When they raise their tariff from 10 percent to 25 percent then 40 percent, and they said to me, ‘We expected somebody would call and say, you can’t; nobody called so we just left it.'”
This is misleading.
President Donald Trump’s account of China’s tariff rates and his role in relation to them is distorted.
The United States charges a tariff of 2.5 percent — not “nothing” — on foreign car imports and raised the rate on Chinese vehicles to 27.5 percent over the summer.
China previously imposed a 25 percent tariff on foreign car imports but lowered that rate to 15 percent in July. As trade tensions between Beijing and Washington escalated, China then increased the tariffs on American cars to 40 percent to retaliate against Trump’s new tariffs before agreeing in December to temporarily suspend them.
What Was Said
“The Green New Deal, I encourage it, I think it is really something that they should promote. They should work hard on, it is something the country needs desperately. They have to go out and get it, but I will take the other side of that argument, only because I am mandated to. But they should stay with that. Never change. No planes. No energy. When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric.”
False.
Trump has escalated a previously exaggerated claim to a false one. The Green New Deal is a proposal by liberal Democrats to combat climate change. It was introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts.
The legislation does not call for eliminating airplanes, though a draft summary of the plan on Ocasio-Cortez’s website did refer to getting rid of “emissions from cows or air travel.” Her staff has since retracted the post and said that it was incomplete and published by accident.
It is wrong to claim that enforcement of the Green New Deal would lead to “no energy” or no electricity. The legislation calls for the expansion of renewable energy sources, which accounted for about 17.1 percent of electricity generated in the United States in 2018.
What Was Said
“Then in 1913, they ended tariffs.”
False.
The Revenue Act of 1913, or the Underwood Tariff Act, reduced tariff rates to 25 percent from roughly 40 percent but did not eliminate them. Tariffs still accounted for nearly one-third of federal revenue in 1915. Rates were then raised in 1922 and 1930, before liberalization became a consistent trend in U.S. trade policy. Tariffs have generated less than 2 percent of annual federal revenue for the past 70 years.
What Was Said
“So we fired Comey. Schumer who called for his resignation many times. Podesta, I believe that day ... called for his resignation.”
This is exaggerated.
Many Democratic lawmakers had criticized James B. Comey, the former director of the FBI, for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server before he was fired by Trump. But the two men the president singled out had not called for Comey to step down.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, said he had lost confidence in Comey, but he did not say Comey should be ousted. John D. Podesta, the former Clinton campaign manager, called Comey’s handling of the investigation a “mistake” that broke with precedent but specifically declined to press for his resignation.
What Was Said
“We never have empty seats.”
False.
While Trump does draw large, passionate crowds at events and often fills overflow rooms, seats have been empty on occasion. For example, at a May 2017 rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump drew a crowd of roughly 9,500 people in an arena that could hold 11,431, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The New York Times reported that Trump had privately expressed disappointment with empty chairs at an August rally in West Virginia.
What Was Said
“I flew to Iraq — first time I left the White House because I stayed in the White House for months and months because I wanted the Democrats to get back from their vacations from Hawaii and these other places.”
False.
Trump visited troops in Iraq on Dec. 26, but that was far from his first outing in months. He traveled to the National Cathedral in Washington on Christmas Eve and went to Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 15. Other trips took him to the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia on Dec. 8, a law enforcement event in Missouri on Dec. 7, the Group of 20 meeting in Argentina from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, and campaign rallies in Mississippi on Nov. 26. He also celebrated Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Other claims
Trump also made at least nine other inaccurate claims that The Times has previously fact-checked:
— He understated the number of Electoral College votes Clinton won as 223. (It was 232.)
— He exaggerated the United States’ annual trade deficit with China as $500 billion. (It was $336 billion in 2017.)
— He exaggerated the United States’ annual trade deficit with the rest of the world as $800 billion. (It was $553 billion in 2017.)
— He misleadingly claimed that the news media would have deemed the level of job creation and reduction in food stamp participation “impossible.” (The numbers are on par with figures reached before he took office.)
— He falsely claimed military spending had reached levels “nobody’s ever heard of.” (Congress authorized more money for the military several years under President Barack Obama.)
— He falsely claimed just 3 percent of detained unauthorized immigrants “come back for a trial.” (About 72 percent showed up in the 2017 fiscal year.)
— He misleadingly claimed Democrats voted to “execute” babies after birth. (Infants are rarely born alive after abortion procedures, and if they are, doctors do not kill them.)
— He misleadingly claimed “we just got” Veterans Choice. (The health care program has existed since 2014, though Trump did enact changes.)
— He falsely claimed “you couldn’t fire anybody in the VA” before he took office. (He signed a law that would make it easier to remove bad employees, but the department had been able to fire people before.)