FactChecking Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ Interview
In a wide-ranging interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” President Donald Trump repeated several false and misleading claims, while putting a new twist on some of them:
- Trump falsely claimed Russia “wouldn’t be able to help me at all,” even if he had called Russia “to help me with an election” in 2016. Russian companies financed and carried out an extensive social media campaign, and Russian government agents hacked into Democratic computers to obtain and stage the release of damaging documents, U.S. prosecutors allege.
- Trump said “nobody really knows” if North Korea has continued to build more missiles, even after Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un in June. But the Washington Post, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported in July that North Korea was doing just that, and Fox News confirmed the report.
The president also repeated his false claim that the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that caused the controversial separation of families at the Southern border was “the same as the Obama law.” He again wrongly stated that the U.S. pays “almost the entire cost of NATO to protect Europe,” and he overstated the U.S. trade deficit with China.
Russia’s 2016 Election Interference
In his with CBS’ Lesley Stahl, the president that China interfered in the 2016 U.S. election (“I think China meddled too”) and offered a new twist regarding Russia’s role during the presidential campaign. He falsely claimed Russia “wouldn’t be
