It was Trump’s big week in Cleveland, where he was officially named the party nominee, but still found time to skirt the truth on Indiana, Putin and more

Vladimir Putin



“No! No, I haven’t.” – Cleveland, 20 July, in an interview with the New York Times, after being told he has “been very complimentary of Putin himself”.

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Trump has repeatedly called Russia’s president a “strong leader” and spoken approvingly – “praise” by nearly any definition – of this strength and Putin’s polling numbers. For instance, on 18 December 2015 he told MSNBC: “I’ve always felt fine about Putin. I think that he’s a strong leader.”

He added: “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”

Last September, he told Fox News: “In terms of leadership [Putin’s] getting an A.”

In a 10 March debate, Trump tried to hedge on semantics. “Strong doesn’t mean good,” he said. “Putin is a strong leader, absolutely. He is a strong leader. Now I don’t say that in a good way or a bad way. I say it as a fact.”

Idiosyncratic semantics aside, Trump has at minimum praised Putin relative to Barack Obama, and spoken admiringly of his “strength”, and said he considers Putin’s warm words about him a “great honor”.

“He’s been complimentary of me. I think Putin and I will get along very well.” – 20 July, Cleveland

For months, Trump has apparently misinterpreted a Russian word, “яркий”, used by Putin last December to describe him. Trump has claimed Putin called him “a genius”. In context, the word more correctly means “flamboyant” or “colorful”.

Trump likely heard the word translated as “bright” or “brilliant”, though its connotations are often more pejorative than not: bright in the sense of glaring and gaudy, brilliant in the sense of dazzling light.

In June, Putin carefully repeated the word, saying he called Trump “colorful” and nothing else. Last year, though, he said Trump was “talented, without a doubt”.

“It’s not our business to decide his merits, that’s for US voters,” Putin said, stressing that he had no opinion to divulge beyond “colorful”. He did say, however, that he would welcome the rapprochement in Russian-American relations that Trump has suggested.

Indiana

“Indiana, their unemployment rate has fallen when [Mike Pence] was there. When he started 8.4% to less than 5% in May of 2016.” – 16 July, New York

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Trump overstates his vice-presidential pick’s role in his state’s economy, which has tracked nearly in parallel with national numbers on unemployment. Indiana’s unemployment has indeed dropped 3.4% since January 2013, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; but per the Federal Reserve, US unemployment has dropped 3.3% since then, 8% to 4.7%. Trump also has his figures slightly off: preliminary data for May 2016 shows the Indiana unemployment rate at 5% – actually an increase from a recent low of 4.5% in November 2015.

“It’s also rated triple A. Their bonds, are rated triple A. Very few states have that.” – 16 July, New York

Fifteen states have AAA-rated bonds, according to rating agency Standard & Poor’s, amounting nearly a third of the 50 states and thus many more than “very few”. The state was upgraded to AAA in 2008, almost five years before Pence became governor.

“Private sector job growth is up by more than 147,000 jobs since 2013. That’s, like, very unusual.” – 16 July, New York

Trump correctly cites a Bureau of Labor Statistics figure about Indiana’s private-sector jobs, but 18 other states have added more. Some have smaller populations.

Iran

“We gave them back $150bn, and we didn’t get our hostages until the end.” – 16 July, New York

The US is not giving any of its own money to Iran as part of an international nuclear arms deal meant to prevent the construction of weapons. The deal gradually unfreezes assets that belong to Iran but were restricted under sanctions related to the nation’s nuclear program. Sanctions related to human rights, terrorism and other issues remain in place and still lock Iran out of billions.

Trump’s guess of how much Iran will benefit by unfrozen assets is far higher than most experts’ estimates, though not inconceivable. Treasury secretary Jack Lew has put the number at $56bn, and Iranian officials have said both $32bn and $100bn. Independent economists have calculated that Iran will free up anything between $30bn to $100bn. Complicating the math are Iran’s debts: it will have to pay off tens of billions to countries such as China, which have helped it survive through decades of sanctions.

There is no evidence that the brief capture in January of 10 American sailors had any effect on the nuclear deal, which had been finalized five months earlier, although the incident rattled fragile relations between Washington and Tehran. A few days after the sailors were released, United Nations inspectors confirmed that Iran had complied with the deal.

Brexit

“I said that in Scotland and in the UK, that was going to happen. I was the one that predicted it. And everybody said, he’s wrong, he’s wrong.” – 16 July, New York

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Trump did pronounce an opinion on whether the UK should vote to leave the European Union, but it was never a prediction and was waffling at best.

“I would say that they’re better off without it, personally, but I’m not making that as a recommendation,” he said a May interview with Fox News. “I want them to make their own decision.”

In an interview with Fox Business on 22 June, just before the Brexit vote, Trump not only did not predict an exit but discredited his own opinion.

“I don’t think anybody should listen to me because I haven’t really focused on it very much,” he said.

Many leaders argued the UK should not leave the EU, warning that the pound would crash and Britain’s economy would suffer, as it has in the last month, but none said Trump’s prediction was “wrong” – because Trump made no prediction.

Repeat offenders

“I said, ‘Don’t go into Iraq.’ Nobody cared because I was a businessperson, I was a civilian.” – 16 July, New York

“We have massive trade deficits. I could see that, if instead of having a trade deficit worldwide of $800bn, we had a trade positive of $100bn, $200bn, $800bn.” – 20 July, Cleveland

Trump again lied about his initial, if tepid, support for the Iraq war, and again gave an inflated account of the US deficit. You can read more about those claims here and here.