WASHINGTON – Republican presidential candidate had no public events on Sunday, Sept. 25 as he prepared for the first debate on Monday. He did, however, appear in a televised interview with journalist Sharyl Attkisson. And he made four false claims:

Falsely said, “We’re losing more than $400 billion a year with China, in terms of a trade deficit.” (Leaving aside the economically dubious characterization of a trade deficit as “losing” money, last year’s deficit with China was about $337 billion; counting only trade in goods and excluding trade in services, it was $367 billion. The 2016 deficit is on pace to be lower.)

Falsely said, “We have a trade deficit $800 – almost $800 billion a year.” (The overall 2015 trade deficit was $532 billion. It may well be lower for 2016. When only goods trade is included, the 2015 deficit was $746 billion, so Trump’s figure would be closer, but he has stopped specifying that he is not counting services.)

Falsely said, “I think that the most respected economists are on my side, to be honest with you.” (Few if any top economists are supporting Trump, certainly not most. For example, the Wall Street Journal found in August that Trump does not have the support of a single member of the Council of Economic Advisers dating back a half-century. While a group of economists “concerned by Hillary Clinton’s economic agenda” have signed a joint letter, they are not endorsing Trump; the most prominent signatory, Nobel Prize winner Eugene Fama, told the Star, “I don’t support either. Both are big government types.” Another signatory, Charles Calorimis, said, “I am an undecided voter.”)

Falsely said, on the subject of “banning” particular journalists from presidential events: “No, I don’t see that, but a lot of people have done it, and a lot of people, a lot of different businesses have done it.” (While Richard Nixon mused about banning a L.A. Times journalist he disliked, he did not. Nor is there evidence that “a lot” of major companies have done so.)

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