The Yellow Fist

Sup

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

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

[Jake Tapper 🦅 @jaketapper]

Data shows some veterans wait months to see a therapist for the first time. The VA secretary has his own numbers

https://t.co/t3Aix729o1

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Most recent inflation rate: 3.5% in June
Inflation rate Trump inherited: 3.0% in Jan. 2025/2.9% in Dec. 2024
All-time record inflation rate: 23.7% in 1920
Carter-era peak: 14.8% in 1980
Biden-era peak: 9.1%, highest in 40 years…in June 2022, two-and-a-half years before Trump took office

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

President Trump has repeatedly asked Americans to “remember” past events that never happened except in his own made-up stories: https://t.co/TYi2qG1FpI

[Brandon Richards 🐻 @BrandonRichards]

This @ddale8 fact check has gotten a lot of use over the years …

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

"Remember that?" the president asks after telling a completely imaginary story that makes no sense. https://t.co/VDxfgyF3zF

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

The poll the White House is citing here was conducted three weeks ago, June 26-28, before the US and Iran resumed regularly attacking each other. (I’ll leave aside questions about the quality of the polling.) https://t.co/Rdgd53o59v

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Trump said here that the prices of oil and gas are among those “dropping FAST after the disaster we inherited” from Biden…except both are up again this week and month and substantially higher than he inherited from Biden 18 months ago. The national average gas price is $4, per AAA, up 88 cents from $3.12 on Trump’s Inauguration Day.

[Brian Schwartz @schwartzbWSJ]

SCOOP: Top Treausry tax official and acting IRS chief counsel Ken Kies was ousted from his job after he warned that the White House was at risk of violating a federal law prohibiting senior officials’ involvement in IRS audits.

Story w/ @RichardRubinDC and @jdawsey1
https://t.co/r8Mwdso4kP

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Trump’s lie that he publicly warned against the 2003 invasion of Iraq was debunked a full decade ago. He didn’t say “don’t go into Iraq.” Asked six months before the invasion if he supported the idea, he said, “Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.” In early 2003, he said Bush “has either got to do something or not do something, perhaps.”

He started expressing some criticism soon after the invasion and became an explicit opponent of the war in 2004, a year after the invasion. That’s certainly earlier than many other public figures, but it’s not the ignored pre-war warning he regularly describes.

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Leaving aside his false claim that nobody else has settled a war, here are the eight items on President Trump’s “ended eight wars” list:
- A diplomatic dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia that was never a war
- Some sort of mystery situation between Serbia and Kosovo that also wasn’t a war under Trump
- The war in the eastern DRC that has never actually ended despite a US-brokered peace agreement
- The 12-day war between Israel and Iran last year, though Israel proceeded to join the US in going to war with Iran this year
- The war between Israel and Hamas, though Israel has continued to conduct near-daily attacks in Gaza despite a US-brokered ceasefire
- An India-Pakistan ceasefire Pakistan vocally credits Trump for but India claims Trump had nothing to do with
- The Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement and Thailand-Cambodia ceasefire in which all parties say Trump/his team was indeed a significant factor

[The Yellow Fist @TheYellowFist]

@ddale8 Also claims that every woman who ever rejected him is a lesbian.

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

More fake history from President Trump: His claim that George Washington had “two desks” in his office, one for official matters and one for his personal business matters, is false. It was debunked by Washington historians when Trump said it in 2019.

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

President Trump's regular claim that 38,000 Americans died building the Panama Canal, which he repeated tonight, is not close to true.

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

President Trump repeated long-debunked lies while talking about the Supreme Court ruling today on mail-in ballots and the ruling expected tomorrow on birthright citizenship. Quick fact check of some of his claims:

1) Falsely claimed mail-in voting is “really dishonest"; it's a legitimate voting method used by legitimate voters, including Trump himself. to cast legitimate ballots. All evidence shows fraud rates are tiny even though they're slightly higher than with in-person voting.

2) Falsely described what Jimmy Carter and a Carter-led 2005 commission said about mail-in ballots; Carter didn't say "you can't have them" and the commission didn't say cheating was inevitable when they're used. Though the commission was skeptical of mail-in voting, it also: highlighted how Oregon was holding successful mail-only elections by introducing key safeguards; offered recommendations for making mail-in voting more secure; said further research was needed on the pros and cons.

3) Falsely claimed of bithright citizenship, “We’re the only nation that does it. No other nation does that birthright citizenship. No one; not even close.” About three dozen countries provide automatic citizenship to people born on their soil, including Canada, Mexico and the majority of South American countries.

4) Claimed, “We’re the only country in the world that does this type of mail-in ballot.” Didn't explain what he meant by "this type of," so can't call this false, but dozens of countries use mail-in ballots, and several wealthy nations, including Canada, the UK, Germany and Switzerland, allow widespread use of them.

Links for more info are below.

[The Yellow Fist @TheYellowFist]

@RepJoshG @jaketapper Huh?

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

President Trump, who five years ago asked Georgia's elections chief to somehow find the exact number of votes Trump needed to overturn his 2020 defeat in the state, lies of Democrats: "They cheat. 'How many votes do we need, how many votes?' That's why they take their time. 'How many votes do we need?' 'OK, here they are.'"

[ABC News @ABC]

Former ABC News producer and driver Maksym "Max" Oseredchuk was killed in a Russian drone strike on Wednesday night while serving in Ukraine’s military. He was 30 years old, and is survived by his wife, Kateryna, and his baby daughter, Maria.
https://t.co/AO8nBgU1Wv

[Atul Gawande @Atul_Gawande]

Independent analyses estimate that your actions to dismantle USAID and drastically reduce lifesaving foreign aid have already killed 700,000 people. Here are some of those people. 🧵https://t.co/aKdQpk9QTW

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Trump post this afternoon: “Everybody stayed right until the end of my Speech.”

(This is false basically every time he says it; no matter how big and supportive the crowd on a given day, some people inevitably leave before he’s done.)