Lies, damned lies and Trump lies

**christiefan915** · 08-14-2016, 08:01 PM

“As usual, Hillary & the Dems are trying to rig the debates so [two] are up against major NFL games.” – 29 July, Twitter
The commission answered Trump in a statement, saying it consulted with no parties or campaigns. “It is impossible to avoid all sporting events, and there have been nights on which debates and games occurred in most election cycles. A debate has never been rescheduled as a result.

“It’s against two NFL games. I got a letter from the NFL saying: ‘This is ridiculous.’” – 30 July, interview with ABC News
League spokesperson Brian McCarthy wrote on Twitter that the NFL never sent a letter to Trump. “While we’d obviously wish the debate commission could find another night, we did not send a letter to Trump,” McCarthy wrote. Trump has provided no evidence of a letter.

“Mr Khan who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things.” – 30 July, campaign statement
Khizr Khan, the Muslim father of a US army captain who was killed in Iraq, famously denounced Trump at the Democratic national convention. Khan’s right to stand on a stage and ask Trump “have you even read the United States constitution?” is enshrined as the first amendment of that constitution, which guarantees freedoms of religion, expression, assembly and petition.

“[Vladimir Putin is] not going into Ukraine, OK? Just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down and you can put it down, you can take it anywhere you want.” – 30 July, interview with ABC News
Russian forces stealthily invaded Ukraine in 2014, beginning with a takeover of the Crimean peninsula. A mix of separatist Ukrainian rebels and Russian forces, seizing cities in eastern Ukraine, then began a protracted war with the government, a conflict that has killed nearly 10,000 people and still continues.
When questioned about his incorrect claim, Trump admitted Putin is “there in a certain way” and then appeared to blame the invasion on Barack Obama, who he said was also “there” with his strong US ties with Nato. Ukraine is not a member of Nato, and Trump does not advocate for giving weapons to the pro-western government in Kiev.

“You know, they [the terror group Isis] stole our passport machine.”
This is an apparent reference to a December 2015 Homeland Security intelligence report that said Isis had captured Syrian passport offices, and that the militants likely had been able to create fraudulent Syrian passports. The report does not suggest at all that Isis has the capacity to accurately forge US passports, or that it has stolen any US passport technology.

“You have a Kelly Ayotte who doesn’t want to talk about Trump, but I’m beating her in the polls by a lot.” – 2 August, Columbus, Ohio
New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte earned Trump’s ire by criticizing him for his feud with a Muslim American gold star family. But Ayotte, a Republican running for re-election, does not face Trump in any election and as of late July her favorability polls are far higher than Trump’s. In a 4 August poll, only 29% of New Hampshire people polled had a favorable opinion of Trump, compared to 42% who liked Ayotte; the latest numbers mirror those from late July.

“Our incompetent secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was the one who started talks to give $400m, in cash, to Iran.” – 3 August, Twitter
The $400m in question was part of a $1.7bn compromise of outstanding claims between the US and Iran, and was announced on 17 January 2016, three years after Clinton left her post as secretary of state. The money was settled through a special tribunal at the Hague, which was set up in 1981. The $400m was an arms payment by Iran’s pro-western government in the late 1970s – weapons never delivered when revolution overthrew that government and took Americans hostage in Tehran.

Repeat offender
This week, Trump repeated the false claim that the US “is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world” (it ranks near the bottom of industrialized nations), a lie about knowing Vladimir Putin (he has claimed to know him “very well” and not at all; the Kremlin says they have never communicated), and a lie about US screening for refugees.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...illary-clinton