WASHINGTON (AP) – In his last remarks as president, Donald Trump tried to take credit for the achievements of his predecessor and even those who would come under President Joe Biden.
Falsehoods persuaded his farewell remarks Wednesday morning and the night before, although he liked it: “We were not a regular administration.”
Noting that Americans were ‘terrified’ by the Capitol’s storm this month, he overtook the encouragement he had given the mob in advance and praised the attackers as ‘very special’ people while still holding the seat of power.
A look at some of his statements to well-wishers at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday to Florida and in his video recording address Tuesday:
COVID-19
TRUMP: ‘We had the vaccine developed in nine months instead of nine years or five years or ten years, a long time. It was supposed to last a long time. … We have two out, we have another one almost immediately. – noted Wednesday before leaving Washington.
TRUMP: ‘Another administration would have taken three, four, five, maybe even up to ten years to develop a vaccine. We did in nine months. ”- addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: The administration did not actually develop any vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies have. And one of the two U.S. companies that came out with vaccines now in use did not take development money from the government.
Trump’s claim that a vaccine would last for years under a different administration extends credibility. COVID-19 vaccines were indeed remarkably fast, but other countries have developed them as well. A vaccination for the coronavirus is not a unique achievement of the United States, much less the Trump administration.
US drugmaker Pfizer has developed its vaccine in partnership with German BioNTech, which is evading federal funding for development, although it has benefited from Washington to buy large quantities in advance if the vaccine succeeds. A vaccine by Moderna, from the United States, is also widely used.
But the English AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is administered in several countries, and vaccines from China and Russia are also not used. More than a dozen potential vaccines are in late stages of testing worldwide.
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TRUMP: “We passed VA Choice.” – addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: No, he could not pass the Choice program. President Barack Obama has. Trump expanded it. The program enables veterans to receive medical care outside the veterans’ affairs system under certain conditions. Trump has tried to take credit for Obama’s performance scores of times.
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TAXES
TRUMP: “We have also received tax cuts, by far the largest tax cut and reform in the history of our country.” – note Wednesday.
TRUMP: “We have passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.” – addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Its tax cuts are nowhere near the largest in U.S. history.
That’s a tax cut of $ 1.5 billion over ten years. According to the Committee on a Responsible Federal Budget, a tax cut of the size is 12th as part of the total economy. President Ronald Reagan’s austerity in 1981 is the largest, followed by a tax refund in 1945 that financed World War II.
Tax cuts after Reagan are also the most important: the cut of President George W. Bush in the early 2000s and the renewal of Obama a decade later.
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ECONOMY
TRUMP: “We have the largest economy in the world.” – note Wednesday.
TRUMP: “We have also built the largest economy in world history.” – addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: No, the numbers show that it was not the greatest in American history. And he’s the first president since Herbert Hoover in the Depression to leave office with less work than when he started.
Did the US have the most jobs before the pandemic? The population has definitely grown. The unemployment rate of 3.5% before the recession was at a low century, but the percentage of people looking for work or work was still below a peak in 2000.
Nobel laureate economist Paul Romer looked at Trump’s record for economic growth. The growth under Trump averaged 2.48% per year before the pandemic, only slightly better than the 2.41% increase achieved during Obama’s second term. In contrast, the economic expansion that began in 1982 during Reagan’s presidency averaged 4.2% per year.
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TRUMP, on the economy after the pandemic: “This is a rocket ship.” – note Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Not so.
There was no dramatic, V-shaped economic recovery under Trump. Employers cut jobs during his last December in office. However, economists say the additional aid approved in December and the prospect of more from Biden could cause the strongest growth in more than two decades.
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TRUMP: “We hired America’s job creation and achieved record-breaking unemployment for African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, women – almost everyone. – addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not an inflammation. Job creation in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, actually declined to about 2 million, compared to nearly 2.5 million in 2016, Obama’s last year in office.
The low unemployment rate refers to a pre-pandemic economy that no longer exists. The pandemic cost the U.S. economy 10 million jobs and made Trump the first president since Hoover to oversee a net loss of jobs. The US now has about 2.8 million fewer jobs than when Trump was inaugurated, losing 140,000 in December alone. And the job losses fell disproportionately on black Americans, Hispanics and women.
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TRUMP: “We have rebuilt the American manufacturing base, opened thousands of new factories and brought back the beautiful phrase Made in the USA.” – addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: This is a piece. There are now 60,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in the US than when Trump took office. Despite gains before the pandemic, the manufacturing base was not exactly ‘rebuilt’.
Before the coronavirus, nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs were added under Trump, slightly better than the nearly 400,000 achieved during Obama’s second term. Even before the pandemic, the US had 4.3 million fewer factory jobs than in 2001, the year China joined the World Trade Organization and a flood of cheaper imports from the country entered the US.
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CAPITOL INSURRECTION
TROMP: “All Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated. ”- addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: This may sum up the reaction of most Americans, but it ignores its own role in the anger of its supporters before staging the violent fight.
For months, Trump falsely claimed that the election was stolen in November, then invited supporters to Washington and sent them to the Capitol with the admonition to “fight like hell.”
With the uprising still going on and the speed of the attack evident from video and reports of the scene, Trump has released a video in which they are told “to go home now”, while repeating ‘it was’ a fraudulent election ‘and added:’ We love you. You are very special. ‘
The House accused Trump of accusing him of inciting an uprising. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has been a political ally of Trump for four years, said Tuesday that Trump supporters are “fed with lies” and “provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
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MILITARY
TRUMP: “We rebuilt the U.S. military.” – note Wednesday.
THE FACTS: This is exaggerated.
It is true that his government has accelerated a sharp build-up in defense spending, including a respite from what the U.S. military sees as a crippling spending limit under budget sequestration.
But a number of new Pentagon weapons programs, such as the F-35 fighter jet, were launched years before the Trump administration. And it will take years before newly ordered tanks, aircraft and other weapons are built, delivered and put into service.
The Air Force’s Minuteman 3 missiles, for example an important part of the US nuclear force, have been operating since the early 1970s and modernization began under the Obama administration. They need to be replaced by a new version, but only later this decade.
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TRUMP: “We have wiped out the ISIS caliphate.” – addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: His proposal of a 100% defeat is misleading because the Islamic State group still poses a threat.
IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and then lost the last of its land ownership in Syria in March 2019, which was the end of the extremists’ self-proclaimed caliphate. Extreme sleeping cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria over the past few weeks and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings of local officials and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The continued attacks are a sign that the militant group is exploiting governments that would otherwise focus on the pandemic and the subsequent move to economic chaos. The virus exacerbates long-standing concerns among security and UN experts that the group will make a return.
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CHINA
TRUMP: “We have imposed historic and monumental tariffs on China. … Our trade relationship changed rapidly, billions and billions of dollars flowed into the US, but the virus forced us to go in a different direction. ‘- addresses Tuesday.
THE FACTS: This is a well-known statement, untrue.
It is false to suggest that the US never collected tariffs on Chinese goods before taking action. Tariffs on Chinese goods are in some cases simply higher than before. It is also wrong to indicate that the tariffs are paid by China.
Tariff money that comes into the government coffers comes mainly from US businesses and consumers, not from China. Rates are mainly if not entirely a tax paid domestically.
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Associated Press authors Josh Boak, Robert Burns, and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR – A Look At The Truth Of Claims By Political Figures.
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