Fact check: President Trump's first week on the job

Caroline Wallace and Eugene Kiely | FactCheck.org

During his first week in office, President Donald Trump made several false and misleading claims about the inauguration crowd size, voter fraud, the Affordable Care Act and other issues.

Here’s our roundup of Trump’s first full week in office:

President Trump on the intelligence community, Jan. 21 remarks at CIA headquarters: “I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth. And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community.”

Trump engaged in revisionist history when he accused the “dishonest” media of making “it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community.” In fact, Trump made numerous disparaging remarks about the U.S. intelligence community.

Trump belittled the intelligence community’s work and questioned its motives in a series of statements and tweets before and after the election. His disagreement with the intelligence community stemmed from the IC’s investigation of Russian cyber attacks on Democratic committees and officials. For months, Trump refused to accept the intelligence community’s findings of Russia’s meddling in the election and questioned its track record and motives. Most recently, on Jan. 11, Trump claimed the IC had leaked an unsubstantiated report to take “one last shot at me,” and compared it to “living in Nazi Germany.”

“Trump and Intelligence Community,” Jan. 23

Trump on inauguration crowd size, Jan. 21 remarks at CIA headquarters: “But, you know, we have something that’s amazing because we had — it looked — honestly, it looked like a million and a half people. Whatever it was, it was. But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument.”

Trump complained that the media had misrepresented the number of people attending his inauguration. But his statement that the crowd “looked like a million-and-a-half people” was unsupported, and his claim that it “went all the way back to the Washington Monument” was false.

Photos of the crowd, including one taken at 12:01 p.m. from the top of the Washington Monument, clearly show that the crowd witnessing Trump’s inauguration didn’t extend all the way to the monument. There is no official crowd size estimate, but public transit ridership figures show fewer trips were taken this year than for past inaugurations.

“The Facts on Crowd Size,” Jan. 23

Trump on voter fraud, Jan. 23 meeting with congressional leaders: The new president told congressional leaders at a closed-door meeting that between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with ABC News’ David Muir, Trump confirmed reports of his comments on voter fraud. “I said it strongly because what’s going on with voter fraud is horrible.”

The president went on to make multiple false claims about voter fraud. He falsely claimed that a Pew Charitable Trusts report supports his claim that millions of people voted illegally. When told that an author of the report said that Pew did not find any evidence of fraud, Trump falsely claimed the Pew report “all of a sudden changed.”

The Pew report found that “more than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters” and that “approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.” The report’s authors said it shows that voter rolls are “susceptible to fraud,” though they did not claim it was evidence of actual fraud. In fact, voting experts we talked to pointed to numerous studies that have found such in-person voter fraud — the type of fraud Trump is alleging — is virtually nonexistent.

“Trump’s Bogus Voter Fraud Claims Revisited,” Jan. 25

“More Trump Deception on Voter Fraud,” Jan. 26

Trump on the Affordable Care Act, Jan. 25 interview with ABC News: “So nobody ever deducts all the people that have already lost their health insurance that liked it. You had millions of people that liked their health insurance and their healthcare and their doctor and where they went. You had millions of people that now aren’t insured anymore.”

Trump challenged the estimate that 18 million Americans could lose insurance if the ACA is repealed with no replacement, falsely claiming that “nobody ever deducts” from that number the “millions of people that now aren’t insured anymore” after their policies were canceled. In fact, there has been a net increase of 20 million people who are insured since ACA was enacted and most of those who had their insurance policies canceled found other insurance.

The claim that “millions” lost their insurance or their doctor is a longstanding GOP talking point based on the fact that many with individual market plans received cancellation notices in 2013. That’s when their plans no longer met minimum benefit standards required under the ACA. But that talking point is misleading — those specific plans were discontinued; policyholders weren’t denied coverage. Regardless, the numbers presented by researchers on insurance gains under the ACA are net. That is, the numbers account for those who, as Trump said, “aren’t insured anymore.”

“Trump on the ACA and the Uninsured,” Jan. 26

Trump on ISIS, Jan. 25 interview with ABC News: “Well, we should’ve kept the oil when we got out [of Iraq]. And, you know, it’s very interesting, had we taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS because they fuel themselves with the oil. That’s where they got the money.”

In fact, ISIS largely has been funded through extortion, robbery, taxes and revenue from the Syrian oil fields, according to government reports and terrorism financing experts. While ISIS has controlled most of Syrian oil fields, the group has had control of only some smaller oil fields in Northern Iraq, said Howard Shatz, a member of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and a co-author of a RAND Corporation report on ISIS’s finances.

“Even if the Northern Iraqi fields had been well protected [by the U.S.], it would not have made much of a difference because they had Syrian fields,” Shatz said.

“Trump, ISIS and Iraqi Oil,” Jan. 27

Trump on torture, Jan. 26 interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity: The president called waterboarding “just short of torture,” and said, “I will tell you, though, it works. And I just spoke to people who told me it worked, and that’s what they do.”

Research, however, has shown that the stress and pain caused by techniques like waterboarding can hinder a person from recalling information. Shane O’Mara, a brain researcher at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, published a review of the scientific studies on this topic in Trends in Cognitive Sciences in 2009. O’Mara wrote that “[s]olid scientific evidence” suggests enhanced interrogation is “unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended.”

“Trump on Torture, Again,” Jan. 27

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