This week, CNN’s Jake Tapper looks at claims President Donald Trump made about Osama bin Laden and the Iraq war during his Oct. 27 press conference announcing the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Various memes circulating online falsely claim that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader who recently died after a U.S. raid, had been released from U.S. military custody under President Barack Obama. He was actually released in 2004, under President George W. Bush.
President Donald Trump repeatedly has said his July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president was “perfect,” and a simple reading of the “transcript” is all that’s needed to evaluate the impeachment probe. But congressional testimony has revealed key pieces of information beyond that conversation.
In explaining his decision to pull U.S. forces from northern Syria and allow Turkey to set up a “safe zone” in Syria, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Turkey has lost “thousands and thousands of people from that safe zone.”
White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney engaged in some serious political spin when he tried to deny what he said in a televised press conference: that the White House withheld security aid to Ukraine, in part, because the administration wanted Ukraine to investigate Democrats and the 2016 election.
For more than an hour, President Donald Trump presided over a cabinet meeting, reeling off numerous false or misleading claims.
A popular Instagram post falsely claims “over 1,100 people died from reactions to the [flu] shot” in 2018, and suggests that the immunization gave some children polio. The flu vaccine cannot give anyone polio and there is no evidence to support the 1,100 figure.
In announcing “phase one” of a tentative trade deal with China, President Donald Trump wrongly stated that the “all-time high” for U.S. agricultural exports to China was “$16 or $17 billion.” Actually, it was nearly $26 billion in 2012.
In May 2018, three Democratic senators wrote to the Ukrainian prosecutor general, asking about a report that he had frozen four Ukrainian investigations involving Paul Manafort to avoid angering President Donald Trump. Republicans have called the letter a “threat” to withhold support for aid to Ukraine, saying it’s similar to what critics have charged Trump did.
In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper debunks two claims made by President Donald Trump about the U.S. military involvement in Syria.