By Daniel Dale, CNN
Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain, a freshman Republican member of Congress, made a series of false claims in a short speech at former President Donald Trump’s rally outside Detroit on Saturday — notably including an assertion that Trump, who has endorsed her for re-election, was the president who caught terrorist Osama bin Laden.
McClain’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment on her false claims in the rally speech, which ran for under six minutes. McClain tweeted Monday: “Joe Biden misspeaks every single day and the media pays no attention to it. Isn’t it ironic how I’m under attack for an honest mistake.”
She didn’t specify, however, which of the claims she was calling “an honest mistake.” If she was referring to the remark about bin Laden, that wouldn’t explain the three other remarks we debunk below.
Rattling off what she claimed were Trump accomplishments, McClain said, “Caught Osama bin Laden and Soleimani, al-Baghdadi.”
Facts First: McClain’s claim about bin Laden is false. Bin Laden, the leader of terrorist group al Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan in a 2011 raid ordered by then-President Barack Obama. Trump took office in 2017.
Trump did order the 2020 drone strike in Iraq that killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and he did preside over the 2019 raid in Syria that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
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