President Donald Trump abandoned his teleprompter in favor of impromptu musings in a speech at a retreat for House Republicans on Tuesday. And those ad-libbed Trump comments were filled with false claims.
Trump littered his meandering address with at least 18 inaccurate statements, most of which have been previously debunked. Here is a fact check of some of his assertions; this is not intended as a comprehensive list of falsehoods.
Murder in Washington, DC: Trump touted last year’s federal takeover of law enforcement in Washington, DC, and he falsely claimed the capital hasn’t had a single murder “in seven months,” though he did note the deadly attack that killed a member of the National Guard in November. In fact, there have been dozens of additional murders in Washington, DC, in the last seven months, as police statistics and Washington Post tracking show – including some in the last two weeks. Local police announced last week that a man was shot dead on December 31, another man died December 28 after being shot days prior, and a third man had been shot dead on December 27.
Where the capital ranks on crime: Trump also falsely claimed, “Washington, DC, is now the safest city in the country.” Crime data expert Jeff Asher told CNN in a text on Tuesday: “That’s obviously not true.” It’s not yet clear where the capital currently ranks compared to every other US city, since crime data takes time to trickle in from around the country, but it is abundantly clear that it’s far...
In a Truth Social post following the incident, Trump said video he'd seen of Minneapolis, Minnesota shooting shows the driver "violently, wilfully and viciously ran over" the ICE agent and the he a...