In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper looks at President Donald Trump’s claim that social media is “my form of telling the truth.” As Tapper points out, “social media is where President Trump tells some of his biggest whoppers.”
One recent example concerns health care coverage for individuals with preexisting conditions. On Oct. 31, the president tweeted that “Republicans will protect people with pre-existing conditions far better than the Dems!” But his own Department of Justice is supporting an ongoing lawsuit that could end the Affordable Care Act’s preexisting condition protections.
Trump also distorts the facts in a tweet about the so-called “caravan” of Central American migrants. He shared a video that falsely suggests that Democrats are funding these migrants’ journey, despite having no evidence to support that allegation.
And, in March 2017, he tweeted, without proof, that former President Barack Obama had his “wires tapped” in Trump Tower. Then-FBI Director James Comey on March 20, 2017, told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the Department of Justice and the FBI had “no information that supports those tweets.” There is still no proof to support Trump’s claim.
For more about Trump’s tweets, please see our article “FactChecking Trump’s Twitter ‘Truth.’” FactCheck.org and CNN’s “State of the Union” have been collaborating on fact-checking videos since September 2015. Past videos can be found on FactCheck.org.