I wasn’t planning on doing a full fact check of the many lies Trump told during his last town hall on Fox News last week but once I got started I couldn’t stop. I openly admit I might have missed a few as he lies which such frequency it’s difficult to keep up or catch every false statement.
Trump not only exaggerated this record about his time as president he also completely invented scenarios from his twisted imagination. I figured this article will be a useful resource as he will likely repeat these same falsehoods and add to more lies before the general election in November.
Buckle up. This is a long list.
Trump Town Hall - Wednesday January 10, 2024 - 9:00 p.m.
Moderated by: Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum
Duration: 45 minutes
Bret Baier and Martha McCallum opened the event with a media clip, recorded earlier that day, of Chris Christie suspending his campaign.
“It's clear to me tonight that there isn't a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I'm suspending my campaign tonight for president of the United States. I'm going to make sure that in no way to I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again,” said Christie.
MacCallum asked Trump if he thought Nikki Haley would be a threat to him now that Christie was out of the race. Trump implied that New Hampshire wasn’t a fair state for him since Democrats and independents are allowed to vote in the Republican primary.
It seemed like he was laying track for another version of “the election was rigged,” should Haley beat him in the Granite State.
Bret Baier asked a number of questions that were insightful and pointed but offered no pushback or follow up. There was also no attempt to fact check or correct Trump on several obvious lies.
When Baier asked the former president, ‘So can you say tonight that political violence is never acceptable?”
Trump answered, “Well, of course, that's right. And of course, I'm the one that had very little of it. Take a look at wars again. I didn't start. I wasn't involved in wars.”
Baier also asked him about his statements that he hoped the economy would crash in the next 12 months.
Trump answered,
“I say that and I do not want to be Herbert Hoover. Do you know who Herbert Hoover was? Nineteen twenty-nine he was the president. And that was not a good time to be. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover and I won't be Herbert Hoover.”
Baier could have easily pointed out that Trump was far more concerned with how he would be perceived rather than how a bad economy might affect the American people.
Overall the Fox News hosts treated Trump like he was a bratty teenager with a delicate ego who might storm off the set if he was even slightly annoyed. The cultish live audience sounded like a canned laugh track as they chuckled along with every lame joke Trump trotted out.
It was a complete travesty of epic proportions. My apologizes if I missed anything this was a bit overwhelming to write up. He lied so much it was hard to keep track of everything.
Some of Trump’s false claims:
On the U.S.military
Trump knocked out ISIS - Not only is ISIS still active in the Middle East just last week the group claimed responsibility for a double bombing terrorist attack in Iraq that killed at least 84 people.
Trump removed all of the U.S. troops in Iraq - Military leaders successfully prevented Trump from pulling all troops out of Syria and Iraq. There are currently 2500 U.S. troops in Iraq. The U.S. military provides training and equipment to Iraqi forces. ISIS and Iran are both destabilizing forces for the Iraqi government. The troops in Iraq also help support the U.S. forces in Syria, and U.S. allies in the Middle East.
Trump was the only president in 72 years to have no wars. - Jimmy Carter was president from 1977 to 1981. Carter never formally declared war or sought authorization to use force from Congress. Trump also escalated military commitments in Iraq and Syria and at least 65 active duty troops died in hostile action during Trump’s presidency.
Trump claimed his commitment to NATO in his second term, “depends on if they treated us properly.” - Trump has repeatedly misrepresented how NATO is funded. In 2014 NATO countries agreed to spend 2% of their GDP on their own defense, a goal they were supposed to hit by 2024. Trump acts as if any shortfall of that guideline is paid for by U.S. taxpayers but that’s not the case. There is a general fund which all NATO countries pay into that has a relatively small budget of $2.9 billion. After Trump’s many public statements about the alliance the U.S. portion paid into the general fund was reduced from 22% to 16% which is the same amount Germany, the largest economy in Europe, contributes. The U.S. spends about 3.4% of its GDP on defense but the U.S. military is the largest in the world with bases outside of Europe that play no role in NATO.
Biden gave $85 billion worth of our military to Afghanistan. - Trump has made this claim several times before. That was also his exact phrasing. He did not use the term equipment he just said “$85 billion worth of our military.” The real amount is $82.9 billion which comes from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) - a quarterly report from July 2021. The report laid out all of the U.S. military spending appropriated in Afghanistan over a 20-year period from the start of the U.S. invasion. Most of the money was not spent on equipment or weapons. The equipment portion of the spending is closer to $18.6 billion over a period of 16 years. The U.S. left about $7 billion dollars worth of equipment which was meant for the Afghani military which collapsed almost as soon as the U.S. withdrew from the country. Some of the equipment was left inoperable or was so technically advanced it could not be easily operated or maintained without specialized training.
Trump’s claim - we left 70,000 vehicles in Afghanistan many of them armored plated vehicles. I found where Trump might have gotten that number but it was based on the opinion of Adam Andrzejewski of Open The Books. Andrzejewski was referencing the total number of vehicles used over a twenty year period in the conflict. He also made this statement right after the withdrawal. He would have no actual firsthand knowledge of the exact equipment left behind. I found the following numbers on both USA Today and BBC. According to a Pentagon spokesperson the U.S. left the following vehicles in Afghanistan.
70 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles
27 Humvee all-terrain military vehicle
A Business Insider article from March 2023 featured images of 300 armored vehicles the Taliban claimed to have repaired and put back into use. There was no verification in the article that the vehicles were operational. The Taliban could’ve just lined up armored vehicles for a photo op to make it appear that they were in good working condition.
The Economy
The U.S. economy was the best it’s ever been during the Trump admin. - Unemployment was low but growth in the GDP was well below what it was under other presidents. Wages and business investment was also decent to mediocre.
The U.S. had no inflation during the Trump admin. - Inflation was low under Trump but there’s no time in recent history that any president has had a 0% inflation rate. Most economists believe that 2% inflation is the sweet spot for a healthy economy although there is some debate about the ideal percentage.
The stock market is up because I’m (Trump) leading in the polls - There’s no way to disprove or prove a statement like that but the market generally reacts to economic indicators such as jobs report, the consumer price index, interest rates, global conflicts or any news that might improve or hurt the U.S. economy. The market reacts quickly. The election is 11 months out so it’s highly unlikely that the stock market is up due to any presidential poll.
I took in $400 billion in tariffs and taxes from China - Trump has misled the public about how tariff work for years. Tariffs are not paid by the Chinese government directly into the U.S. treasury. When a tariff is placed on a Chinese import the cost of the good increases. An importer would have to pay more for the item. The increased price then gets pushed down the supply chain until it impacts U.S. consumers. Tariffs are supposed to make imported goods more expensive and less competitive with domestically manufactured products. A tariff only boosts domestic manufacturing if there is a similar item in the marketplace that is less expensive when compared to the imported good. China also retaliated by placing tariffs on American exports which caused all kind of problems for farmers in the U.S.. Trump ended up paying out billions to farmers to help make up for the loss of trade with China.
Source - Politico “‘Here’s your check’: Trump’s massive payouts to farmers will be hard to pull back.”
Terrorism
We had no terrorist attacks during my (Trump) administration - Trump tried to imply his travel ban that restricted people from several Muslim dominant countries from entering the U.S. prevented any acts of terrorism. There were several terrorist attacks during the Trump administration, some were even carried out by Islamic extremists. Trump actually discussed one of the attacks that occurred during his admin. in his 2018 State of the Union address.
The Oil and Gas Industry
We were about to “pay off our debt" using revenue from the oil and gas industry In 2022 the profits from the entire oil & gas industry in the U.S. amounted to $200 billion. The profits do not add income to the U.S. treasury. The federal government does make royalties and fees off of leases of oil and gas extracted from public land. About 80% of all oil in the U.S. is extracted from privately held land. When Trump left office the national debt climbed to $27.75 trillion. During the Trump admin COVID-19 spending, generous tax cuts that mostly favored the wealthy, and costly executive actions largely offset by a unilateral expansion of tariffs increased the debt $8.4 trillion. Even if the United States seized control of the entire oil and gas industry the revenue from the sale of crude oil would not even come close to paying off the debt.
We were about to start supplying energy to Europe and Asia - This one is a little complicated to unpack but the United States is both the largest producer and consumer of crude oil in terms of individual countries.
The crude oil extracted from the U.S. is not the most commonly used in the country. So, even as U.S. production of crude oil has ramped up we continue to import millions of barrels of oil every day. Canada is the largest supplier of oil for the U.S.
Oil and gas is traded on the global market and most of it comes from OPEC and OPEC+ countries which account for about 59% of all oil production.
Currently the U.S. is the largest supplier of oil to the E.U. but that has nothing to do with Trump or his policies.
The E.U. severely reduced trade with Russia after the start of the Ukraine War. Before the war Russia had been a major supplier of both natural gas and crude oil for Europe.
We (Trump admin) had gas down to $1.78 a gallon - this is true but misleading. Under Obama gasoline got as low as $1.72 in 2016. The number Trump cites is from the peak of the pandemic when demand for gasoline plummeted. During his administration the price of gasoline peaked at $2.96 a gallon and was $2.39 when he left office. The president does not control the price of gasoline. The price is affected by supply and demand along with a myriad of forces outside of the control or influence of the United States government.
Trump claimed gasoline currently costs $4.00 to $5.00 a gallon - The national average for the cost of gasoline per gallon is $3.07. The price on the day of Trump’s town hall was almost identical.
Your heating bills are four or five times higher now - I couldn’t find anything to support this claim. Heating costs spiked in 2022 but dropped in 2023. The Energy Information Administration expects a 20% drop in heating costs this winter due to lower natural gas prices and lower winter temperatures.
Biden drove up the price of oil up to $100 a barrel which was very close to the record - The highest price paid for a barrel of crude oil was $147.27 during the last recession in July 2008. Trump also made the statement that the U.S. had the highest cost of energy in history under Biden which is also not true.
The price of oil is what caused Putin to prosecute a war - There’s no one reason why Putin decided to invade Ukraine but Russia’s military aggression towards the country started in February 2014 when Russia illegally annexed Crimea. It could also be argued that Russia has tried to influence and control Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Oil was at $40 a barrel during my (Trump) admin. - Near the end of Trump’s final year in office the price of oil crashed below $19 a barrel due to a lack of demand during the pandemic. The price was so low it was catestrophic for U.S. shale oil companies. Over half of all oil in the U.S. is extracted through fracking which is more expensive than traditional drilling. When the cost of oil per barrel dropped that low it actually cost more to extract oil than it was worth.
New Hampshire has the highest cost of energy in the nation - I’m not sure what metric Trump was using when he made this claim but according to EnergyBot.com New Hampshire is #7 in terms of cost for residential and and business consumers. Hawaii has the highest energy costs in the country. Another source, WalletHub, listed New Hampshire as the ninth most expensive state for energy.
The U.S. has more liquid gold (oil & gas) under our feet than Saudi Arabia more than Russia - Venezuela has the the largest oil reserves in the world at 18.2%, Saudi Arabia is a close second at 16.2%. Russia is has the 8th largest reserves or 4.1% and the United States has the 11th largest reserves at 2.1%. In terms of natural gas Russia has most at 24.3% and the United States comes in 4th with 5.3% of the total natural gas reserves.
COVID-19 and Medicine
Trump saved thousands of lives with ‘Right to Try’ - In 2018 Trump signed the Right to Try law that allowed some patients with life-threatening illnesses to use drugs that haven’t been approved by the FDA. The FDA already had a similar program when Right to Try was enacted. According to reporting by The Washington Post in August 2020 fewer than 10 people used the law to get treatments . I couldn’t find any publication that had reported on Right to Try after 2020. I discovered another source that cited a total of six patients who had also gotten drugs under the law .
The governors who did the best (with COVID-19) were Republicans who didn’t shut down their states. According to a study by Johns Hopkins states led by Republican governors had higher rates of COVID-19 infections and a higher death rate per capita. Trump might have been referencing economic outcomes in each state but he didn’t clarify what he meant.
The Border and Immigration
We got Mexico to give us 28,000 soldiers free of charge - Mexico did not give the U.S. any soldiers. During the Trump administration the Mexican government deployed 26,000 troops to help stop the flow of illegal immigration. The troops were split between Mexico’s northern and southern border.
Abortion
They (Democrats) are the radicals because they're willing to kill the baby in eight months, nine months, or even after birth. The is no movement in the U.S. by any political organization to legalize the murder of a newborn child. Late term abortions are extremely rare, expensive and difficult to get. They are usually performed due to a severe fetal abnormality, an unviable pregnancy or a risk to the life of the mother. According to data collected by the CDC about 93% of abortions are performed in the first trimester with 1% past 21 weeks.
Trump also repeatedly said that Republicans had tried for 54 years to repeal Roe v Wade. This might seem like a small detail but I have no idea why neither moderator corrected this obvious mistake. The Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion was decided on January 22, 1973. The Dobbs decision that repealed it was decided on June 24, 2022 - a total of 49 years not 54.
Hunter Biden
Biden got $3.5 million dollars from the mayor of Moscow’s wife - Trump didn’t specify if he was speaking about Hunter Biden or Joe Biden but there is no evidence that Hunter or his father got any money from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow. Baturina hasn’t lived in Russia since 2010. She unsuccessfully sued the Russian government for $1 billion over land she claimed was seized by the Russian government. She paid Rosemont Seneca Thornton a $3.5 million consulting fee. Baturina later used Rosemont Seneca Thornton to help her purchase a large amount of Brooklyn real estate. Hunter Biden was not a partner in Rosemont Seneca Thornton and there is no evidence that earned anything from the deal.
Ownership of The Trump Organization During Trump’s Presidency
I put everything I had into a trust - Records released in 2017 to ProPublica under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Trump remained closely tied to his business empire while he was president. A recent report from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee found that Trump’s company received at least $7.8 million in payments from the foreign governments and officials of 20 countries, including China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Outrageous things Trump said during the town hall:
“The media hates it when I call them (Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping) smart but they are very smart and they are very cunning.”
“And frankly, until COVID came along and then we did a great job on that, too. We never got the kind of credit that I got on the economy, but we had the greatest economy in history.”
“We have terrible inflation, and you know, you're never going to get that 30% down. You might even it, but you're not going to get it down.”
“Dr. Fauci was not a huge factor in my administration. He became a much bigger factor in Biden's administration . . .Ron DeSantis was a big Dr. Fauci fan, and nobody wants to cover that. I say it every time”.
“This country cannot sustain 15 or 16 million people, because I think that's the real number. I think by the time his administration ends and hopefully quickly, it's going to be 18 million people that's bigger than New York State. That's bigger than just about every state other than one or two. 18 million people, remember this. Many of those people come from jails and prisons. Many of those people come from mental institutions, prisons and insane asylums. And many of those people are terrorists.” Trump is incorrect on the population of New York State. New York has a population of 19.84 million. He also didn’t have anything to back up his claim that 15-16 million migrants have illegally entered the country.
“But I used to say, don't go into Iraq. Don't do it, don't do it. But if you're going to do it, keep the oil. Remember, keep the oil. They didn't keep the. So they have $300 billion and we have nothing. We have nothing. You know, they used to say about wars to the victor belong the spoils. We go into some place we obliterated and then we leave.”
Coming up…
I should have a breakdown of all four Republican town halls from last week for my paid subscribers later today. I’m planning on publishing my weekly newsletter/podcast a day early to avoid overlap with the Iowa caucus. This is going to be an intense year. Thank you so much for your support.
Great job! You are quite a worker; I don't know how you manage to do it. (Well, I guess I do know it's basically your life, and I'm sure your cats help, but I'm still impressed!)