WASHINGTON—Seven times as president, including once while sitting with the prime minister of Ireland last week, U.S. President Donald Trump has told a vivid story about how he went to his Turnberry golf course in Scotland the day before the Brexit vote in 2016 and correctly predicted the outcome to reporters.

“It wasn’t that I was a supporter. I predicted it was going to happen, and I was right. And people laughed when I predicted it, and they won by about two points. And I was standing out on Turnberry, and we had a press conference, and people were screaming. That was the day before, if you remember. I think you were there. And people were screaming, and I said, ‘No, I think it’s going to happen,” he said. “And people were surprised I made the prediction because President Obama made the opposite prediction. And I was right.”

Trump not only did not issue a prediction the day before the vote, he did not go to Turnberry until the day after the vote.

His fabricated claim to savanthood was part of a 42-false-claim week, the 33rd-worst week of his presidency out of 113 weeks so far.

It was not the only date he changed last week to suit his dishonest purposes. In one of his most notable false claims, he tweeted that court documents had shown that late Republican senator John McCain had sent the FBI, “BEFORE the election,” an ex-spy’s research dossier alleging nefarious contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia. In fact, the legal deposition had McCain learning of the dossier 11 days after the election.

Trump is now up to 4,625 false claims for the first 787 days of his presidency, an average of 5.9 per day.

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If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of “false claims,” not lies? You can read our detailed explanation here. The short answer is that we can’t be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not telling the truth.

Every false claim Trump made last week:

MONDAY, MARCH 11

Twitter

The claim: “Republican Senators have a very easy vote this week. It is about Border Security and the Wall (stopping Crime, Drugs etc.), not Constitutionality and Precedent. It is an 80% positive issue. The Dems are 100% United, as usual, on a 20% issue, Open Borders and Crime. Get tough R’s!”

In fact: The Democrats do not support “open borders.” They endorse various border security measures, just not Trump’s border wall.

Interview with Breitbart (8 false claims)

The claim: “You look at what we’ve done, we’ve done far — actually a liberal commentator said, ‘Whether you like him or not he’s done far more than he said he was going to do.’ Right to Try? I never talked about Right to Try but we got Right to Try — great thing. We’ve done a lot more. We’ve got Choice. I never really said I was going to get Choice because most people said we couldn’t, but I got Choice. We got things done that nobody thought were possible.”

In fact: The Veterans Choice health program was passed and created in 2014 under Obama. The law Trump signed in 2018, the VA MISSION Act, modified the Choice program.

The claim: “We went to Alabama, and from the airplane to the site where the tornado was there were people lined up five deep — you see it, you were there with us? Did you see the pictures? I mean, like, thousands and thousands of people from the plane all the way out to the site — like it was a Fifth Avenue parade.”

In fact: While a substantial number of people lined Trump’s motorcade route in Alabama, the crowd was not “five deep,” images from the day showed (and people who were on the scene confirmed to the Star).

The claim: Breitbart: “Trump also argued that the need for the border wall is exemplified in the fact that more people come across in areas where there currently is no barrier.” Trump: “Don’t let anyone tell you they don’t come through those areas. When they have women in the back of a van because, you know, when they stop at a port of entry, they open the doors so they’re going to see it. When they have big boxes of drugs, they open the doors. The biggest part comes in in the areas where you don’t have the walls, where they go out into the land into the deserts.”

In fact: Trump’s own Drug Enforcement Administration says that most drugs smuggled in from Mexico come through legal ports of entry, not through parts of the desert that do not have border walls. In its 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment, the DEA said only “a small percentage of all heroin seized by CBP (Customs and Border Protection) along the land border was between Ports of Entry.”As USA Today noted: “According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, 90 per cent of heroin seized along the border, 88 per cent of cocaine, 87 per cent of methamphetamine, and 80 per cent of fentanyl in the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year was caught trying to be smuggled in at legal crossing points.” Observers of the criminal trial of Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman, known as “El Chapo,” noted that testimony was consistent with these statistics. The New York Times reported: “Some of the drugs were hidden in passenger cars, concealed in trucks in cans of jalapenos or stashed in tanker trains with ordinary loads of cooking oil. Others were sent beneath the border in sophisticated tunnels. The 10 weeks of testimony at the trial of Joaquin Guzman Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo who was convicted on drug conspiracy charges on Tuesday, revealed that his innovative smuggling network typically went through legal checkpoints — not isolated stretches of the border where a wall might be an obstacle.”

The claim: “Look, when I say we apprehended 75,000 people last month, you know how good a job — these aren’t people that came in. These are people that have been — I say, should we use a different word? Because maybe they don’t understand the word ‘apprehended.’ Maybe they don’t know what it means. Should we use the word ‘captured’? We captured 75,000 people last month. It’s never been like that. The biggest problem we have — we’ve apprehended/captured 75,000 people.”

In fact: Even if there were actually 75,000 apprehensions of people crossing the Mexican border in February 2019 — it was 66,450, plus 9,653 “inadmissibles,” a group that includes people who tried to cross legally at ports of entry but were turned away for various reasons — it is not true that “it’s never been like that.” Though apprehension levels have spiked since 2017, they are still far lower than they were in the early 2000s There were 211,328 apprehensions, for example, in February 2000.

The claim: “Maybe the economy (is my biggest accomplishment)...Look at jobs. Best jobs record in 60 years. Best individual records for Asians, for African-Americans, for Hispanics ever.”

In fact: The African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates were at an all-time low — at least if you ignore lower African-American rates earlier in the Trump presidency and compare the current rate only to rates under previous presidents — but the Asian unemployment rate was not. The Asian-American rate briefly dropped to a low, 2.0 per cent, in May 2018 — a low, at least, since the government began issuing Asian-American data in 2000 — but the most recent rate at the time Trump spoke, for February 2019, was 3.2 per cent. This was higher than the rate in Obama’s last full month in office, 2.6 per cent. (Also, we could not find any way that Trump’s overall “jobs record” was the best in 60 years.)

The claim: “The regulations, you know it’s taken 20 years to get a highway approved. It’s taken 19 years to get modest infrastructure approved. I have it down to two years — you know, just an average — I have it down to two years, I think I’ll get it down to one and it may get disapproved too.”

In fact: While some controversial and complicated infrastructure projects may have taken 19 or 20 years to get approved, there is no basis for Trump’s suggestion that this time frame was standard. The Treasury Department reported under Obama: “Studies conducted for the Federal Highway Administration concluded that the average time to complete a NEPA (environmental) study increased from 2.2 years in the 1970s, to 4.4 years in the 1980s, to 5.1 years in the 1995 to 2001 period, to 6.6 years in 2011.” After a change of methodology, it was 3 years and 9 months in 2015, 3 years and 8 months in 2016. Further, there is no current evidence that Trump has already succeeded in reducing the standard approval time frame to two years, although he says this is his intention. His Department of Transportation reported a median approval time of 3 years, 10 months in 2017.

The claim: “This year for the first time in 50 years, drug prices came down — you know, prescription drug prices...But for the first time in over 50 years, drug prices went down. But they’re going to go down a lot, they’re going to go down a lot.”

In fact: Prescription drug prices declined in 2018 for the first time in 46 years, according to the Consumer Price Index, not “50 years” or “over 50 years.”

The claim: “We have a vote coming up on this whole national emergency thing it’s an 80/20 issue in our favor, it’s border security, a wall, no crime versus open borders and nothing but crime.”

In fact: The Democrats do not support “open borders.” They endorse various border security measures, just not Trump’s border wall.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13

Briefing on drug trafficking on the southern border (9 false claims)

The claim: “We’re building a lot of wall, as you all know. A lot more than they understand, I think, Carla, right?” And: “We’re doing a lot at the border, a lot of wall going up.” And: “But we have a lot of — we’ve got to get the wall up, otherwise it all doesn’t work. And I have to say, and I have to say it again: I hope you go down there, because we’re going to have a news conference at the border over the next three weeks. We’re going to do it in areas where we’re building large stretches of wall. And tomorrow, or the next day, we’re giving out another very large section. So we got a lot of wall going up.”

In fact: None of Trump’s wall was under construction at the time. While it was true that some existing barriers had been renovated, zero new miles of barrier had been built. Construction appeared close to beginning on new wall in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, but Customs and Border Protection told us the week Trump started specifically talking about that project, the month prior to this remark, that only “vegetation clearing” had begun for that project. (It was also unclear what Trump meant when he said “and tomorrow, or the next day, we’re giving out another very large section.”)

The claim: “We have tremendous amounts of technology going to the ports of entry, where a lot of the drugs come in. But I think it’s highly overrated. I think much of the drugs — the big loads of drugs, and certainly the human traffickers, go not through the ports of entry; they go through the open areas where they don’t have walls.These folks know that better than anybody. When the press talks about ports of entry, sure, things go through ports of entry, but we’re going to have that very well sealed up with this equipment.”

In fact: Both drug traffickers and human traffickers go through ports of entry. In fact, Trump’s own Drug Enforcement Administration says that most drugs smuggled in from Mexico come through legal ports of entry. In its 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment, the DEA said only “a small percentage of all heroin seized by CBP (Customs and Border Protection) along the land border was between Ports of Entry.”As USA Today noted: “According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, 90 per cent of heroin seized along the border, 88 per cent of cocaine, 87 per cent of methamphetamine, and 80 per cent of fentanyl in the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year was caught trying to be smuggled in at legal crossing points.” Observers of the criminal trial of Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman, known as “El Chapo,” noted that testimony was consistent with these statistics. The New York Times reported: “Some of the drugs were hidden in passenger cars, concealed in trucks in cans of jalapenos or stashed in tanker trains with ordinary loads of cooking oil. Others were sent beneath the border in sophisticated tunnels. The 10 weeks of testimony at the trial of Joaquin Guzman Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo who was convicted on drug conspiracy charges on Tuesday, revealed that his innovative smuggling network typically went through legal checkpoints — not isolated stretches of the border where a wall might be an obstacle.” Experts say many human trafficking victims do enter the U.S. through legal ports of entry, on visas, after being deceived into thinking they are coming to a good job or loving relationship in the U.S. “It is far easier to lure victims with false promises of a better life in the United States,” said Martina Vandenberg, president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center. “Why kidnap someone when you can convince them to travel willingly?” FactCheck.org reported: “The United Nations’ International Organization on Migration has found that ‘nearly 80% of international human trafficking journeys cross through official border points, such as airports and land border control points,’ based on 10 years’ worth of cases on which the IOM has assisted.”

The claim: “But I think it’s a bad vote if they go against — I think anybody going against border security, drug trafficking, human trafficking, that’s a bad vote. The Democrats are for open borders. They’re for crime. I mean, frankly, they’re for crime. These people can tell you that better than anyone. When you have open borders, when you don’t have walls — Mike, when you don’t — very well — all of you folks know it very well. We deal with it all the time. I guess they think it’s good, politically. I think it happens to be bad, politically. I think it’s an 80 per cent issue and maybe more than that. But the Democrats, in order to make things difficult, they are for open borders and they’re for crime, and the Republicans aren’t.”

In fact: The Democrats do not support “open borders.” They endorse various border security measures, just not Trump’s border wall.

The claim: “Our economy is the best it’s ever been, just about ever. You look at our unemployment numbers. If it’s African-American, if it’s Asian, if it’s Hispanic, they’re the best historic numbers in history — in the history of our country they’re the best numbers we’ve ever had.”

In fact: The African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates were at an all-time low — at least if you ignore lower African-American rates earlier in the Trump presidency and compare the current rate only to rates under previous presidents — but the Asian unemployment rate was not. The Asian-American rate briefly dropped to a low, 2.0 per cent, in May 2018 — a low, at least, since the government began issuing Asian-American data in 2000 — but the most recent rate at the time Trump spoke, for February 2019, was 3.2 per cent. This was higher than the rate in Obama’s last full month in office, 2.6 per cent.

The claim: “And overall employment, the best in 61 years, and that’s going to soon be a record if we keep going the way we’re going. It’s going to soon be a record. But it’s the best in 61 years.”

In fact: This was inaccurate in either one way or another. If Trump was talking about total employment, as he sometimes does, the U.S. already had a record, of about 157 million people employed, though the record is essentially meaningless because the number of people employed grows with total population. If he was talking about unemployment, which he previously said was at a record for “51 years,” that is also inaccurate: the unemployment rate for February 2019 was 3.8 per cent, well above the record of 2.5 per cent in 1953.

The claim: “We lost, over the last number of years, almost $800 billion a year on trade.”

In fact: The U.S. trade deficit was $621 billion in 2018 and $566 billion in 2017, and it had never previously been $800 billion for a year. (Trump habitually ignores trade in services when he talks about trade deficits, choosing the number that refers only to trade in goods. The U.S. had a goods-trade deficit of $810 billion in 2017, $891 billion in 2018.)

The claim: “Look at we’ve done with respect to the caliphate in Syria. I was told by our previous person that it was going to take two years to knock it out, and I did it in three weeks once we started. Did it, really, in less. And no — I have a great group of people.”

In fact: We know what Trump was saying, but it is simply nonsensical. He had previously recounted a supposed conversation he had with a U.S. military officer during his trip to Iraq in December 2018; that officer, whom he identified in one speech by the nickname “Raisin Caine,” supposedly told him that ISIS could be defeated in a mere one week if Trump allowed the military to adopt certain new tactics. But it is inaccurate, obviously, that the U.S. only “started” to fight ISIS in Syria in December 2018, even under Trump alone. Trump took command of that fight on his first day in office.

The claim: “I have no idea. I can only tell you one thing — again, that was proven today: no collusion. There’s no collusion. There’s no collusion.” And: “It was a hoax. It was all a big hoax. And now you’re seeing it. Today, again, ‘No collusion.’ The other day, ‘No collusion.’ There was no collusion.”

In fact: It was not “proven today” that there was “no collusion.” Trump was referring to the second sentencing hearing for Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman. The judge in the sentencing, Amy Berman Jackson, actually said that the issue of collusion had simply not come up in the case. She said, “The ‘no collusion’ refrain that runs through the entire defense memorandum is unrelated to the matter at hand...The ‘no collusion’ mantra is simply a non-sequitur.” She also said, “The ‘no collusion’ mantra is also not accurate, because the investigation is still ongoing.”

The claim: “I have no idea. I can only tell you one thing — again, that was proven today: no collusion. There’s no collusion. There’s no collusion. And there hasn’t been collusion. And it was all a big hoax, and you know it. It was done and stated by the Democrats because they lost an election that they should have won because the Electoral College is a big advantage for Democrats, not for Republicans.”

In fact: The Electoral College is not set up in a way that disadvantages Republican candidates.

Twitter

The claim: “The Fake News photoshopped pictures of Melania, then propelled conspiracy theories that it’s actually not her by my side in Alabama and other places. They are only getting more deranged with time!”

In fact: We could find no evidence that mainstream media outlets photoshopped pictures of Melania Trump to propagate a conspiracy theory that the president sometimes uses a body double to substitute for his wife. The conspiracy theory was spread on social media after the Alabama trip. Though the ABC show “The View” controversially did a segment discussing the theory, there was no indication the show altered images. We will amend this item if any evidence emerges.

Twitter

The claim: “Comey testified (under oath) that it was a ‘unanimous’ decision on Crooked Hillary. Lisa Page transcripts show he LIED. @jasoninthehouse”

In fact: The transcripts of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page’s remarks do not show that Comey lied.

Twitter

The claim: “Democrats will have a unanimous vote on a 20% issue in opposing Republican Senators tomorrow. The Dems are for Open Borders and Crime!”

In fact: The Democrats do not support “open borders.” They endorse various border security measures, just not Trump’s border wall.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14

Twitter

The claim: “A vote for today’s resolution by Republican Senators is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime, and the Open Border Democrats!”

In fact: The Democrats do not support “open borders.” They endorse various border security measures, just not Trump’s border wall.

Twitter

The claim: “I look forward to VETOING the just passed Democrat inspired Resolution which would OPEN BORDERS while increasing Crime, Drugs, and Trafficking in our Country.”

In fact: The resolution would have not have done anything to “open borders.” It would have simply terminated Trump’s “national emergency” over immigration. Trump had said he plans to use the emergency to seize funds to build the border wall that Congress has refused to fund to his satisfaction. But preventing him from building a border wall in the future is not the same thing as opening borders. Democrats do not support an open-borders policy, and they have endorsed various border security measures that are not the wall.

Meeting with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar (8 false claims)

The claim: Question: “Mr. President, you were a great supporter of Brexit initially. Are you still a great supporter of Brexit given how things are playing out?” Trump: “Well, I was. It wasn’t that I was a supporter. I predicted it was going to happen, and I was right. And people laughed when I predicted it, and they won by about two points. And I was standing out on Turnberry, and we had a press conference, and people were screaming. That was the day before, if you remember. I think you were there. And people were screaming, and I said, ‘No, I think it’s going to happen.’ And people were surprised I made the prediction because President Obama made the opposite prediction. And I was right.”

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In fact: Everything about this answer is incorrect. Trump was not even at Turnberry, his Scotland golf course, the day before the Brexit vote — he went there the day after. The day before Brexit, he made no prediction: he said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, “I don’t think anybody should listen to me,” because “I haven’t really focused on it very much,” but that his “inclination” would be that Britain should vote to leave the European Union. This was a recommendation, not a prediction. Also, Obama did not make a prediction; he made a recommendation that Britain stay in the European Union, but he did not venture a guess about how the vote would go.

The claim: “Right. And we’re talking about trade with the European Union. They’ve been very, very tough over the years. They were unwilling to negotiate with the Obama administration, and they were unwilling before that, to be honest. I’m not just blaming President Obama. But they’re willing to talk to us.”

In fact: It is false that the European Union refused to negotiate with Obama on trade. In fact, during the Obama presidency, the U.S. and European Union engaged in three years of extensive negotiations on a possible free trade agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Talks stalled in late 2016, with the U.S. election approaching, amid opposition from factions in key European countries like France and Germany.

The claim: “No, no. I don’t know what the vote will be. It doesn’t matter. I’ll probably have to veto, and it’s not going to be overturned. And we’re going to have our whole thing — it’s been — the legal scholars all say it’s totally constitutional. It’s very important. It’s really a border security vote. It’s — pure and simple, it’s a vote for border security, it’s a vote for no crime.”

In fact: It is not true that “all” legal scholars say Trump’s “whole thing” — his use of national emergency powers to seize money from other projects to build his border wall — is “totally constitutional.” We let him get away with a slightly vaguer claim, when he said that “prominent” scholars agree, but “all” is clearly incorrect. For example, Yale University law professor Bruce Ackerman wrote in the New York Times in January, “President Trump on Friday said that he was considering the declaration of a ‘national emergency’ along the border with Mexico, which he apparently believes would allow him to divert funds from the military budget to pay for a wall, and to use military personnel to build it. While it is hard to know exactly what the president has in mind, or whether he has any conception about what it would entail, one thing is clear: Not only would such an action be illegal, but if members of the armed forces obeyed his command, they would be committing a federal crime.” Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor, told Vox, “This plan is illegal, and would set a dangerous precedent if it succeeds. Article I of the Constitution mandates that ‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.’ Only Congress has the power to make such laws. This vital rule ensures no one person can seize control of the nation’s public funds. To get around Congress, Trump seeks to use emergency powers. Under the poorly structured National Emergencies Act of 1976, Trump may indeed be able to declare an emergency at the border, even though there is no genuine crisis there. But it does not follow that he can therefore appropriate money for the wall. The NEA does not give him unlimited authority, but only a specific set of powers. None of them are broad enough to justify spending money on a border wall.” Ric Simmons, a law professor at Ohio State University, told Vox, told Vox that “most reasonable readings” of relevant laws “would come to the conclusion that the president does not have the authority to divert funding to the wall, but once again, the question is how much deference the courts will give to the president in this context.”

The claim: “We’re building a lot of wall. There’s a lot of wall going up. I don’t know if you see it. I don’t know if you want to see it. But we’re building a lot of wall, and there’s a lot of contracts being let out, actually tomorrow and over the next week, for additional many, many miles of wall. And we’re going to have hundreds of miles of wall up fairly soon, and it’s going to make a very big difference.”

In fact: None of Trump’s wall was under construction at the time. While it was true that some existing barriers had been renovated, zero new miles of barrier had been built. Construction appeared close to beginning on new wall in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, but Customs and Border Protection told us the week Trump started specifically talking about that project, the month prior to this remark, that only “vegetation clearing” had begun for that project. (It was also unclear what Trump meant when he said “and there’s a lot of contracts being let out, actually tomorrow and over the next week, for additional many, many miles of wall.”)

The claim: “They have done a fantastic job. But the Border Patrol, they are capturing, catching, grabbing — they’re doing whatever they have to do — thousands of people — thousands of illegal aliens a month. Seventy-five thousand last month. The job they’re doing, they’re apprehending — you call it whatever you want to use; whatever you’d like to use — but they’re apprehending thousands and thousands of people a month. And we’re catching them and we’re keeping them. We’re not doing release. Now, at a certain point, we’re going to have to do some release because we don’t have the bed space, we don’t have the room, and we don’t have the funds to build new space because we have ridiculous laws.”

In fact: It is not true that the government is, under Trump, “not doing release” of people who cross the border without authorization. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, responding to the Star on behalf of the agency, said that approximately 84,500 migrants from “family units” were released between December 21, 2018 and March 5, 2019: 37,500 in San Antonio, 24,000 in El Paso, 14,500 in Phoenix, 8,500 in San Diego. The official said, “The current volume of family units crossing the border combined with limited transportation resources, time restrictions on families in government custody, and finite space at family residential centers have all contributed to the current state of events.” The official added: “ICE is releasing families to NGOs that provide assistance with immediate basic needs such as temporary shelter, food, water, clothing and transportation services.” As ICE explained, the U.S. government cannot simply detain families indefinitely; Julia Gelatt, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, noted that about 60 per cent of the people crossing in the first five months of this fiscal year were families or unaccompanied minors. “Basically, the U.S. is compelled by U.S. law and court decisions to release a lot of immigrants who are coming these days,” she said. Trump himself said earlier in March that “we want to end catch-and-release,” not that he had already ended it.

The claim: “In other countries, Leo, when you have somebody come in illegally, you say, ‘Sorry, you have to leave.’ In our country, because the laws are so ridiculous — I mean, so stupid — we have to give them a trial.”

In fact: Unauthorized immigrants to the U.S. do not get the right to a trial if they are caught after merely touching U.S. land; in cases where they are caught near the border, they are subject to rapid deportation, known as expedited removal, without seeing a judge. If migrants declare that they are seeking asylum, they do have a right to a legal process — but the U.S. is far from the only country to afford them this right. “This statement is patently false,” James Hathaway, law professor and director of the refugee and asylum law program at the University of Michigan, said in an email in response to a previous version of Trump’s claim. “It is completely routine in other countries that, like the U.S., have signed the UN refugee treaties for asylum-seekers to have access to the domestic legal system to make a protection claim (and to be allowed in while the claim is pending). If anything, the U.S. is aberrational in the opposite direction: U.S. domestic law falsely treats the granting of protection to refugees as a matter of discretion, whereas international law *requires* a grant of protection to anyone who meets the refugee definition. This doesn’t mean that refugees have a right to stay in the U.S. or anywhere else forever — but they *do* have a right to stay for the duration of the persecutory risk, unless another safe country that has also signed the refugee treaties agrees to take them in.”

The claim: “In other countries, Leo, when you have somebody come in illegally, you say, ‘Sorry, you have to leave.’ In our country, because the laws are so ridiculous — I mean, so stupid — we have to give them a trial. So we send them into the country and then they’re supposed to come back, but they never come back. Very rarely do they come back. The most ridiculous set of laws.”

In fact: It is not true that people granted an immigration hearing “never come back.” “Very rarely” is more subjective, but we say it’s still incorrect. The Justice Department says 72 per cent of people showed up for their immigration court hearings in 2017. For asylum seekers in particular, it was 89 per cent. There is no group for which it was anywhere around 2 per cent. A 2017 report released by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates a hard line on illegal immigration, concluded that 37 per cent of people who were free pending trial did not show up for hearings over the past two decades. The author of the report, a former immigration judge, said the number was 39 per cent in 2016. In other words, even according to vehement opponents of illegal immigration, most unauthorized immigrants are indeed showing up for court.

The claim: “I think that we have done an incredible job. We’re apprehending record numbers of people.”

In fact: Apprehensions were not at a record high. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 396,579 people were apprehended between ports of entry on the Mexican border in the 2018 fiscal year, down from more than 1.5 million in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 and down from more than 400,000 in five Obama-era years: 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2016. The number for February 2018, the month before Trump spoke, was 66,450, an 11-year high — but that was still not even close to the levels of the early 2000s. It was 211,328, for example, in Feb. 2000. (It did seem possible that there was a record high in one subset of illegal immigrants — families, rather than individuals — but Trump claimed an overall record.)

Speech at Shamrock Bowl event

The claim: “Ambassador Robert Lighthizer. He’s not busy enough. He’s negotiating with China. He’s negotiating with South Korea, Japan. We just heard about Japan. Japan is now negotiating. They haven’t wanted to negotiate for many years, but now they’re negotiating. It’s called ‘tariffs.’ Tariffs are a very, very great way of getting people to the table. And Japan has been terrific — Prime Minister Abe.”

In fact: It is obvious untrue that Japan has not wanted to negotiate on trade for “many years” until Trump and his tariffs came along. As Politico reported: “In reality, Japan was one of the 11 other countries that negotiated the TPP with the United States during President Barack Obama’s administration. As part of that pact, which is not yet in force, Japan made painful concessions to open its market to more U.S. agricultural goods. When Trump pulled out of the pact, U.S. farmers lost that additional market access. Now, under the terms of a U.S.-Japan joint statement, the best that U.S. farmers may obtain for the upcoming talks is a share of the agricultural market openings that Japan has already made in previous trade deals, including the TPP.”

FRIDAY, MARCH 15

Remarks at ceremony to veto resolution to terminate national emergency on immigration (5 false claims)

The claim: “Since 1976, Presidents have declared 59 national emergencies. They often involved protecting foreign citizens in far-off lands, yet Congress has not terminated any of them. Every single one of them is still in existence.”

In fact: It is not true that every national emergency is still in existence; about half has lapsed. “That’s wrong — 60 have been declared (counting the border wall emergency) and 32 are still in effect,” Elizabeth Goitein, an expert on presidential emergency powers and co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said in an email.

The claim: “Last month, more than 76,000 illegal migrants arrived at our border.”

In fact: The Washington Post reported: “Trump is conflating what Customs and Border Protection calls ‘southwest border apprehensions’ with another metric, ‘inadmissibles.’ Combined, these two figures reached 76,103 in February. But 9,653 of them were ‘inadmissibles,’ which CBP defines as ‘individuals encountered at ports of entry who are seeking lawful admission into the United States but are determined to be inadmissible, individuals presenting themselves to seek humanitarian protection under our laws, and individuals who withdraw an application for admission and return to their countries of origin within a short timeframe.’”

The claim: Tom Murphy: “He (Murphy’s son) came out of rehab. Everything was fine for approximately three months. The craving was too much for him, got a hold of some heroin that was laced with fentanyl, and he died on December 13, 2017. So I’m here to say: As far as stigma goes in narcotics and ‘it’s not going to happen to me, it’s not going to happen to my family’ — my father is a retired minister of 45 years. My sister is in the medical field. My brother is in law enforcement. No one even smokes in our family. No one has ever been arrested. It happened to me. It happened to our family. So, it can happen. That’s how horrific and addictive this drug is. So anything you can do to help us and families like us is greatly appreciated.” Trump: “And it’s coming through the southern border, folks. All through the southern border. Thank you very much.”

In fact: It is false that all fentanyl comes to the U.S. through the southern border. A significant portion comes through the mail from China, though the exact percentage is not known. The Drug Enforcement Administration said in its 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment: “Clandestinely produced fentanyl is trafficked into the United States primarily from China and Mexico, and is responsible for the ongoing fentanyl epidemic” Trump himself claimed on March 4 that almost all of the fentanyl comes from China, saying then, “But I can tell you, I said to President Xi that we cannot let fentanyl into our country. Almost 100 percent comes from China. It’s devastating.”

The claim: “We’re building a lot of wall right now. It’s started. A lot of people are saying, ‘Well, gee, you took down wall and you’re building new.’ Well, we took down wall that almost didn’t exist. It was like paper. And we’re replacing it with, in many cases, 30-foot bollards. And, in many cases, we’re replacing it with 18-foot wall. But we have a lot of — we have many miles under construction right now, and we’re going to be signing contracts over the next couple of days for literally hundreds of miles of wall. And it’s being built in the right places, and it’s doing the job. It’s doing the job.” And: “So we’re building a lot of wall and we’re taking good care of our people.”

In fact: None of Trump’s wall was under construction at the time. While it was true that some existing barriers had been renovated or replaced, as Trump mentioned here, zero new miles of barrier had been built. Construction appeared close to beginning on new wall in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, but Customs and Border Protection told us the week Trump started specifically talking about that project, the month prior to this remark, that only “vegetation clearing” had begun for that project. (It was also unclear what Trump meant when he said “we’re going to be signing contracts over the next couple of days for literally hundreds of miles of wall.”)

The claim: “I also, by the way, want to thank our military, because our military has been very much involved, as you know. And they’re putting up walls, in some cases temporary; in some cases, they were supposed to be temporary. They’re so good that they’re better than the permanent.”

In fact: The military has not put up “walls” on the U.S. border. Military Times and others reported that troops erected some “temporary fencing” in addition to miles of concertina wire, but that’s all. The Associated Press described the wire as the “most visible result” of the border deployment, reporting that the military had installed 150 miles of it.

Twitter

The claim: “So, if there was knowingly & acknowledged to be “zero” crime when the Special Counsel was appointed, and if the appointment was made based on the Fake Dossier (paid for by Crooked Hillary) and now disgraced Andrew McCabe (he & all stated no crime), then the Special Counsel...........should never have been appointed and there should be no Mueller Report. This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime. Russian Collusion was nothing more than an excuse by the Democrats for losing an Election that they thought they were going to win.....”

In fact: There is simply no evidence that the Mueller investigation is illegal; it is obviously untrue that there must have evidence of crimes at the time a special counsel is appointed to investigate if there are crimes. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whom Trump appointed himself, hired the special counsel less than a week after Trump fired FBI director James Comey and told NBC’s Lester Holt that he had been thinking of the Russia investigation when he did so.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16

Twitter

The claim: “How is the Paris Environmental Accord working out for France? After 18 weeks of rioting by the Yellow Vest Protesters, I guess not so well! In the meantime, the United States has gone to the top of all lists on the Environment.”

In fact: We’ll ignore Trump’s subjective characterization of the Yellow Vest movement in France. It is objectively false, however, that the U.S. “has gone to the top of all lists on the Environment” in the last several months or perhaps during his tenure, which has not happened. (Trump has never cited a particular list.) The U.S. ranked 27th in the 2018 Environmental Performance Index developed by Yale University, Columbia University and the World Economic Forum, down from 26th in 2016 and “near the back of the industrialized nations.”

SUNDAY, MARCH 17

Twitter

The claim: “It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side.’ Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows...Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia! Such one sided media coverage, most of it Fake News. Hard to believe I won and am winning. Approval Rating 52%, 93% with Republicans. Sorry! #MAGA”

In fact: Trump appeared to be making a sarcastic joke when he suggested that Saturday Night Live was colluding with Democrats and Russia, so we’ll let that go. It was false, though, that he had either a 52 per cent approval rating overall or a 93 per cent approval rating with Republicans. He was not at 52 per cent even with the pollster consistently most favourable toward him, Rasmussen, which had him at 48 per cent. The aggregate measure from the website FiveThirtyEight had him at 41 per cent. As usual, he was also not at 93 per cent with Republicans in recent polls by any pollster. Gallup had him at 90 per cent with Republicans, YouGov 89 per cent, Monmouth 86 per cent, Quinnipiac 82 per cent.

Twitter

The claim: “Report: Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from ‘send in watchers’ of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt!”

In fact: Trump was referring to a report that Steele used unverified user-generated content, posted to a now-defunct CNN initiative called CNN iReport, to verify his material about an entity he mentioned in the dossier, called Webzilla. Regardless, contrary to Trump’s suggestion, this is not the information that led to the launch of the investigation into his campaign’s relationship with Russia. In fact, even the Trump-endorsed memo produced by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican, confirmed that the FBI began the probe after receiving information that Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had obtained damaging information on Clinton, before this was publicly known. “The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016,” the Nunes memo says.

Twitter

The claim: “So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) ‘last in his class’ (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!”

In fact: McCain was not actually last in his class at the Naval Academy; as he said repeatedly, he finished 894th out of 899. Much more importantly, the “court papers” did not demonstrate that McCain tried to disseminate the dossier produced by British ex-spy Christopher Steele before the 2016 election. The papers, a legal deposition given by former State Department official David Kramer, an associate of the late McCain, showed that Kramer said McCain was first informed of the dossier’s existence 11 days after the election, at the Halifax International Security Forum. That is consistent with what was previously known.

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