over the critical period of 98 days when the US went from no confirmed deaths in the coronavirus to more than 67,000 – well over 100,000.

Click here for a list of Trump’s false allegations about the March 16 to May 3 pandemic.
Click here for a list of the rest of his false claims from March 16 to May 3.

Trump’s Most False False Claims

When he was criticized for being too slow to act against the virus, Trump had a defense. He almost always mentions the fact that he imposed travel restrictions on China in early February.

Except that he calls the restrictions a “ban” on travel from China. This is not a ban: it contains exemptions for U.S. citizens, permanent residents, many of the family members of both groups, and some other types of people. Trump described the restrictions inaccurately during this 14-week period, more than he made any other individual false claim.

Trump also exaggerated 17 times the extent of his travel restrictions in March for many (but not all) European countries. And he has made 17 times his outspoken assertion that China, not Americans, pays the cost of its tariffs on imported Chinese products.

A variety of pandemic nonsense

Despite the pandemic, Trump has used a bunch of his old favorite false claims. (No, he is not the person who implemented the Obama-era Veterans Choice program; no, he did not always protect patients with pre-existing conditions.) But he also created entirely new categories of pandemic-specific dishonesty.

Trump has made 71 false allegations about the pandemic and travel. He made 37 on coronavirus testing. These include one of his most infamous and most horrific false allegations of the crisis – his statement on March 6 that “anyone who wants a test can get a test” – and 12 versions of perhaps his most absurd pandemic false allegation, the insistence that the Obama administration left him bad or old tests for this new virus for which there could be no test until Trump’s presidency.
Trump also made 24 false allegations about fans and the Strategic National Stock. Ten of these were versions of his claim that he had left completely empty inventory shelves by Obama. In fact, Obama left thousands of fans and several other supplies behind.
One indication of the boldness of Trump’s dishonesty: he made 12 false allegations about what he himself said in the past – sometimes things he only said the day before, sometimes in the same briefing.

Very dishonest briefings

In theory, the daily information sessions on the Coronavirus in the White House gave the president a chance to inform Americans about the crisis.

In practice, they became customary campaign rallies – a nearby stage where Trump could have been, with all the usual bragging, walking around and contempt for truth.
Trump made 16 false allegations during the April 6 briefing, a marathon session in which he appeared for more than 95 minutes. He made 14 more during the April 13 briefing, where he appeared for more than 100 minutes.

We counted 23 briefings in which the president made five or more false allegations.

Trump’s three most dishonest events during this 14-week period came before he stopped traveling due to the pandemic: 21 at a rally in January in Des Moines, 19 at a rally in February in Las Vegas, 18 at ‘ a Fox News town hall in March in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

But in early May, Trump also made 16 false allegations at a Fox City ‘virtual city hall’ at the Lincoln Memorial.

A slight slowdown

Trump averaged about 8.5 false claims per day from July 8, 2019, when we started counting on CNN, to January 26, 2020. During this 14-week pandemic period beginning on January 27, it was about 6.7 false claims per day.

It is therefore a decrease. But 6.7 false claims are many, especially in a crisis. Let’s not just judge Trump against his own astonishingly high (or low) bar.

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