Fact check on some of President Trump's comments at his Cabinet meeting:
- On the cyberattacks against local water systems, there’s absolutely zero basis for Trump’s bizarre assertion that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was “behind it.” Trump made no mention of the governors of the six other states the FBI says have been targeted this week. CNN reports that US and state officials consider Iran a suspect in the attacks.
- Trump said Iran still has “some” missiles and “some” drones but then said a bit later, again, that “everything is all gone,” which he had implicitly fact-checked himself with his acknowledgment that not everything is all gone...
- Trump said he’s “ended eight wars.” He simply hasn’t; his list is wildly inflated; see my previous tweet.
- Trump said, “We're building more factories and plants in this country than we've ever built before.” The White House could not identify any source for this claim when I inquired this week. Federal figures show that spending on manufacturing construction has declined month after month this Trump term after a spike that occurred during most of the Biden presidency.
- Trump said, "When we took office, we inherited a total catastrophe. The last administration created the worst inflation in 48 years.” The inflation rate did hit a 40-year (not 48-year) high under Biden, 9.1%…but that was in June 2022, two-and-a-half years before Trump returned to office, when he inherited a rate of 3.0%, which was lower than the 3.5% rate of this June.
- Trump said, "This month, it was announced that inflation is dropping at the fastest rate in more than six years.” *Did* drop last month, true, but not “is dropping” now; the steep decline of June was largely because gas prices fell sharply amid the ceasefire with Iran. In July, gas prices have jumped back up.
- Trump said, as usual, that Biden let in “25 million” migrants, a massive exaggeration even wilder than the previous “21 million” figure he has further inflated without explanation; he also said, as usual, that Biden let in 11,888 murderers, a gross distortion of federal data on people who entered over the course of decades including Trump’s own first administration.
Details: https://t.co/mrIwoP10Gv
Maddow: So in January, Trump buys hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Nvidia. Then a week later, his commerce department approves the sale of Nvidia chips to China.
Also in January, Trump buys between 50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in AMD. One week after he buys it, his commerce department approves AMD doing business in China as well.
The following month, in February, Trump buys millions of dollars worth of stock in Dell. Nine days after he buys millions of dollars worth of stock in Dell, Trump veers off script in a speech in Georgia to tell the crowd literally, quote, go out and buy a Dell computer.
Then in March, Judd Legum at Popular Information reports that Trump repeatedly buys up Thermo Fisher stock, and then he goes and visits Thermo Fisher on a presidential visit and praises the company.
That same day, Trump bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Apple. And then that same day he bought the stock, he did another event where he singled out Apple and Apple CEO Tim cook for praise. Apple a great company.
Then after that, Trump buys Micron stock. The very next day, he calls into the Fox News channel and tells them Micron is one of the hottest companies.
CNBC reporting Trump makes seven separate purchases of Palantir stock. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Palantir stock. Then he gets on truth social and praises Palantir.
Spirit danced with bankruptcy & was plagued by management issues for quite some time. Then - this unprofitable organization- with almost no cushion got hit with soaring jet fuel costs.
That is the story.