President Donald Trump said he has “heard” varying numbers on the DACA population — from 650,000 to 3 million. In fact, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said there were 689,800 active DACA recipients as of Sept. 4, 2017.
Sen. James Inhofe misleadingly claimed that the statistics behind the globe’s likely hottest years on record — 2014, 2015 and 2016 — were “meaningless” because the temperature increases were “well within the margin of error.” Taking into account the margins of error, there’s still a long-term warming trend.
Vice President Mike Pence touted the latest jobs report as proof that “manufacturing is roaring back.” The previous administration made a similar claim, but experts then and now said it’s premature to declare a manufacturing renaissance.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn says the U.S. is “the most generous country in the world when it comes to legal immigration.” It’s true that the U.S. gives permanent legal status and citizenship to more immigrants than other industrialized nations, but it also has the third largest population in the world.
In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper examines President Donald Trump’s suggestion that his “very strict” policies on commercial aviation were responsible for “the best and safest year on record.”
Vice President Mike Pence falsely claimed that former President Barack Obama “repeatedly failed to express America’s solidarity with the Iranian protesters” in 2009.
President Donald Trump suggested his “very strict” aviation policies were linked to zero commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017 worldwide. In fact, in the United States, there have been no deaths from U.S. commercial airline accidents since 2009 and none from foreign air carriers in the U.S. since 2013.
President Donald Trump misleadingly inflated the benefits of the tax overhaul when he claimed it provides “$3.2 trillion … in tax cuts for American families.” It actually totals about $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for all taxpayers, including corporations.
President Trump says the new tax law “for the most part … wiped out” the estate tax. That’s misleading. While fewer people would have to pay it, estate tax revenue is expected to be cut by only a third over the next eight years. And then the changes would expire.
In our roundup of 2016 claims, we hypothesized that SciCheck would have no dearth of false and misleading claims to cover in 2017. That proved true. Politicians kept us busy. As 2017 comes to a close, we present the most notable claims about science from this year.