In announcing that his administration would halt funding for the World Health Organization, President Donald Trump made a series of false, misleading and unsubstantiated claims about the WHO.
FactChecking Trump’s Attack on the WHO
Stories by Lori Robertson
Managing Editor, FactCheck.org
Trump’s Snowballing China Travel Claim
President Trump said that restrictions he placed on travel from China “saved a lot of lives,” a claim that grew to “probably tens of thousands” and “hundreds of thousands.” But we found no support for such figures.
The HHS Inspector General Report
In a testy exchange with reporters, President Donald Trump questioned the political motivations of an administration inspector general, claiming that her report on hospital experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic was “wrong.” The report gave the results of a survey of 323 hospitals across the country.
Trump, Pence and Reassessing Coronavirus
In a little more than a month, President Donald Trump’s language about the coronavirus has shifted, from talk of 15 cases that “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero” to warning of as many as 2.2 million deaths in the country if no social distancing efforts were undertaken.
Trump’s Spin on ‘Broken’ Testing
While his administration has faced criticism for being slow to ramp up testing for coronavirus infections, President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the problem was with his predecessors, saying the administration “inherited a broken system” that it “rebuilt.” That’s misleading.
Birx Spins ‘Extraordinarily Low Numbers’ of Coronavirus Cases
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, misleadingly claimed that 19 states — “almost 40% of the country” — “have less than 200 cases” of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. In fact, 17 states with 7.2% of the U.S. population have fewer than 200 confirmed cases each.
Trump’s Faulty Testing Claims
President Donald Trump and coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said the United States had done more testing for COVID-19 infections in eight days than South Korea had done in eight weeks, but that ignores the fact that South Korea has a much smaller population. On a per-capita basis, the U.S. lags behind the Asian country, and other nations.
Dems Misconstrue Trump Budget Remarks
After President Trump said, “I don’t know anything about” the disbanding of a White House pandemic response office, the Democrats claimed that he “lied” and pointed to Trump’s earlier remarks about “some of the people we cut” as evidence. But those remarks were in response to a question about proposed budget cuts — not the anti-pandemic team in question.
Trump’s H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic Spin
In tweets and other appearances, President Donald Trump has repeatedly compared his response to the new coronavirus with President Barack Obama’s handling of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. But Trump’s information is frequently incorrect or misleading — and the two viruses are very different.
Trump’s Welfare Claim
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that his administration has “lifted 10 million people off of welfare,” a figure that primarily includes the change in the number of recipients of food stamps, but also those enrolled in other programs. While it’s clear enrollment has declined by millions, there are some caveats to the president’s number.