The lies Trump told this week: a Russian love-in and conspiracy theories

Russia

“I never met [Vladimir] Putin. I don’t know who Putin is.” – 27 July, Doral Florida

It’s not clear whether Trump has ever spoken with the Russian president. Putin was invited to but did not attend a 2013 beauty pageant in Moscow, according to one of the oligarchs who helped organize the event. “Will he become my new best friend?” Trump wondered beforehand.

But the pair may have communicated through intermediaries. In 2014, Trump told a National Press Club luncheon: “I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.” A year earlier, Trump told MSNBC: “I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today.”

Last November, Trump claimed in a debate that he “got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes”. They appeared in separate, pre-taped segments and were not on set together.

“He said one nice thing about me. He said I’m a genius.” – 27 July, Doral Florida

Putin has never called Trump “a genius”; he used a Russian word that can be translated as “colorful” or “flamboyant”. He also once called him “talented, undoubtedly”. You can read more about Putin’s remarks here.

“He mentioned the N-word one time. I was shocked to hear him mention the N-word. You know what the N-word is, right? He mentioned it. I was shocked.”

Trump provided no evidence for this suggestion that Putin referred to Barack Obama using a racial slur. It is possible Trump was referring to “nuclear weapons”; a solitary conservative blog used the term to describe some of the Russian president’s remarks about nuclear weapons. Though Putin and Obama have a chilly relationship, the US president told the Atlantic earlier this year: “The truth is, actually, Putin, in all of our meetings, is scrupulously polite, very frank. Our meetings are very businesslike.”

“I have nothing to do with Russia.” – 27 July, Doral, Florida

Trump has repeatedly tried to do business in Russia, and his refusal to release tax returns prevents him proving that he has no assets there. In the same press conference, Trump admitted, “I guess probably I sell condos to Russians,” and gave a slightly exaggerated account of a $95m condominium sale. In 2007, he said he wanted to invest in Russia, saying in a deposition: “We will be in Moscow at some point.”

In 2008, his son Donald Jr told a real estate conference, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” and “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

In 2013, Trump held a beauty pageant in Moscow and received a share of the $14m investment spent to bring it there. “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” he told Real Estate Weekly afterward, as he discussed his hopes for a Moscow hotel that ultimately went nowhere. Similarly, Trump either traveled to the city or drew up ambitious real estate projects in Russia in 1987 and 1996, according to his memoir and court documents first unearthed by the Washington Post.

Trump could prove he has no financial interests in Russia by releasing his tax returns, as every presidential candidate has done in the last 40 years.

Trade

“Nafta! Signed by who? Bill Clinton!” – 27 July, Scranton, Pennsylvania

The Nafta trade deal was negotiated and signed by George HW Bush in 1992, and passed through Congress with Bill Clinton’s support in 1993, despite opposition from major unions. More Republicans voted for the measure than Democrats.

“Don’t forget, Europe got together – why, primarily did they get together? – so that they could beat the United States when it comes to making money, in other words, foreign trade.” – 24 July, interview with Meet the Press

The European Union began in 1952 as the European Coal and Steel Community, meant to unite the nations through trade and economic ties, and thus reduce the likelihood of war. In subsequent decades it gained new members and grew into a “common market” that promoted not just trade ties but a transnational union for infrastructure, joint regulation and open borders. The motives behind the 64-year project were and are complex and diverse, but taken together they could not reasonably be said to be about competition with the US, which has benefited from a stable and unified Europe.

For decades and across parties, American presidents and Congress have broadly supported European integration, whether motivated by economic interests, ideology, or defensive interests during and after the cold war. Transatlantic trade remains important for both the US and the EU, which for years have been in negotiations over an increasingly controversial trade deal.

Minimum wage

“The minimum wage has to go up. People are – at least $10, but it has to go up.” – 27 July, Doral Florida

Trump changed his position on the minimum wage three times this week, including within a single interview. On 26 July, when Fox News host Bill O’Reilly asked him where he would set a federal minimum wage, he repeated a stance from May that the US does not need one: “There doesn’t have to be.”

He then immediately changed his position: “Well, I would leave it, and raise it somewhat.” A day later in Florida he said he wanted a $10 an hour minimum wage, up from the current level of $7.25, and confirmed to a reporter: “federal”.

Conspiracy

“All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him [Ted Cruz’s father Rafael Cruz] and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast. Now, Ted never denied that it was his father. Instead he said, ‘Donald Trump.’ I had nothing to do with it.” – 22 July in Cleveland

Trump spent his first day as the official Republican nominee returning to a false story about the father of his primary foe, Ted Cruz. The businessman tried to bolster the conspiracy theory by saying Cruz had never denied it, which is itself false: on 22 April, Cruz’s campaign said: “The story is false. That is not Rafael in the picture.”

On 3 May, Cruz’s campaign further rejected the claim, calling it “a garbage story and clearly Donald wants to talk about garbage”.

Trump’s suggestion originates with a tabloid, the National Enquirer, which had published photos it alleged showed Rafael Cruz next to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated John F Kennedy. The article provides no proof besides a single photograph that is so grainy that even Oswald’s distinctive features are blurred.

Oswald and the other man in the photo are not having breakfast but standing on a New Orleans street, at a 1963 event in support of Fidel Castro.

The tabloid also offered an old picture of the senior Cruz, who fled Castro’s regime in Cuba and whose sister was tortured by it. Experts virtually all agree that accurate photo identification requires full-frontal images, as in a passport or driver’s license.

Democrats

“Bob McDonnell took a fraction of what [Tim] Kaine took.” – 24 July, interview with Meet the Press

Trump has it backwards with his accusation that Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, accepted more political gifts than former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, who went to the supreme court to challenge a corruption conviction for accepting about $175,000 in undisclosed gifts.

Kaine accepted and disclosed $161,033 in gifts while he was lieutenant governor and governor of Virginia, from 2002 through 2009 – years when the state had no limits on political gifts. The vast majority, according to his disclosures, were for travel expenses, and the largest was from Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. The largest personal gift came from a donor who gave Kaine “free use of Caribbean vacation home”, estimated worth $18,000. Kaine has never been accused of taking undisclosed gifts.

In contrast, McDonnell disclosed $215,414 in gifts while he was governor, from 2010 through 2013, with the largest a $25,000 flight to Puerto Rico and $19,000 in tickets to a Redskins game. He also accepted and did not disclose an estimated $175,000 in “loans, gifts and other benefits” from a single businessman, whose gifts included a Rolex watch and wedding catering. The supreme court overturned the graft conviction on the grounds that McDonnell did not necessarily respond with concrete favors and the case has gone back to a lower court.

“An analysis showed that Bernie Sanders would have won the Democratic nomination if it were not for the superdelegates.” – 24 July, Twitter

If superdelegates – party elites free to vote as they please – did not exist, Clinton would still have won 2,205 pledged delegates to Sanders’ 1,846.

Clinton received 3.8m more votes overall than the senator, and comes out ahead in every variation of the system: without superdelegates, in a winner-take-all scenario or with proportional results.

Delegate tracker.

Repeat offenders

This week, Trump repeated a mischaracterization of the Iran nuclear deal, a patently false claim that the US “is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world” when it ranks near the bottom of industrialized nations, a lie about his support for the Iraq war, and misleading characterizations of crime in the US.