>If a democrat's mouth is moving, the chances are good he or she is
>telling lies.

Only believe Trump's lies for they are the alternate truths.

Trump�s bombardment of dishonesty: Fact-checking 32 of his false claims
to Time
By Daniel Dale, CNN
29 minute read
Published 5:00 AM EDT, Sat May 4, 2024
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks
during a rally on May 1, 2024 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks
during a rally on May 1, 2024 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Washington CNN �

Former President Donald Trump delivered a bombardment of dishonesty in
his interviews with Time magazine.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made at least 32
false claims in the two April interviews that Time released this week.
His serial inaccuracy spanned a wide range of subjects, including the
economy, abortion, the NATO military alliance, the January 6, 2021,
attack on the US Capitol, his legal cases, his record as president and
the 2020 election he has relentlessly lied about for more than three
years.

Time published its own fact check of some of the 32 claims on Tuesday,
when it released its cover story on Trump. Here is an in-depth CNN
debunking.
Trump�s record as president

Terrorism during Trump�s presidency

Trump claimed that, during his presidency, �there was very little
terrorism. We had none. I had four years of � we had no terrorism. We
didn�t have a World Trade Center knocked down.�

Facts First: While it�s true, of course, that Trump�s presidency didn�t
feature anything comparable to the 2001 terrorist attack on the World
Trade Center, his claim that �we had no terrorism� isn�t true. There were
a variety of terrorist attacks on the US during his term.

Trump�s own Justice Department alleged that a mass murder in New York
City in 2017, which killed eight people and injured others, was a
terrorist attack carried out in support of ISIS; Trump repeatedly
lamented this attack during his presidency. Trump�s Justice Department
also alleged that a 2019 attack by an extremist member of Saudi Arabia�s
military, which killed three US servicemembers and injured others at a
military base in Florida, �was motivated by jihadist ideology� and was
carried out by a longtime �associate� of al Qaeda.

There were various additional terrorist attacks during Trump�s
presidency. Notably, Trump�s Justice Department said it was a �domestic
terrorist attack� when one of Trump�s supporters mailed improvised
explosive devices to CNN, prominent Democratic officials and other people
in 2018.

In 2019, a White supremacist pleaded guilty to multiple charges in New
York, including first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of
terrorism, for killing a Black man in March 2017 to try to start a race
war. And Trump�s Justice Department described a 2019 shooting massacre at
a Walmart in Texas as an act of domestic terrorism; the gunman who killed
23 people was targeting Latinos.

Border wall construction

Talking about his wall on the border with Mexico, Trump said, �I
completed what I said I was going to do, much more than I said I was
going to do.�

Facts Fist: This is false; Trump didn�t achieve nearly as much wall
construction as he had pledged on the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016.

Trump repeatedly said in 2015 and 2016 that �we need� 1,000 miles of wall
to protect the southern border, with another 1,000 miles already
protected by natural barriers. But not even close to 1,000 miles were
built during his presidency; official federal statistics put the total
construction at 458 miles, and only 52 miles of that total was new
�primary� wall built where no barriers had previously existed. When Trump
left office, there were about 280 miles of the border where wall
construction had been planned but not executed.

The departure of Attorney General William Barr

Asked why voters should trust him with a second term when many of the
people who worked closely with him during his first term now say he
doesn�t deserve another term, Trump said, �Well, they don�t because I
didn�t like them.
Some of those people I fired. Bill Barr, I fired Bill Barr. I didn�t want
him.�

Facts First: This is false. Barr resigned as attorney general in December
2020; he was not fired, as a White House official confirmed to CNN at the
time. Trump had been frustrated with Barr over Barr�s public rejection of
his lies about mass election fraud and had been seriously considering
firing Barr the same month, but Trump did not do so � and he made a
positive public statement about Barr upon the resignation, writing on
social media: �Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill
Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one, he
has done an outstanding job! As per letter, Bill will be leaving just
before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family.�

The US military presence in South Korea

Trump claimed that, before he negotiated a better deal, South Korea was
paying far too little �for 40,000 troops that we had there.�

Facts First: Trump�s �40,000� number is inaccurate. As of December 31,
2016, less than a month before Trump took office, the US had 26,878
military personnel in South Korea, including 23,468 on active duty,
according to official statistics from the Pentagon�s Defense Manpower
Data Center. As of December 31, 2018, less than two months before the
Trump administration signed a new deal with South Korea, the total was
29,389 US military personnel in South Korea, including 26,311 on active
duty.

The US financial arrangement with South Korea

Trump claimed that he got South Korea to agree to pay the US �billions of
dollars� for its military presence there, but �now probably now that I�m
gone, they�re paying very little.� He continued, �I don�t know if you
know that they renegotiated the deal I made. And they�re paying very
little. But they paid us billions, many billions of dollars, for us
having troops there. From what I�m hearing, they were able to renegotiate
with the Biden Administration and bring that number way, way down to what
it was before, which was almost nothing.�

Facts First: Trump made two false claims here. First, it�s not even close
to true that the Biden administration permitted South Korea to pay
�almost nothing� for the US military presence there. In fact, as Time
noted in its own fact check, South Korea agreed under President Joe Biden
to pay more than it had been paying during the Trump era. Completing
negotiations that began under Trump, South Korea agreed in March 2021 to
a 2021 payment increase of 13.9% � meaning its payment that year would be
about $1 billion � and then additional increases in 2022 through 2025
tied to increases in South Korea�s defense budget.

Second, it�s also not true that South Korea paid �almost nothing� for the
US troop presence before Trump came along. South Korea agreed to pay the
US about $867 million in 2014 and, through 2018, to increase the payments
annually based on the rate of inflation. The Congressional Research
Service wrote in a 2023 report: �In the past, South Korea generally paid
for 40%-50% (over $800 million annually) of the total non-personnel costs
of maintaining the U.S. troop presence in South Korea.�

Trump�s popularity in Israel

After boasting about what he did for Israel during his presidency, Trump
said, �The people of Israel appreciate it. I have like a 98% � I have the
highest approval numbers.�

Facts First: Trump does not have a 98% approval rating in Israel. Tamar
Hermann, an expert on Israeli public opinion who is a political science
professor and a senior research fellow at the Israeli Democracy
Institute, said in an email to CNN this week: �Indeed in certain segments
of the Jewish public (mainly the Right) Trump was very popular during his
presidency. However, in no serious survey did he hit 98% as far as the
general public was concerned.�

A 2018 poll found that 59% of Jewish Israelis had a favorable view of
Trump. A poll late in the 2020 presidential election found that 70% of
Jewish Israelis thought a Trump victory would be best for Israel�s
interests (versus 13% who chose Biden). A poll released this March found
that 44% of Israeli adults wanted Trump elected in 2024, 30% wanted Biden
and 26% were unsure.

Hermann said President Bill Clinton was more popular in Israel during his
presidency than Trump was during his, and that �Trump has lost much of
his popularity here after leaving the White House because of his
hectic/sometimes antagonistic statements.�

Trump and the law on monument destruction

Trump repeated his familiar claim that he had passed a law, or revived an
old law, to give an automatic 10-year prison sentence to anyone who
desecrates a monument.

He said, �I mean, if you look at what happened in Washington with
monuments, I passed the law. I took an old law, brought it into effect
that you get a minimum of 10 years without any adjustment if you do
anything to desecrate a monument and everything was immediately set up� I
signed into effect a law that gives you 10 years, not one day less than
10 years of prison if you desecrate a monument. You know, that was very
effective.�