Trump Administration Accomplishments - DEBUNKED

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TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACCOMPLISHMENTS - DEBUNKED

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On the WhiteHouse.gov website you will find the alleged accomplishments of the Trump Administration listed here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/

Below you will find a referenced rebuttal of each and every claim, listed in the same order.

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Claim: Almost 4 million jobs created since election.

Truth: "It’s true that in the 20 months since Trump’s election, the economy has generated 3.9 million jobs. In the 20 months before his election, however, employers added 4.3 million jobs."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trumps-claims-on-record-gdp-jobs-and-the-russia-investigation

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Claim: More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.

Truth: "Simply put, there are more Americans today than ever before in American history [so naturally there are more employed as well]. We’ve pointed out these kinds of dubious jobs claims before in our database of false and misleading Trump statements. In July, Trump said that 'we have our most jobs ever in our country,' and in August he claimed, 'We have the highest employment numbers we’ve ever had in the history of our country.' Both claims are meaningless..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/11/28/pences-claim-that-more-americans-are-working-today-than-ever-before-in-american-history/

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Claim: We have created more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since my election.

Truth: "[M]anufacturing employment did weaken slightly during the final three years of Obama’s tenure and began to increase early in Trump’s. So it’s not unreasonable for Trump to cite an uptick on his watch. That said, the rate of increase has been fairly stable since around 2010, regardless of the president in office."

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jul/27/fact-checking-donald-trumps-points-about-economy/

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Claim: Manufacturing jobs growing at the fastest rate in more than THREE DECADES.

Truth: "After adjusting for inflation, manufacturing output [not employment] in the first quarter of this year was more than 80% above its level 30 years ago, according to BLS data... Manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 at 19.4 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and by 1987 had fallen to 17.6 million. What had been a slow decline in employment accelerated after the turn of the century, and especially during the Great Recession. Manufacturing payrolls bottomed out at fewer than 11.5 million in early 2010, and even though more than 900,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since, overall employment in manufacturing is still at its lowest level since before the U.S. entered World War II."

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/25/most-americans-unaware-that-as-u-s-manufacturing-jobs-have-disappeared-output-has-grown/

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Claim: Economic growth last quarter hit 4.2 percent.

Truth: "U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter last year to an annual rate of just 2.2 percent. There are concerns that growth has slowed even more in the first quarter this year as global weakness, fading government stimulus and rising trade tensions take a toll on the economy."

https://www.apnews.com/f81337e4f78048bf8989ea35a3eb93b7

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Claim: New unemployment claims recently hit a 49-year low.

Truth: "On the surface, things looks almost too good to be true. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits for the first time hit a 49-year low in September. Since the figure broadly reflects how many workers are being laid off, it underscores the strength of the job market and the economy... But here’s the dirty little secret behind the numbers: The share of laid-off Americans even *trying* to get these benefits is the lowest on record... If first-time jobless claims are historically low because fewer laid-off workers are applying, it could become a bit tougher to sniff out a weakening economy."

https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/the-secret-behind-jobless-claims-record-low-numbers-arent-all-they-seem/

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Claim: Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.

Truth: "Middle-class income was the highest on record last year, new data shows, but those numbers may be a little misleading...  Changes in the way these numbers were calculated over the years mean that last year’s median income was in fact slightly lower than numbers recorded in 1999 and 2007, U.S. Census Bureau Officials cautioned."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/middle-class-income-highest-on-record-fact-check

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Claim: African-American unemployment has recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.

Truth: "That was accurate in May 2018, when the rate declined to 5.9 percent, its lowest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began to report it in 1972. Fast-forward to February 2019, and the unemployment rate for African Americans had jumped back to 7 percent, erasing all the gains it had made over the previous year... The black unemployment rate tends to be significantly higher than the overall U.S. unemployment rate. At 7 percent in February, it was nearly twice the U.S. jobless rate of 3.8 percent."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/26/trumps-outdated-spin-black-unemployment-rate/

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Claim: Hispanic-American unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded.

Truth: "The Hispanic American unemployment statistic... has been around for less than 50 years and hit a low of 4.4 percent in 2018 but rose back to 4.9 percent in January."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/live-updates/trump-white-house/live-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-trumps-2019-state-of-the-union-address/the-unemployment-rate-has-ticked-back-up/

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Claim: Asian-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.

Truth: "The Asian-American statistic has been around for less than 20 years. While it reached a low of 2.1 percent rate in May 2018, it rose to 3.2 percent in January."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/live-updates/trump-white-house/live-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-trumps-2019-state-of-the-union-address/the-unemployment-rate-has-ticked-back-up/

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Claim: Women’s unemployment recently reached the lowest rate in 65 years.

Truth: "[W]hile it’s true that 863,000 women joined the workforce during the president’s first 11 months in office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics...that’s 34 percent less than the number of women workers that were added over the same period, from January to December, in each of the last two years. [In fact] it’s the smallest increase since 2012 and below the historical norm for the past 54 years, dating to 1964."

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-female-employment-sorry-women-i-let-you-down-again-1098500

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Claim: Youth unemployment has recently hit the lowest rate in nearly half a century.

Truth: "More young Americans -- defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as people between the ages of 16 to 24 -- are working this summer, pushing the unemployment rate for the group to a 52-year low. But there's a catch: the labor force participation rate for young Americans remains below its 1989 peak... [The] labor-force participation rate stands at 60.6 percent, far below its peak of 77.5 percent in July 1989, the BLS added. This rate illustrates the share of 16 to 24 year olds who are working or looking and available for work... For 16-to-19 year-olds in particular, participation is at a record low. Just 35 percent of that age group is looking for work or working—the lowest figure since record-keeping started in 1948."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/youth-unemployment-hits-a-50-year-low-but-theres-a-catch/

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Claim: Lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for Americans without a high school diploma.

Truth: [Do you want fries with that?] "Even though high school dropouts are finding jobs, they may not be the type of roles leading to high pay and career opportunities... One-third of them are working in service industries like retail or restaurants, the type of jobs that have been the focus of the Fight for $15 labor movement. By comparison, only 8 percent of those with college degrees work in service businesses."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/even-high-school-dropouts-are-finding-jobs-these-days/

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Claim: Under my Administration, veterans’ unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in nearly 20 years.

Truth: "Veterans made headlines earlier this month when the Department of Labor announced that the veteran unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 2.7 percent... However, there is more to veterans’ economic well-being than that figure from the headlines. In October, more than 9.9 million veterans were employed. However, nearly a third of veterans are underemployed... This means they are working a job that they are overqualified for... [O]ne in five veterans — or 1.8 million veterans — are currently paid less than $15 an hour [and] about 1.4 million veterans are at risk of homelessness while more than 39,000 veterans are homeless."

https://www.marketplace.org/2017/11/10/veteran-day-employment-jobs-numbers/

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Claim: Almost 3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since the election.

Truth: "Trump and the White House omit important context and overstate his role in reducing the number of people on food stamps. Nor is it accurate that recent declines are the biggest in decades. It’s true, as the White House conveys, that more than 2.8 million people stopped participating in the program during the 15-month period from February 2017, Trump’s first full month in office, to May 2018, the latest Agriculture Department data available. But this decline is consistent with a longer-term downward trend in food stamp usage... For instance, in the 15-month period before Trump’s first full month in office, food stamps declined by 3.3 million — larger than the 2.8 million that dropped off under Trump’s watch."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trumps-claims-on-record-gdp-jobs-and-the-russia-investigation

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Claim: The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans. We are committed to VOCATIONAL education.

Truth: "[T]he idea that the pledge was responsible for adding all those jobs — amplified by the White House repeatedly on Twitter in in the final days of the vote — turns out to be exaggerated... Corporate America may well offer 6.3 million training opportunities in the next five years. According to interviews with many of the pledge's largest signatories, however, the numbers advertised at the Oct. 31 event largely represented a tally of already-planned training programs rather than ... brand-new opportunities..."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/12/politics/trump-pledge-to-americas-workers/index.html

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Claim: 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future—the highest ever.

Truth: This claim is based on a National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) survey of "company outlook", the most recent release of which shows that composite has dropped to 89.5%.

https://www.nam.org/uploadedFiles/NAM/Site_Content/Data-and-Reports/Manufacturers_Outlook_Survey/Q1%202019%20Outlook%20page%20text.pdf

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Claim: Retail sales surged last month, up another 6 percent over last year.

Truth: "Sales at U.S. retailers fell in April [2019] for the second time in three months, a sign that Americans are exercising more caution over how much they spend with the economy facing more headwinds... Retail sales dropped 0.2% last month, the government said Wednesday. Sales declined in most major segments including autos, home centers and Internet stores."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/retail-sales-fall-02-in-april-2019-05-15

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Claim: Signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history. After tax cuts, over $300 billion poured back in to the U.S. in the first quarter alone.

Truth: "Corporations brought home $350 billion after tax cut, but they haven’t put it to work... The Trump White House is using meaningless statistics to falsely claim that its big corporate tax cut is working even better than hoped... Hassett told Maria Bartiromo that U.S. multinationals have brought back more than $300 billion in overseas profits and have reduced their direct investment overseas by $400 billion. The first fact is trivially true, while the second is misleading — it’s a one-time drop that‘s due to [an] accounting change... because the tax law meant they no longer had to maintain the fiction that these profits were earned overseas. But bringing back that cash doesn’t mean the corporations are suddenly free to invest in U.S. operations, and it certainly doesn’t mean that American companies will no longer invest in foreign operations."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/yes-corporations-have-brought-home-cash-after-the-tax-cut-but-they-havent-put-it-to-work-2018-06-29

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Claim: As a result of our tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.

Truth: "This lower rate would be the lowest top marginal rate for pass-through businesses since 1931... Although the top rate would be capped at 25 percent, the average small business doesn’t pay a tax rate that high. According to a 2009 report from the Small Business Administration, the *effective* marginal tax rate for a small business is 19.8 percent."

https://checkyourfact.com/2017/10/25/fact-check-would-small-businesses-pay-the-lowest-tax-rate-in-over-80-years-under-the-gop-tax-plan/

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Claim: Helped win U.S. bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Truth: Yes Trump did, but "[as] the NOlympics LA coalition anticipated, the now controversial 2028 bid was hurried in a profoundly undemocratic manner, informed only by the voices and interests of a few powerful figures who stand to benefit directly from the Olympics and who would not assume any personal risk. It was a sloppy, damning, patronizing process which sought to silence the people of Los Angeles despite serious concerns and a litany of unanswered questions. We seek to reverse this tide of anti-democratic, pro-capitalist local politics that has defined the Garcetti era as he tries to use the Trojan Horse of the Olympics to advance his broader political ambitions while handing over the keys to the city to developers and business interests."

https://nolympicsla.com/platform/

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Claim: Helped win U.S.-Mexico-Canada’s united bid for 2026 World Cup.

Truth: "The policies and comments of United States President Donald Trump hurt the U.S.-led bid to host the 2026 World Cup but were ultimately not enough to sway FIFA voters, Germany federation president Richard Grindel said after Wednesday's vote. Trump's push for travel restrictions to the U.S. as well as negative comments toward poorer countries had already presented obstacles when in May the president, in publicly backing the bid, questioned why the U.S. should support other countries who might lobby against the push for the World Cup."

http://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/story/3524723/donald-trump-hurt-us-led-world-cup-bid-more-than-helped-germany-chief

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Claim: Opened ANWR and approved Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines.

Truth 1: Trump did NOT open the ANWR because a judge determined that Trump didn't have the authority to revoke Obama's orders putting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) off-limits to offshore drilling development.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032019/arctic-anwr-oil-gas-drilling-legal-challenges-climate-impact-wyoming-nepa-ruling

Truth 2: Yes, Trump *did* approve the ecocidal Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines - and it's all about the Benjamins. "Fights against both pipelines have ignited nationwide grassroots movements for over the past five years and will almost assuredly sit at the epicenter of similar backlash moving forward... Donald Trump's top presidential campaign energy aide Harold Hamm stands to profit if both pipelines go through... Hamm, the founder and CEO of Continental Resources who sat in the VIP box at Trump's inauguration and was a major Trump campaign donor, would see his company's oil obtained from hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') in the Bakken Shale flow through both lines. Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, was also a major Trump donor."

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/01/24/trump-harold-hamm-keystone-xl-dakota-access-approval-order

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Claim: Record number of regulations eliminated.

Truth: Deregulation is not necessarily a good thing, but even where it is "while Mr. Trump has made progress in his deregulatory agenda, his claims of achieving more success in one year than throughout the entire presidencies of any of his predecessors is hyperbole, not fact."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/us/politics/trump-says-no-president-has-ever-cut-so-many-regulations-not-quite.html

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Claim: Enacted regulatory relief for community banks and credit unions.

Truth: Trump did sign SB 2155 into law, a Dodd-Frank rollback which does enact some regulatory relief for community banks and credit unions. This was bipartisan legislation, however, that did not originate with Trump.

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/trump-signs-partial-dodd-frank-rollback-41867/

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Claim: Obamacare individual mandate penalty GONE.

Truth: "President Donald Trump boasted Tuesday night about killing Obamacare’s requirement that most Americans have health insurance or pay a fine... Trump did not mention during his State of the Union address, however, that last year he and fellow Republicans failed to repeal and replace many other parts of the Affordable Care Act, as they had eagerly sought... 'Instead, he signed a bill which will raise premiums double-digits and deny coverage to millions, championed bills removing protections for pre-existing conditions and imposing an age tax, and implemented Medicaid requirements designed to deny coverage to people who need it the most,' Woodhouse said. 'And 3.2 million Americans lost their health care in 2017 as a result of his sabotage.'"

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/30/trump-touts-repeal-of-obamacare-individual-mandate.html

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Claim: My Administration is providing more affordable healthcare options for Americans through association health plans and short-term duration plans.

Truth: "The Trump administration issued new insurance rules Wednesday to encourage more Americans to buy inexpensive, skimpy health plans originally designed for short-term use... Topher Spiro, vice president for health policy at the liberal Center for American Progress, derided the health plans as 'junk insurance'... And the American Lung Association’s president, Harold Wimmer, said short-term policies provide inadequate coverage for people with diseases such as asthma or lung cancer... While praising the administration’s effort to promote insurance choices, Matt Eyles, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, said, 'We remain concerned that consumers who rely on short-term plans for an extended time period will face high medical bills when they need care that isn’t covered or exceeds their coverage limits.'"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-administration-widens-availability-of-skimpy-short-term-health-plans/2018/07/31/a5cf2bc2-94d2-11e8-810c-5fa705927d54_story.html

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Claim: Last month, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history. And thanks to our efforts, many drug companies are freezing or reversing planned price increases.

Truth: That might be true in some contexts, but while "generic drug approvals are at record-breaking highs, new drug approvals languish behind with only 59 approvals in 2018 (the FDA approved 100 new drugs in 2017). Further, as an article from the Washington Examiner notes, only 12 percent of the FDA’s 2018 generic approvals were for complex drugs, which have comparatively fewer generic competitors (and often higher prices)."

https://fee.org/articles/fda-approved-record-number-of-generic-drugs-in-2018/

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Claim: We reformed the Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone.

Truth: This statement refers to the 340B drug pricing program, and is inaccurate. "[T]he notion that 340B discounts push up drug prices for privately-insured patients is flat out wrong. 340B discounts amount to a very small portion of drug spending in the U.S. A 2015 analysis found the discounts were 1.3 percent of total U.S. drug sales. While that has edged up in the years since, it remains less than 2 cents on the dollar."

https://340binformed.org/2018/05/what-does-president-trumps-drug-pricing-plan-mean-for-340b/

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Claim: Signed Right-To-Try legislation.

Truth: Yes Trump did, but those "in opposition to the bill say that it will not produce any benefit for patients because the stumbling block to access is unwillingness of the manufacturer to comply with requests, an issue that the bill fails to address... The FDA receives more than 1000 requests per year from terminally ill patients for expanded access to unapproved medications and treatments, and the agency approves more than 99% of those requests... However, the FDA receives these applications only after both the manufacturer and the physician agree on enrolling the patient."

https://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2018/december2018/revisiting-right-to-try-legislation

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Claim: Secured $6 billion in NEW funding to fight the opioid epidemic.

Truth: Trump may have "secured $6 billion in new funding over two years to fight opioid abuse, [but] experts argue that the funding timeline is inadequate... 'It has to be a commitment to at least 10 years of funding. A two-year period doesn’t work because states cannot build out new systems unless there’s a commitment to long term funding,' Kolodny said. 'This problem won’t get better overnight.'"

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/white-house-touts-progress-in-opioid-crisis-but-some-are-skeptical.html

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Claim: We have reduced high-dose opioid prescriptions by 16 percent during my first year in office.

Truth: Opioid prescriptions went down (again) in 2017, but how much credit for that Trump deserves is questionable. "Prescriptions for opioid painkillers have been dropping since 2011... The declines come amid a flurry of new insurance company policies and state laws setting limits on opioid prescribing. States have also been tracking opioid prescriptions more closely through electronic databases and requiring more doctors to check the databases for signs of 'doctor shopping' or misuse before giving a patient opioids."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/health/opioid-prescriptions-addiction.html

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Claim: Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.

Truth: "Trump [also] signed the VA Mission Act, commonly considered the biggest overhaul of veterans’ health care in a generation... The logical conclusion from the Mission is not as its boosters claim, to shore up the VA for the future and create a system that would be 'veteran centric,' but to tear down the agency, brick by brick, visit by visit. This strategy will not only erase what has been the most successful American experiment in government-delivered health care, but will also send veterans out into a private system that is more expensive, less accountable, and unable to meet their particular needs."

https://prospect.org/article/trumps-under-radar-push-dismantle-veterans-health-care

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Claim: Increased our coal exports by 60 percent; U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high.

Truth: To the extent that Trump deserves any credit for either of these statistics, he must likewise shoulder blame for their ecocidal impacts. "There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there has been for 800,000 years - since before our species evolved... On Saturday (May 11), the levels of the greenhouse gas reached 415 parts per million (ppm)... Humans are burning fossil fuels, causing the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which are adding an extra blanket on an already feverish planet. The subsequent warming is ... causing changes to the planet - shrinking glaciers, bleaching coral reefs and intensifying heat waves and storms, among other impacts."

https://www.livescience.com/65469-highest-carbon-dioxide-levels.html

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Claim: United States is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.

Truth: "The United States has been exporting different forms of energy for many years. It has been a net exporter of coal and refined petroleum products, a fact that predates Trump. The one new development is natural gas. For the first time since 1957 [and more attributable to ecocidal fracking than megalomaniacal Trump], the United States became a net exporter in 2017... Overall though, it is a net energy importer, a situation that’s not expected to change until midway through the next decade."

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jan/31/donald-trump/trump-exaggerates-energy-exports/

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Claim: Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord.

Truth: The Paris Climate Accord is a job creator, not a job killer. Meeting its targets could create 24 million jobs globally by 2030.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/29/24-million-jobs-could-be-created-from-meeting-paris-climate-agreement-targets/

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Claim: Cancelled the illegal, anti-coal, so-called Clean Power Plan.

Truth: Yes Trump did, accelerating our ecocidal demise in so doing. "Coal-fired facilities — one of the biggest contributors to climate change — have accounted for about half of U.S. power plant closures over the last decade. Obama's Clean Power Plan was poised to accelerate those retirements by setting ambitious emissions targets for states. Those goals encouraged states to build more wind and solar farms or convert coal plants to natural gas-fired facilities... Trump's replacement for the policy — the Affordable Clean Energy rule — instead asks states to submit plans to make coal plants run more efficiently by improving their heat rate, or the amount of heat necessary to generate a unit of electric power. That already lowers the bar for emissions reductions, but the EPA also says it won't set a minimum requirement. Policy analysts say that will likely spark a race to the bottom in much of the country."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/22/these-states-will-likely-keep-burning-coal-for-longer-thanks-to-trumps-new-emissions-rules.html

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Claim: Secured record $700 billion in military funding; $716 billion next year.

Truth: No record here. "The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, a two-year budget agreement that Trump signed into law Feb. 9, set the budget authority for national defense at $700 billion in fiscal year 2018 and $716 billion in fiscal 2019... The budget authority for national defense was larger in nominal dollars, which are not adjusted for inflation, in 2010 ($721 billion) and in 2011 ($717 billion)... When adjusted for inflation, four other years since 1976 exceeded the fiscal 2018 budget authority."

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/07/trumps-defense-spending-exaggerations/

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Claim: NATO allies are spending $69 billion more on defense since 2016.

Truth: "Despite many European countries boosting their defense budgets, only seven of the 29 NATO allies are currently reaching the recommended spending target of 2% of gross domestic product...  Since 2016, they have actually spent an extra $41 billion on defense..."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/nato-defense-spending-target/index.html

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Claim: Process has begun to make the Space Force the 6th branch of the Armed Forces.

Truth: "A House defense spending bill would provide $15 million to study plans for a Space Force rather than funding the establishment of the military branch as President Trump requested... The bill would allocate $15 million to 'study and refine plans for the potential establishment of a Space Force as a branch of the Armed Forces...' The text adds that 'nothing in this provision shall be construed to authorize the establishment of a Space Force.'"

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/443663-defense-spending-bill-would-give-15m-to-study-space-force

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Claim: Confirmed more circuit court judges than any other new administration.

Truth: Supreme Court justices, court of appeals judges, and district court judges are *nominated* by the President and *confirmed* by the United States Senate. "To date, Ronald Reagan has appointed the largest number of federal judges, with 382, followed closely by Bill Clinton with 378. William Henry Harrison, who died 31 days after his inauguration, is the only president to have appointed no federal judges."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_judicial_appointments

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Claim: Confirmed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Truth: Trump *nominated* Gorsuch and Kavanaugh but they were *confirmed" by the US Senate. "Both the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmations were enabled by a rule change made by the Senate Republican majority in April 2017, which applied the so-called nuclear option to Supreme Court nominees and allowed nominations to be advanced by a simple majority vote rather than the historical norm of a three-fifths supermajority vote."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Supreme_Court_candidates

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Claim: Withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran Deal.

Truth: Yes, Trump terminated the United States’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, which was/is neither horrible nor one-sided. "Withdrawing from the [Iran] nuclear agreement is a monumental mistake by the President, who is fulfilling a dangerous campaign promise that puts politics over the security of the American people and our closest allies. It hurts to see America breaking its word."

https://winwithoutwar.org/policy/members-of-congress-react-to-trumps-decision-to-violate-the-jcpoa/

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Claim: Moved U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Truth: Yes Trump did - merging the US Consulate and Embassy offices in the process. This "change will further damage the United States’ ability to influence events on the ground and will harm U.S. relations with the Palestinians. That said, it’s not clear how much lower Trump’s standing can go. A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that 90 percent of Palestinians thought Trump was biased against them, and the Palestinian Authority has refused to meet with U.S. officials for almost a year.... [It] is now nearly impossible for the United States to play a central role in pursuing a peace deal, as it has killed off its relationship with the Palestinians."

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/23/merging-the-u-s-consulate-and-embassy-in-jerusalem-is-a-mistake/

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Claim: Protecting Americans from terrorists with the Travel Ban, upheld by Supreme Court.

Truth: "The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the Trump administration’s policy barring people from several predominantly Muslim nations from entering the U.S., ruling that the travel ban was an appropriate use of executive power aimed at strengthening national security...  In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that the policy – which targets travelers from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia – was discriminatory because it brands Muslims as potential terrorists... [P]rofiling Muslims will not keep the United States safe from terrorism... The Trump administration’s profiling of Muslim travelers has been deemed constitutional. But that does not make it a valid national security plan."

https://theconversation.com/trump-travel-ban-targeting-muslims-will-not-make-america-safer-97519

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Claim: Issued Executive Order to keep open Guantanamo Bay.

Truth: Yes, like Bush and Obama before him, Trump did sign an executive order keeping the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (Gitmo) open. "Since the inmates there have been detained indefinitely without trial and several detainees have been tortured, the operations of this camp are considered to be a major breach of human rights by Amnesty International and Due Process rights in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

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Claim: Concluded a historic U.S.-Mexico Trade Deal to replace NAFTA. And negotiations with Canada are underway as we speak.

Truth: "[T]he United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a replacement for NAFTA, is doomed. The deal that could govern some $1 trillion in regional trade is not likely to pass any of the legislatures of the partner countries... Legislators from both sides of the aisle are increasingly skeptical that the impugned agreement does enough to protect U.S. workers and other interests."

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/443049-woe-is-the-united-states-mexico-canada-agreement

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Claim: Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.

Truth: "President Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker claimed symbolic victories, but not much else... [N]either side walked away with substantial wins. To get Trump to dial back his threats on EU auto exports, Juncker promised that the EU would import more soybeans and natural gas — two things the bloc is already doing. In exchange for this PR victory, Trump gave Juncker the opportunity to claim that he had averted new tariffs on EU car exports (for now)... But for all the symbolic victories, there were some notable shifts. By agreeing to enter into negotiations without the U.S. lifting its steel and aluminum tariffs, Juncker reneged on the EU’s claim that it would 'not negotiate under threat.' And after months of railing against European leaders, Trump’s willingness to make nice with the EU signaled that he too may be questioning whether trade wars are 'easy to win' after all."

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/trump-juncker-european-union-trade-war/566120/

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Claim: Imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to protect our national security.

Truth: "Trump said that American aluminum and steel 'are vital to our national security. ... They are the bedrock of our defense industrial base...' Military purchases account for a small fraction of U.S. production for both metals, to say nothing of foreign imports. Critics add that the tariffs could have negative impacts on national security that aren’t taken into account by the White House or Commerce Department... Bolstering Trump’s point, however, the 1962 law used as justification for the tariffs specifically allows a more expansive definition that adds far-reaching critical infrastructure to specific military activities. Because this claim needs so much additional context, we rate the statement Half True."

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/09/donald-trump/how-vital-our-national-security-are-steel-aluminum/

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Claim: Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices.

Truth: "The Trump administration is said to be preparing tariffs against Chinese information technology, telecoms and consumer products in an attempt to force changes in Beijing’s intellectual property and investment practices. .. [But] forty-five U.S. trade associations representing some of the largest companies in the country are urging President Donald Trump not to impose tariffs on China, warning it would be 'particularly harmful' to the U.S. economy and consumers."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-china/forty-five-u-s-trade-groups-urge-trump-to-avoid-tariffs-against-china-idUSKBN1GU122

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Claim: Net exports are on track to increase by $59 billion this year.

Truth: This claim cannot be proven/disproven as stated. But FWIW, the US trade deficit dropped from $659 billion Q4 2018 to $603 billion Q1 2019, reflecting a $56 billion dollar increase in net exports for that period.

https://www.economy.com/united-states/net-exports

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Claim: Improved vetting and screening for refugees, and switched focus to overseas resettlement.

Truth: Yes Trump did, but in addition "[d]eep cuts by the Trump administration in the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. annually has forced the IRC [International Rescue Committee] and eight other nonprofits that help those fleeing war, famine, and persecution to cut staff and close offices... 'There has been, over the last two years, a systematic dismantling of the refugee-resettlement infrastructure by the administration, either directly or indirectly,' said Emily Gray, the senior vice president of U.S. ministries at World Relief...'"

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/refugee-admissions-trump/569641/

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Claim: We have begun BUILDING THE WALL. Republicans want STRONG BORDERS and NO CRIME. Democrats want OPEN BORDERS which equals MASSIVE CRIME.

Truth: The key premises of this politically sloganized claim are that (a) border walls lower the number of illegal immigrants, and (b) fewer illegal immigrants means a lower crime rate.  Both of these premises are false. This research disproves the former, i.e. that border walls lower the number of illegal immigrants:

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/borders-and-walls-do-barriers-deter-unauthorized-migration

And this research disproves that latter, i.e. that fewer illegal immigrants means a lower crime rate:

https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-crime-assessing-evidence

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