Trump’s Speech to Congress Contained Dozens of Lies, Falsehoods, Inaccurate, or Misleading Statements

• Speech Is Being Heralded as ‘Presidential’

• Why Is Trump Always Graded on a Curve?

President Donald Trump delivered his first speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night that immediately was heralded by many on the right and on the left as “presidential.” Given that he is the president, why do Americans allow him to be anything but presidential? Trump is always graded on a curve, especially by the pundits in the media who support him, or want to try to appear fair. That’s a mistake.

Trump the reality TV star delivered a good, strong performance, but his actual speech was filled with lies, falsehoods, and misleading statements, as some news outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Independent, Mic.com, CNN, ABC, Reason, and others reported overnight. 

How many lies? According to Center for American Progress Action, 51 lies in 61 minutes.

They published a Google Doc detailing them.

Reason published an easy list of 12 “of the most obvious whoppers” in Trump’s speech:

1. A new surge of optimism is placing impossible dreams firmly in our grasp.
2. Dying industries will come roaring back to life.
3. We will stop the drugs from pouring into the country.
4. I am going to bring back millions of jobs.
5. It will save countless dollars.
6. Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.
7. Action is not a choice; it is a necessity.
8. Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed.
9. Every problem can be solved.
10. Every hurting family can find healing and hope.
11. Our children will grow up in a nation of miracles.
12. The time for trivial fights is behind us.

The Washington Post offered up a baker’s dozen – 13 lies Trump delivered. One in particular that is infuriating:

“Since my election, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed, Intel, Walmart, and many others, have announced that they will invest billions of dollars in the United States and will create tens of thousands of new American jobs.”

Trump again takes credit for business decisions made before his election.

Ford’s decision to abandon its plans to open a factory in Mexico and instead expand its Michigan plant has more to do with the company’s long-term goal — particularly its plans to invest in electric vehicles — than with the administration. Ford chief executive Mark Fields said about the company’s decision to abandon plans to open a factory in Mexico: “The reason that we are not building the new plant, the primary reason, is just demand has gone down for small cars.”

Sergio Marchionne, the Fiat Chrysler chief executive, said his company’s plan to invest $1 billion for a factory in Michigan had been in the works for more than a year and had nothing to do with Trump. Marchionne credited instead talks with the United Auto Workers.

Japanese company SoftBank announced its $100 billion technology investment fund three weeks before the U.S. elections, when Trump faced a narrow path to victory. After a December 2016 meeting with President-elect Trump, SoftBank announced $50 billion would go to the United States. But the United States outpaces all other countries in venture capital investments, and it is questionable that none of the $100 billion would have gone to the vibrant and promising tech industry in America — regardless of whether Trump was elected.

CNN Wednesday morning looked at how Trump misleads with numbers, like his claim that 94 million Americans are out of the labor force. As Chris Cuomo shows, 92 percent of them are unable to work, are retired, are on disability, are in school, or just don’t have to or want to. 

ABC News blows apart this fear-mongering claim Trump made:

“According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.”

Here’s their response:

Last year, the Department of Justice provided a Senate panel with a list of 580 individuals who were convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offenses between Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2014. While the Justice Department did not provide immigration-related information on those individuals, the Senate panel — led by then Sen. Jeff Sessions, who’s now the U.S. Attorney General — conducted open-source research and determined that at least 380 of those 580 people were born outside the United States.

However, a subsequent review by a Cato Institute analyst concluded that Sessions’ findings were “flawed,” with “two major problems:” “First, you might get the impression that all of those convictions were for terrorist attacks planned on U.S.-soil but only 40, or 6.8 percent, were. Second, 241 of the 580 convictions, or 42 percent, were not even for terrorism offenses. Many of the investigations started based on a terrorism tip like, for instance, the suspect wanting to buy a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. However, the tip turned out to be groundless and the legal saga ended with only a mundane conviction of receiving stolen cereal. According to Sessions’ list, that cereal thief is a terrorist.” In addition, of the 380 foreign-born individuals identified by Sessions’ office, about 24 were admitted to the United States as refugees.