In an interview that aired on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Trump gave his usual bluster and ignored some important facts...
13,099 Murderers...
Trump claimed that the U.S. had “13,099 murderers released into our country over the last three years” who were undocumented immigrants. That claim is false.
Trump may have pulled that number from a letter the deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent to Rep. Tony Gonzales that listed “the number of noncitizens on ICE’s docket convicted or charged with a crime.”
On the letter, ICE lists 13,099 non-citizens who had been convicted or charged with homicide who are living in the U.S. and who are on ICE’s “non-detained docket,” but those numbers are from not just the Biden administration but all administrations over the last 40 years, including Trump’s. Plus, not all of those people listed are walking free. The list includes those who are currently in jail or prison but who are not being held in immigration detention.
Welker confronted Trump with that fact, saying, “The 13,000 figure I think goes back about 40 years.”
“Nope. No it doesn’t,” Trump said. “It’s within the three-year period. It’s during the Biden term. No, that was a fiction that they put that out. This was done by the border patrol. It’s 13,099 and it’s during the Biden period of time. And these are murderers, many of whom murdered more than one person. You don’t want those people in this country.”
Blatantly lying or he just doesn't know the facts?
Trump went on to claim that prisons in Venezuela are “at the lowest point in terms of emptiness that they’ve ever been,” implying that those criminals are coming to the U.S.
But FactCheck.org writes, “Experts in and out of Venezuela told us there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claim. Reported crime is trending down in Venezuela, though not nearly as dramatically as Trump claims, but crime experts in the country say there are numerous reasons for that and they have nothing to do with sending criminals to the U.S.”
And he went on...
“I Am the One That Saved Obamacare”
Trump repeated a false claim that he said during the presidential debate, alleging that he “made it so that it (Obamacare) works” and said, “I am the one that saved Obamacare.”
But as president, Trump tried to repeal and roll back the Affordable Care Act through multiple channels, including executive action, lawsuits, and Congress.
On day one of his first administration, Trump signed an executive order that stated: “It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” The order also told government agencies to “exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of parts of the ACA that constituted a burden. He also cut $90 million in funding for promotion of ACA enrollment and decreased funding by nearly half for people who helped others sign up for ACA coverage.
He then supported legislation, the American Health Care Act, that would repeal ACA subsidies. Trump even complained during the Meet the Press interview that Sen. John McCain was part of the effort that stopped that bill from passing in the Senate. “So, when John McCain let us down by voting, and Murkowski and Collins, and whoever it was that voted against, but they really let us down,” Trump told Welker.
The Trump administration also joined with 18 Republican state attorneys general to legally challenge the ACA, but the Supreme Court ruled they lacked standing to sue.
Trump has vowed to replace the ACA with his own healthcare legislation but stuck with his line that he only has “concepts of a plan” to do so.
“Yes. We have concepts of a plan that would be better,” Trump said on Meet the Press, adding, “Because Obamacare stinks. It’s lousy..."
Still won’t concede 2020...
Welker asked Trump directly, “For the sake of unifying this country, will you concede the 2020 election and turn the page on that chapter?”
But Trump refused. “No. No, why would I do that?” he said.
Welker pushed back, asking, “Sir, Democrats have control of the White House now. They didn’t in 2020. If they are going around stealing elections, why didn’t they do it this time… So why didn’t they steal this election? Since they have more power now?”
“Because I think it was too big to rig,” Trump said. “It was too big to rig.”
But Trump didn’t think his victory would be “too big to rig” throughout the campaign, including when he falsely claimed less than a week before the election that “We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania. Must announce and PROSECUTE, NOW!”
And yes...there remains no evidence of widespread fraud during either the 2020 or 2024 presidential elections.
Birthright citizenship...
“We’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people,” Trump said in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But we have to end it.”. Lol vowing to to end the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to American-born children.
“We’re going to end that, because it’s ridiculous,” Trump said. “We’re the only country that has it, you know.”
Wrong, sir. Just wrong. More than 30 other countries recognize birthright citizenship.
Lying? Or just woefully unaware of most facts?
Tariffs...
Trump misconstrued the potential economic realities of tariffs, the taxes charged to importers on goods coming into the U.S. from abroad. They are a central part of his economic policy.
“I don’t believe” that tariffs are paid for by consumers, he told Welker when pressed on that fact. He also argued “they cost Americans nothing.”
But American consumers paid hundreds of dollars each year in higher costs as a result of the tariffs Trump enacted in his first administration, according to one analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
According to most economists, corporations typically pass these import taxes on to consumers, leaving Americans to pick up the tab .
