Trump’s Phoenix Fiction

Summary

President Donald Trump delivered a raucous, error-filled speech in Arizona on Aug. 22, just days after he was uniformly criticized for blaming “both sides” for the deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The president gave a revisionist account of his remarks about Charlottesville, exaggerated his accomplishments, and made a series of false and misleading claims:

• Trump cherry-picked excerpts from his past statements about Charlottesville to put a positive spin on his remarks. But in his retelling, Trump failed to say he blamed “both sides” for the violence that left one counterprotester dead and 19 others injured.
• Trump also wrongly suggested that the media didn’t report that he had said “racism is evil,” a quote from his second statement — on Monday, Aug. 14 — on the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. That quote was widely reported by the media.
• Trump, who spent a large part of the rally bashing the media, also wrongly claimed CNN’s ratings “are going down.” In fact, they’ve gone up.
• The president falsely claimed that wages “haven’t gone up for a long time.” Average weekly earnings for all private workers went up 4 percent during the last four years of President Obama’s tenure.
• Trump exaggerated when he claimed that he has created “way over 1 million” jobs since taking office. The actual increase is 1,074,000 jobs — a little less than the more than 1.2 million that were added during the same time frame a year ago.
• The president also said the nation’s economy under his leadership has surged, describing the estimated 2.6 percent growth in the nation’s real gross domestic product for the second quarter as “shocking.” In fact, it is below the growth rate for eight of the last 18 quarters.
• Trump claimed “we were one vote away from repealing” the Affordable Care Act. But the vote would have sent a placeholder “skinny repeal” bill to a conference committee with the House. The House and Senate would have had to agree upon final legislation.
• Trump said by allowing insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines, “your prices go way down.” But experts have disputed that idea.
• Trump claimed the U.S. has “become an energy exporter for the first time ever just recently.” That’s false. The U.S. still imports more energy than it exports. The Energy Information Administration projects the U.S. will become a net exporter of energy — in 2026.
• Trump also boasted that he has “obtained [a] historic increase in defense spending.” He hasn’t. His proposed budget for fiscal 2018 would increase defense spending by 5 percent — far less than the double-digit increases under Presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
• The president touted that he has signed 50 bills and boasted that he doesn’t “believe that any president has accomplished as much as this president.” In fact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 76 bills in his first 100 days, including the kinds of major legislation that Trump lacks.
• Trump said “both of the countries” — Mexico and Canada — have “such great deals” under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Actually, the U.S. had a trade surplus in goods and services with Canada for the last two years.

Analysis

Revising History on Charlottesville

The president to supporters in Phoenix, Arizona — one in a series of rallies staged by his campaign since he became president. Trump also has held campaign rallies in , and  — states that he won and needs to maintain if he wants to win reelection more than three years from now.