With 49 days to Election Day, The Donald today was surprisingly… low energy. After showing up nearly an hour late to a rally in North Carolina, Trump gave a short, 27-minute speech that was (unsurprisingly) filled with the same recycled lies he always peddles on the campaign trail:
LIE #1 (SECOND DAY IN A ROW): HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTS OPEN BORDERS
TRUMP LIE: “My opponent has the most open border policy…” [High Point, NC, 9/20/16]
THE TRUTH: PolitiFact rated the claim that “Hillary Clinton is for open borders” as “False.” ”Giuliani said, ‘Hillary Clinton is for open borders.’ Clinton supported a 2013 bill that would have invested billions in border security in addition to a path to citizenship. As a presidential candidate she has called for securing the border and targeting deportation to criminals and those who pose security threats. While her plan would make it easier for many undocumented immigrants to avoid deportation, that’s not the same as allowing a free-for-all at the border and ending enforcement. We rate this claim False.” [PolitiFact, 7/18/16]
PolitiFact said Donald Trump’s claim that Hillary Clinton’s immigration plan would “create totally open borders” was “a huge distortion” and gave the claim a rating of “False.” “Trump said Clinton’s immigration platform would ‘create totally open borders.’ This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals. Clinton has praised work already done to secure the border, and she said she supported a 2013 bill that would have invested billions more in border security while creating a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. Her plan calls for protecting the border and targeting deportation to criminals and security threats. Her plan would make it easier for many undocumented immigrants to avoid deportation, but that’s not the same as ending all enforcement. We rate this claim False.” [PolitiFact, 6/23/16]
FactCheck.org called claims Hillary Clinton supports “open borders” wrong.” “Giuliani and Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, both wrongly claimed that Hillary Clinton supports ‘open borders.’ As we wrote when Trump himself made a similar claim, Clinton supported a Senate immigration bill that would have created a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally, but it also would have included large investments in border security. […] On her campaign website, Clinton says she would ‘focus resources on detaining and deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety.’ But the site also states that she will ‘uphold the rule of law’ and ‘protect our borders and national security.’ […] At a campaign stop in November, Clinton was even more explicit. ‘We need to secure our borders, I’m for it, I voted for it, I believe in it, and we also need to deal with the families, the workers who are here, who have made contributions, and their children,’ Clinton said in New Hampshire in November. ‘We can do more to secure our border and we should do more to deal with the 11 or 12 million people who are here, get them out of the shadows.’ That’s far short of advocating for open borders.” [FactCheck.org, 7/19/16]
LIE #2: HILLARY CLINTON INVENTED ISIS
TRUMP LIE: “The rise of ISIS is Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy legacy.” [High Point, NC, 9/20/16]
THE TRUTH: PolitiFact rated Donald Trump’s claim that “Hillary Clinton invented ISIS with her stupid policies. She is responsible for ISIS” as “False.” ”Trump said ‘Hillary Clinton invented ISIS with her stupid policies. She is responsible for ISIS.’ There were several factors that contributed to the growing power of ISIS, but it’s misleading to pin the responsibility solely on Clinton. For starters, the roots of ISIS trace back to 2004, when Bush was president and before Clinton was Obama’s secretary of state. She did vote to authorize force in Iraq in 2002 while a senator, but that was advocated by the Bush administration and the vast majority of senators. The intervention in Libya, which she supported, did give ISIS an opening, but Trump is overstating her role by saying she is responsible for ISIS. This claim is inaccurate. We rate it False.” [PolitiFact, 7/20/16]
Washington Post Fact Checker said Donald Trump’s claim that ISIS rose from Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s policies was “false and facile.” “‘The rise of ISIS is the direct result of policy decisions made by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.’ This is false and facile. The terrorist group is the direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as we explored in our interview with Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book on the rise of the Islamic State. (Trump, of course, supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003.) At best, one could argue that actions that Obama failed to take (over Clinton’s opposition) helped contribute to the growth of ISIS.” [Washington Post, 8/16/16]
Washington Post: ISIS gained power because of “a complex dynamic that both pre-dates and post-dates [Hillary Clinton’s] tenure as secretary of state.” ”This is a carefully phrased statement — note the use of the word ‘helped’ — that tries to pin the blame on Clinton for a complex dynamic that both pre-dates and post-dates her tenure as secretary of state. To a large extent, the Islamic State of today is simply an outgrowth of al-Qaeda of Iraq. It was established in April 2004 by longtime Sunni extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to the National Counterterrorism Center. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in 2006, and afterward his successor announced the formation of the Islamic State — more than two years before George W. Bush left office. The Islamic State certainly gained strength and territory from the civil war in Syria, but Clinton as secretary of state had pressed to funnel arms to the rebels; she was rebuffed by the president.” [Washington Post Fact Checker, 7/20/16]
LIE #3: BLACK YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IS 58 PERCENT
TRUMP LIE: “58% of African-American youth are not working.” [High Point, NC, 9/20/16]
THE TRUTH: PolitiFact: Donald Trump’s black youth unemployment number “comes from a computation of all 16- to 24-year-old blacks who aren’t working and may not even want a job, including high school and college students.” “Trump says the unemployment rate for black youths is 59 percent. The unemployment rate is a widely used term with a specific definition: It refers to the percentage of jobless people in the workforce who are actively seeking employment. In May, the unemployment rate for blacks ages 16 to 24 was 18.7 percent, or less than one-third of Trump’s claim. Trump’s campaign didn’t respond to our question about where the candidate got his 59 percent figure. But it appears likely it comes from a computation of all 16- to 24-year-old blacks who aren’t working and may not even want a job, including high school and college students. Clearly, black youths have a harder time finding work than whites. But Trump exaggerates the issue through his misleading use of statistics. We rate his statement Mostly False.” [PolitiFact, 6/20/16]
