Tag: Obama Administration

Trump Parrots Hannity’s Lies About Obama Response To 2009 Swine Flu Outbreak

While speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon at the White House, President Donald Trump made a false claim about the Obama administration’s handling of the H1N1 flu (also commonly known as “swine flu”) back in 2009. And there’s a good bet that he’s learned this latest fiction from Fox News — and his favorite host, Sean Hannity.

“If you go back and look at the swine flu, and what happened with the swine flu,” Trump said, “you’ll see how many people died, and how actually nothing was done for such a long period of time, as people were dying all over the place. We’re doing it the opposite. We’re very much ahead of everything.”

As Media Matters has previously documented, Hannity and other right-wing personalities and outlets have circulated a lie that the Obama administration had done nothing about H1N1 — waiting six months to declare a national emergency, they say — while Americans died in vast numbers. In fact, this is totally false, and it also relies on obfuscations based around bureaucratic terms of art and specific effects on government regulations. Continue reading.

President Trump’s claim that Democrats gave Iran $150 billion

“The Democrats and President Obama gave Iran 150 Billion Dollars and got nothing, but they can’t give 5 Billion Dollars for National Security and a Wall?”

— President Trump in a tweet, Dec. 12, 2018

This is an egregious version of a claim that President Trump has made repeatedly — about 30 times, according to our database of Trump’s false and misleading claims. We had originally looked into the details of the $150 billion for a fact check during President Barack Obama’s administration, fact-checked the claim during the 2016 presidential debatesand noted it in roundups of various Trump news conferencesand interviews.

Somehow it’s never been put to the Pinocchio Test. But if the president is going to keep getting this wrong, it’s time to give this falsehood a Pinocchio rating.

The Facts

There are two numbers that Trump loves to reference when discussing the international nuclear agreement negotiated with Iran when Obama was president: $150 billion and $1.7 billion. The latter was a cash transaction, said to be the settlement of a long-standing Iranian claim against the United States, with interest, that was curiously timed to arrive when Iran released four detained Americans. (We discussed this payment at length in this fact check.)

View the complete December 13 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Prosecutors ask FBI agents for info on Uranium One deal

The following article by Tom Winter, Peter Williams and Ken Dilanian was posted on the NBC News website December 21, 2017:

On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News.

The interviews with FBI agents are part of the Justice Department’s effort to fulfill a promise an assistant attorney general made to Congress last month to examine whether a special counsel was warranted to look into what has become known as the Uranium One deal, a senior Justice Department official said. Continue reading “Prosecutors ask FBI agents for info on Uranium One deal”

Whom Do We Thank for Today’s Strong Economy?

The following article by Froma Harrop was posted on the Creators website December 12, 2017:

A president deserves partial credit for a strong economy. The current economic numbers are good, so to the extent that gratitude is due, let us offer it. Thank you, President Obama.

The economic gauges have been improving steadily for the eight years of the current recovery. Barack Obama was president for seven of them. As the first year of the Donald Trump presidency draws to a close, the economy’s growth has continued — but it has not accelerated in a meaningful way.

In the world as presented by the tweetmaster himself, Trump has already delivered on the economy, and the only direction from here on is up, up, up. Savvy investors, however, are asking, “When do we get out?” Continue reading “Whom Do We Thank for Today’s Strong Economy?”

Trump’s claim that he’s done more ‘by far’ than Obama in the fight against ISIS

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website October 25, 2017:

ISIS is losing territory and Trump is claiming credit, but experts say not so fast. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

“We’ve done more against ISIS in nine months than the previous administration has done during its whole administration — by far, by far.”
— President Trump, in remarks before the Value Voters Summit, Oct. 13, 2017

President Trump has made a variation of this claim repeatedly over the months, starting in July, when he proclaimed: “In five months we have done more against ISIS than anybody’s done since the beginning and we are having tremendous success with that.”

Every month since then, he has repeated the claim, simply updating the number of months. For instance, on Sept. 7, he said, “We have done better in eight months of my presidency than the previous eight years against ISIS.” (Never mind that the Islamic State terror group emerged as a significant force in Iraq and Syria in 2013, when it captured and raised its flag over Fallujah.) Continue reading “Trump’s claim that he’s done more ‘by far’ than Obama in the fight against ISIS”

Trump’s claim that Obama first ‘identified’ the 7 countries in his travel ban

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website February 7, 2017:

“The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”
— President Trump, statement regarding executive order, Jan. 29, 2017 Continue reading “Trump’s claim that Obama first ‘identified’ the 7 countries in his travel ban”