[ad_1]
As he so often does, President Trump falsely declared Sunday night in "60 minutes" that North Korea and the United States would go to war before intervening to thwart it.
Interviewer Lesley Stahl had none. "We were going to war?"
Trump immediately retired on safer ground, expressing his point of view rather than trying to assert a fact: "I think it was going to end in war," he said. stated before continuing on his "impression" of the situation.
The 26-minute talk was typical of Trump: it's a litany of misrepresentations, misleading statements and exaggerated facts. Trump again demonstrated what The Factor Check has long documented: its rhetoric is fundamentally based on false statements, and it will be as misleading as its audience will allow.
The "60-minute" scene was one of the most difficult public sceneries Trump let himself do. It was the only national audience outside Fox News's friendly circle and in a face-to-face television interview with a skilled journalist who repeatedly called on him.
The result was that Trump used all his favorite steps to avoid the truth.
On Stahl's first question, whether Trump still thinks climate change is a hoax, the president dodged saying "something is happening". He then completely reversed the path by declaring that climate change is not a hoax and that "I do not deny it. "
Trump also falsely stated that the climate would still change, even though the National Climate Assessment approved by his White House last year had declared that there was no return in back. He said that he did not know if climate change was of human origin, although the same report says "that there is no convincing alternative" posed by the evidence.
Trump made his usual shrug when asked if North Korea was building more nuclear missiles. "Well, nobody really knows. I mean, people say that. Among those who say that they are US intelligence agencies, they concluded that North Korea did not intend to give up its nuclear stock and was instead working to hide its weapons and production facilities.
Even when he adjusts his rhetoric, sometimes contradicting what he has just said, Trump almost always seems to believe firmly in what he says. While he criticized Stahl about certain details regarding North Korea, for example, he refused to admit an error as a whole.
He rejected a question asked by Stahl about a complaint he had addressed to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at one of his recent rallies – "we fell in love" – as "a pure figure of language". He insisted, however, that Kim had accepted denuclearization, a goal long sought by American presidents.
In reality, Kim only signed a non-binding goals statement – and the goal of "working for complete denuclearization" was ranked third. The statement signed by the two men was much less detailed than a statement made by North Korea and South Korea more than a quarter of a century ago without much consequence.
Regarding trade, the president continues to suggest that deficits mean that the US is losing money: "I told President Xi that we could not continue to let China withdraw 500 billion dollars a year in the United States ".
It's wrong. The trade deficit simply means that Americans buy more Chinese products than the Chinese buy from the United States, without the Chinese stealing American money. Trade deficits are also affected by macroeconomic factors, such as the relative strength of currencies, economic growth rates, and savings and investment rates.
Trump also continues to distort the trade deficit with China. It's not $ 500 billion, as he told Stahl; it was $ 335 billion in 2017, according to US government figures. The United States imported $ 505 billion worth of goods in China. Maybe that's why Trump gets his number.
Oddly enough, he denied Stahl that he ever claimed to be engaged in a trade war with China, even though he repeatedly told and tweeted it, including on Fox News the week last. He insisted that he had only called this a "battle" – a term he had used sometimes – but that he was suddenly turning it into a simple "skirmish" .
He also falsely stated that "the European Union was created in order to profit from us on the trade". It's at best a misreading of history. The US The European Coal and Steel Community was established shortly after the Second World War. It aimed to bring together fierce enemies such as Germany and France in a common economic space conducive to the promotion of peace.
Trump has resurfaced on another old favorite shot of his American allies: "We should not pay almost the entire cost of NATO to protect Europe." In fact, the United States contributes 22% of the NATO common fund. Trump continues to count US defense spending devoted to patrolling the Pacific Ocean and other parts of the world as part of NATO funding.
When it was pointed out that the Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, a former general who served in the army for 44 years, said he was convinced that NATO had kept peace during 70 years old, Trump snorted, "I think I know more than him. "
Asked about Russia's interference in the 2016 election, Trump acknowledged that "they got involved". He added, "I think China has mingled too." "I'm not doing anything," he said. "I'm talking about Russia, but I'm also talking about China."
There is no evidence that China has engaged in the same disinformation effort as Russia, which intelligence agencies say was designed to tip the elections on Trump.
Finally, Trump continued to take the habit of misinterpreting what his predecessor had done. He claimed that Barack Obama had "abandoned" the Crimean region in Ukraine, while Russia had seized it and that Obama had then taken the lead in an effort to impose sanctions in response .
He also falsely claimed that "Obama had the same thing" as the controversial policy of separating Trump's family at the border. It's wrong. There is a set of policies and court decisions covering the Democratic and Republican administrations, but none has forced the Trump administration to separate children from their families, as Stahl has rightly pointed out.
"I wanted the laws to be changed," said Trump. But his preferred approach failed in the Senate, getting only 36 of the 51 possible votes of Republicans. He made little effort to negotiate a compromise.
In one of the back-and-forth testers, Trump tried to close Stahl with a line that was unquestionably true: "I'm president," he said, "and you're not .
(About our rating scale)
Send us facts to check by filling out this form
Sign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletter
The fact checker is a verified Signatory to the Code of Principles of the International Fact-Finding Network
[ad_2]Source link
