SadKangaroo
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https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/21/politics/fact-check-trump-cabinet-meeting-20-...Special thanks to Mech for the search engine recommendation that led me to this piece. Quote:Fact check: Trump made at least 20 false claims in angry Cabinet monologue President Donald Trump delivered a blistering and rambling monologue to the journalists he allowed into his Cabinet meeting for more than 70 minutes on Monday. His press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, later tweeted, "I hope we see honest reporting from today's mtg." We can honestly tell you that Trump's remarks were highly dishonest. We're still looking into some of the President's claims. We can report that at least 20 of them were false: Barack Obama and Kim Jong Un"But in the meantime, North Korea, I like Kim, he likes me. We get along. I respect him, he respects me. 'You could end up in a war.' President Obama told me that. He said, 'The biggest problem, I don't know how to solve it.' He told me he doesn't know how to solve it. I said, 'Did you ever call him?' 'No.' Actually, he tried 11 times. But the man on the other side, the gentleman on the other side, did not take his call. OK? Lack of respect. But he takes my call,'" Trump said. Facts First: There is no apparent basis for the claim that Obama tried to call Kim Jong Un 11 times. "This is a total fabrication. Trump is completely delusional, and it's scary," Susan Rice, who served as Obama's national security adviser, said on Twitter in response to our tweet of Trump's quote. "We never called Kim," Ben Rhodes, who served as Obama's deputy national security adviser, told CNN. Trump has previously claimed that Obama begged Kim for a meeting, another assertion for which there is no evidence.The Iraq War"If you remember, I didn't want to go into Iraq. I was a civilian, so I had no power over it. But I always was speaking against going into Iraq," Trump said. Facts First: Trump did not publicly oppose the invasion of Iraq before it began. Trump was tentatively supportive of the war when radio host Howard Stern asked him in September 2002, "Are you for invading Iraq?" He responded: "Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly." The day after the invasion in March 2003, he said, "It looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint." Trump did not offer a definitive position on the looming war in a Fox News interview in January 2003, saying, "Either you attack or don't attack."
Trump started publicly questioning the war later in 2003, and he was an explicit opponent in an Esquire article published 17 months after the invasion. That is not the same as "I was against going to the war."The presidential salary"But I give away my presidential salary. They say that no other president has done it. I'm surprised, to be honest with you. They actually say that George Washington may have been the only other president," Trump said. Facts First: Trump does donate his salary, but the rest of his claim was inaccurate. He is not the only president to have donated the official salary; both John F. Kennedy and Herbert Hoover did so. Washington did not. Although Washington initially declined his salary, he relented after Congress insisted.The Emoluments ClauseTrump attacked critics who said that holding a G7 summit at one of his resorts would violate the Constitution. He said: "You people with this phony Emoluments Clause." Facts First: There's nothing phony about the Constitution's prohibitions against the President receiving payments from foreign and domestic governments.
The clause on foreign emoluments, found in Article I, Section 9, says that "no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."
The clause on domestic emoluments, found in Article II, Section 1, says: "The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them." Trump might have been attempting to argue that it is phony to apply the clause to his own activities, but, at very least, his wording left an inaccurate impression.The deal with Turkey"People have been trying to make this deal for years," Trump said of his ceasefire agreement with Turkey. Facts First: The President's claim is baseless to the point of being nonsensical. The deal is a narrow agreement specifically tied to the Turkish offensive that followed Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from a Kurdish-held region of northern Syria, not an agreement that resolves long-standing regional disputes. Further, Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush never sought to give Turkey anything like the concessionary terms of Trump's deal. You can read a longer fact check here.
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