One day after FBI agents executed a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, he posted a campaign-style video that has the earmarks of a nascent campaign to reclaim the presidency.
We’ve tried to be judicious about fact-checking Trump since he left the White House, but this seems like a good opportunity to scrutinize some of the claims he makes to audiences at his rallies. Here’s a line-by-line accounting of Trump’s statements of material fact, avoiding opinions, in the order in which they appear in the ad. The narration appears to come from a variety of speeches, spliced together to appear like a coherent argument. We assessed 18 statements — and found 89 percent were false or misleading.
True. The Labor Department reported that inflation in June was 9.1 percent — the fastest increase in prices since November 1981.
“ … where the stock market just finished the worst first half of a year in more than five decades.”
True. The S&P 500 index fell more than 21 percent in the first six months of 2022, the worst half since 1970. Stocks had risen sharply in the early part of President Biden’s tenure so even with that loss the stock market was essentially flat from when he took office. As Trump himself knows, the stock market is a fickle barometer of a president’s performance.
False. Trump is speaking about nominal prices, not real prices. Gasoline prices spiked after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but adjusted for inflation, monthly retail prices...
Athena Construction Group Inc. must pay about $1 million for violating the False Claims Act by making misrepresentations about its eligibility to receive contracts set aside for HUBZone companies,...