In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bobby Knight talked about kicking Michigan’s “a**” when he was at Ohio State. The crowd booed—but the tone deafness didn’t stop there. In a profanity-laden appearance, Knight falsely claimed that in a Trump administration, there will be no “bull s***.”
Really? We know Donald Trump well enough now to know that’s a total lie. Last week, Trump told at least 158 lies. Today, he kept it up, telling Michiganders he would bring back their jobs and revive the state’s economy (his tax plan would actually cost hundreds of thousands of jobs). Check out Trump’s thirteen frightening lies:
LIE #1: Trump Falsely Claims Mexico will Pay for the Wall
TRUMP’S LIE: “We will build the wall, do not worry about it. Do not worry. We don’t build the wall, Bobby Knight’s going to be very angry at me, so we’re gonna build it. And you know what else, you know who’s paying for it, right? 100%. They don’t quite know that yet, but they’re gonna find out. No, they’re good. I met with the president of Mexico a couple of months ago, he’s great, the whole thing is gonna work out. But we’re gonna have to have a wall.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto: “I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall.” “‘Who pays for the wall? We didn’t discuss,’ Trump had said when asked by a reporter during a news conference following their meeting in Mexico City. ‘We did discuss the wall. We didn’t discuss payment of the wall. That’ll be for a later date.’ But Peña Nieto later claimed the two had discussed the wall and who would pay for it — and he had ‘made it clear’ to Trump it wouldn’t be Mexico. ‘At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall,’ Peña Nieto tweeted, after their meeting Wednesday.” [CNN, 9/1/16]
LIE #2: Trump Falsely Claims That Under a Trump Administration, Michiganders Will Have “Plenty of Jobs”
TRUMP’S LIE: “I will fight for every last Michigan job. You will have plenty of jobs. Get ready.”[Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Wharton analysis: Donald Trump’s tax plan could cost the U.S. 692,000 jobs by 2027. “In a ‘worst-case scenario,’ Trump’s tax plan might slow U.S. job creation by as many as 692,000 jobs by 2027, said Kent Smetters, the director of the Wharton economic-modeling group.” [Bloomberg, 10/17/16]
LIE #3: Trump Parrots Chaffetz, Falsely Claims FBI “Reopened” Investigation Into Clinton
TRUMP’S LIE: “As you know, the FBI has reopened this investigation into Hillary Clinton…” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Huffington Post: “Comey never said the Clinton case, which technically had never closed for bureaucratic reasons, was now being ‘reopened.’ That was Chaffetz’s description.” [Huffington Post, 10/28/16]
LIE #4: Trump Falsely Claims that Hillary Clinton “Destroyed” 33,000 Emails
TRUMP’S LIE: “Hillary is the one who destroyed 33,000 emails, after she got the subpoena. After she got the subpoena.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: There’s no evidence Hillary Clinton deleted emails in anticipation of the subpoena, and the FBI director has said there was no evidence emails were “intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.” “Trump is technically correct on the timeline, but Clinton’s staff had requested the emails to be deleted months before the subpoena, according to the FBI’s August 2016 report. Moreover, there’s no evidence Clinton deleted the emails in anticipation of the subpoena, and FBI director James B. Comey has said his agency’s investigation found no evidence that any work-related emails were ‘intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.’” [Washington Post, 10/10/16]
LIE #5: Trump Lies About Hillary Clinton’s Tenure at the State Department
TRUMP’S LIE: “Hillary is the one who engaged in a corrupt pay for play scheme at the State Department.”[Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Donald Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton ran the State Department like a personal hedge fund, citing the book “Clinton Cash” by Peter Schweizer. “According to Trump, Clinton ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favors for oppressive regimes and many others in exchange for cash. To make this claim, Trump cited several examples from the book ‘Clinton Cash’ by Peter Schweizer. Among the accusations: Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20% of America’s uranium holdings to Russia while nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.” [CNN, 6/22/16]
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Schweizer admitted there was no evidence to back up his implication of a quid pro quo between Clinton and a Russian company that sought U.S. uranium holdings. “While the deal to sell Uranium One to a Russian company was completed in 2010, there’s no hard evidence of a quid pro quo. Even Schweizer admits there’s no smoking gun.” [CNN, 6/22/16]
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NBC News: “Trump is citing the claim by ‘Clinton Cash’ author Peter Schweizer… But as Schweizer told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in April 2015, he had not direct evidence of a quid-pro-quo.” [NBC News, 6/22/16]
LIE #6: Trump Lies About Ford Leaving Michigan
TRUMP’S LIE: “Your car production facilities, like the Ford facility, will continue to leave Michigan. Nothing’s going to get done.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Ford spokeswoman: “Ford has been in the United States for more than 100 years. Our home is here. We will be here forever.” “Ford has a message to Donald Trump: We’re not going anywhere. The automaker quickly shot down Donald Trump’s latest hyperbolic claim, made on Fox News Thursday, that Ford plans to ‘fire all its employees in the United States’ as part of a plan to build a plant in Mexico. Ford said there will be zero job losses in the U.S. as a result of the new plant in Mexico. The Wayne, Michigan, plant that now builds the Focus and C-Max that will move to Mexico will instead start building other models — probably the new Ford Bronco SUV and Ranger small pickup. ‘Ford has been in the United States for more than 100 years. Our home is here. We will be here forever,’ said spokeswoman Christine Baker.” [CNN Money, 9/15/16]
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Ford has committed to building new vehicles at Michigan plants to offset the production it is moving to Mexico. “The company has 85,000 U.S. employees, up 28,000, or nearly 50%, in just the last five years. It has 8,800 employees at Mexican plants, and will add 2,800 jobs there when the new $1.6 billion plant opens there in 2018. Ford committed to build new vehicles at the Michigan Assembly Plant to take the place of the Focus and C-Max when it reached a new contract late last year with the United Auto Workers union, which represents 3,900 hourly workers at the plant. And while Ford is shifting production of all small cars to Mexico, it will continue to make many car models at U.S. plants, including the iconic Mustang.” [CNN Money, 9/15/16]
LIE #7: Trump Falsely Claims the U.S. has an $800 Billion Trade Deficit
TRUMP’S LIE: “We have nearly $800 billion in annual trade deficits with the world. We do all this trade. We have a trade deficit of $800 billion dollars. [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: According to the Census Bureau, total trade deficit wasroughly $500 billion in 2015. “The trade deficit on goods was $762.6 billion in 2015. But he neglects to include the valuable services that foreigners buy from U.S. firms. Those services reduced the total trade deficit to roughly $500 billion, according to the Census Bureau.” [Associated Press,6/28/16]
LIE #8: Trump Falsely Claims Dead People Vote
TRUMP’S LIE: “Remember this, 1.8 million people that are dead are registered to vote. You know, they talk about — oh, that’s a threat to democracy, what I am saying. 1.8 million people. 2.75 million people are registered to vote in two states. They vote here, they vote there. So many things going on, folks.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Associated Press: Experts say cases of voter fraud involving dead people are isolated. “Experts say cases of voter fraud involving dead people are isolated. They also say it would be an inefficient way to rig a presidential election, given that the fraud would have to be conducted one voter at a time and would be effective only in places where the race is close enough that the outcome could be swayed. There are more than 9,000 election jurisdictions nationwide and hundreds of thousands of polling places. ‘Although entertaining, every time there are claims of hordes of dead people voting, those claims are debunked upon closer scrutiny,’ said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s School of Law. ‘There has been no incident in recent memory in which people were able to impact an election by mobilizing fraudsters to impersonate dead people at the polls.’ Weiser said a more pressing concern is that living people are sometimes mistakenly identified as dead and removed from a state’s voter registration database, posing a challenge to them voting legally on Election Day.” [Associated Press, 10/25/16]
LIE #9: Trump Falsely Claims He Will Bring Back Jobs to the United States
TRUMP’S LIE: “At the core of our contract is my plan to bring back your jobs.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Vox’s Matthew Yglesias: “Nothing Trump or any other trade skeptic proposes is going to bring back the heyday of American manufacturing jobs.” ”American trade policy could certainly be improved upon, but the fact of the matter is that nothing Trump or any other trade skeptic proposes is going to bring back the heyday of American manufacturing jobs, for the simple reason that when you look at the data, the decline of manufacturing employment actually doesn’t reflect a broader decline in the state of American manufacturing. In fact, the output — as measured in inflation-adjusted dollars — of the US manufacturing sector is higher than it’s ever been, even as manufacturing employment has barely recovered from its recession-era lows.” [Vox, 6/28/16]
THE TRUTH: Economists: Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs would ultimately be paid by U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices and would not lead to any significant increase in U.S. manufacturing. ”And on trade, Trump has argued for imposing big tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, China and elsewhere. The problem with this, many economists say, is the tariffs would ultimately be paid by U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices and would not lead to any significant increase in U.S. manufacturing.” [Politico, 1/11/16]
LIE #10: Trump Lies about Hillary’s Support for TPP
TRUMP’S LIE: “Hillary, on the other hand, wants to destroy what’s left of manufacturing in Michigan with the Trans Pacific Partnership.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Hillary Clinton opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “Hillary Clinton said Wednesday she opposes the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, marking a significant break with the Obama Administration as she heads into the first Democratic presidential debate.” [TIME, 10/7/15]
LIE #11: Trump Lies About the Origins of ISIS
TRUMP’S LIE: “There was no ISIS when she was Secretary of State. She and Obama create it had. Through the vacuum they created stupidly by the way they got out.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: PolitiFact rated Donald Trump’s claim that “Hillary Clinton invented ISIS with her stupid policies” and was “responsible for ISIS” as “False.” ”Trump said ‘Hillary Clinton invented ISIS with her stupid policies. She is responsible for ISIS.’ There were several factors that contributed to the growing power of ISIS, but it’s misleading to pin the responsibility solely on Clinton. For starters, the roots of ISIS trace back to 2004, when Bush was president and before Clinton was Obama’s secretary of state. She did vote to authorize force in Iraq in 2002 while a senator, but that was advocated by the Bush administration and the vast majority of senators. The intervention in Libya, which she supported, did give ISIS an opening, but Trump is overstating her role by saying she is responsible for ISIS. This claim is inaccurate. We rate it False.” [PolitiFact, 7/20/16]
THE TRUTH: Washington Post Fact Checker said Donald Trump’s claim that ISIS rose from Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s policies was “false and facile.” “‘The rise of ISIS is the direct result of policy decisions made by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.’ This is false and facile. The terrorist group is the direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as we explored in our interview with Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book on the rise of the Islamic State. (Trump, of course, supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003.) At best, one could argue that actions that Obama failed to take (over Clinton’s opposition) helped contribute to the growth of ISIS.” [Washington Post, 8/16/16]
LIE #12: Trump Falsely Claims ISIS Wants Clinton to Become President
TRUMP’S LIE: “And we certainly shouldn’t have gone out the way we got out because she created a vacuum ISIS formed. She’s going to get rid of ISIS. She is dreaming. ISIS is dreaming about her becoming president.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: Interviews with current and former members of ISIS and monitoring of ISIS social media revealed that ISIS “strongly prefers Trump.” “Analysis of ISIS chatter on social media and conversations with 12 current and former supporters of the group do indicate that ISIS strongly prefers Trump over the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. When asked to explain their preference for Trump, interviewees offered several reasons. First, Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric plays into ISIS’ narrative of a bipolar world in which the West is at war with Islam. Second, ISIS hopes that Trump will radicalize Muslims in the United States and Europe and inspire them to commit lone-wolf attacks in their home countries. Third, ISIS supporters believe that Trump would be an unstable and irrational leader whose impulsive decision-making would weaken the United States.” [Foreign Affairs, 8/24/16]
LIE #13: Trump Falsely Claims Clinton Has “Accomplished Nothing” in 30 Years
TRUMP’S LIE: “Hillary has been there for 30 years, and she’s accomplished nothing.” [Grand Rapids, MI, 10/31/16]
THE TRUTH: See HillaryClinton.com: The Last 30 Years