Spotlight on Trump’s early defenses

Spotlight on Trump’s early defenses

This week: How Joe Biden and Chris Christie are both right about inflation … Fact-checking Donald Trump’s defense after Jan. 6 indictment … Does Judge Tanya Chutkan hand down the harshest Jan. 6 sentences? … Unpacking conspiracy theories about the Obamas, personal chef … How Hunter Biden, Devon Archer fit into the Trump indictment news cycle

Former President Donald Trump stands in the Oval Office
Then-President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP)

Fact-check: Donald Trump’s false and misleading responses after charges over role in Jan. 6 riot

After a grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump — his third indictment, this one related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election — he and his team shifted into defense mode.?

In a campaign statement, fundraising email and Truth Social posts, Trump downplayed his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, compared the indictment with Nazi Germany and highlighted instances when Democrats objected to past elections.?

We?fact-checked four of Trump’s early claims, summarized below:?

"As you know, I did nothing wrong. It’s well-documented that I told Americans to act ‘PEACEFULLY’ and discouraged the use of any violence" on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump’s words and actions before and during the Jan. 6 riot paint a different picture.?

In December, Trump repeatedly encouraged his supporters to fight the election results and gather at the Capitol. At a Jan. 4 rally in Georgia, Trump repeated his grievances and told the crowd that Democrats weren’t going to take the White House and that "we’re going to fight like hell" and "take it back."?

On Jan. 6, Trump used his "Save America" rally to repeat inaccurate claims that he won the election. He again urged the crowd to "fight" and march to the Capitol. "Our country has had enough," Trump said. "We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal." The crowd later chanted: "Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!"

He used the word "peacefully" once during the speech: "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

By the time Trump finished speaking, crowds had already started gathering outside the Capitol. At 2:30 p.m., after the mob had shattered windows and pushed inside the building, and after lawmaker evacuations had begun, Trump tweeted, "Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!"?

Hours after rioters breached the Capitol, Trump released a video statement that repeated his false claims about a fraudulent election and said, "We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special."

"The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes."?

This is wildly inaccurate. In the 1930s, Nazi Germany orchestrated the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of political dissenters and millions of European Jews. The Soviet Union instituted forced labor camp systems and executed dissidents.

By comparison, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to oversee the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power. The indictment cites evidence gathered from witness testimony, social media and phone records.

Leaders of other democratic governments have been prosecuted while in and out of office. These prosecutions are not exclusive to dictatorships or authoritarian nations.

The denunciation of the rule of law "was a core theme of the Soviet regime," said Jeffrey Herf, a University of Maryland emeritus history professor who specializes in 20th century Germany. "So, Trump's accusation is doubly absurd, dangerous, and is a sign of the historical ignorance of Trump and whoever wrote that claim."

"A Soros-backed state prosecutor first tried to break us when he indicted and arrested me earlier this spring despite having committed no crime at all."?

Trump is referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought charges against the former president following a grand jury indictment in a case that involved a $130,000 hush money payment in 2016 to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts.?

Liberal billionaire George Soros did not donate directly to Bragg’s campaign. Soros donated $1 million in May 2021 to Color of Change, a progressive racial justice group that endorsed Bragg and pledged to spend more than $1 million supporting his campaign. Color of Change supported other progressive district attorney candidates, too.

Democrats called Trump an illegitimate president and objected to presidential election results in the past.?

Following the indictment, Trump posted a 10-minute video of Democrats "denying election results" through the years. The clips focused on what some Democrats said or did after four elections the party lost. The claims highlighted include:

  • Democrats saying Trump’s 2016 victory was illegitimate due to Russia’s meddling in the election;?
  • Democrats saying Vice President Al Gore would have won the 2000 presidential election if the Supreme Court hadn’t voted 5-4 to stop a vote recount in Florida;
  • Objections by 31 Democrats in the House of Representatives to certify Ohio’s electoral votes in President George Bush’s 2004 defeat of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.?
  • Former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams’ refusal to concede in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race against Gov. Brian Kemp over voter suppression claims.?

It is true that some Democrats called Trump an illegitimate president and objected to the certification of electoral counts in previous elections. They did so following a lawful process, unlike Trump’s supporters, who disrupted Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results.?

In Trump’s indictment, Special Counsel Jack Smith clarified that Trump was "entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means." However, it was Trump’s alleged attempts to illegally subvert the election results that could amount to crimes.

— Maria Ramirez Uribe and Samantha Putterman

Go deeper:?What the indictment about the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021, tells us about Donald Trump’s actions


Fact-checks of the week

  • Sentencing scrutiny.?Judge Tanya S. Chutkan was randomly assigned to oversee former President Donald Trump’s third indictment case. Conservative activist Jack Posobiec tweeted, “Chutkan, an Obama appointee, is the only federal judge in Washington, D.C., who has sentenced Jan. 6 defendants to sentences longer than the government had requested.” We rated this?False.?In at least 37 Capitol siege cases, Chutkan has opted for harsher sentences than prosecutors requested about 24% of the time. For most cases, she closely matched the government’s requested sentence or issued a lighter sentence. To Posobiec’s claim, we found several examples of other federal judges who also have issued sentences harsher than prosecutors requested for Jan. 6 defendants.?
  • Who makes more??New York state Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-Staten Island, who pushes for?higher pay for military service members, recently compared their wages to fast-food workers’ wages. "You can work at some McDonald’s in this country for more money than … signing up for the military," she said on a radio show. PolitiFact New York rated the claim?Half True.?The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported full-time fast-food and counter workers, in states that pay them most, earn $33,000 to $36,000 a year on average. By contrast, the Congressional Research Service placed the average base pay for the lowest-ranking service member at $21,215. But these military personnel can receive additional compensation for housing and food if the government doesn’t provide them.
  • Hot topic.?Much of the country has baked in unusually intense heat this summer. (Hello, Phoenix.) And President Joe Biden recently said. "The No. 1 weather-related killer is heat. Six hundred people die annually from its effects, more than from floods, hurricanes and tornadoes in America combined.” We rated Biden’s statement?Mostly True.?Data from the National Weather Service doesn’t support the claim about heat outpacing deaths from the three other weather events combined, but data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does. Scientists say both sets of federal data significantly undercount the number of heat deaths, because they are drawn from death certificates, which often overlook heat. Studies of excess deaths during U.S. heat waves suggest that the real number of heat-related deaths could be two to 10 times higher than what Biden cited.


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Suspicious timing? What Biden investigations, Donald Trump indictments share

Is the timing suspicious, or coincidental? Former President Donald Trump’s allies have argued the third indictment against Trump was positioned to distract from bad news about President Joe Biden — something they call a Justice Department pattern.

The federal grand jury investigating what happened after the 2020 election indicted Trump on Aug. 1, a day after former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer gave closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee. Republicans said Archer’s testimony proves President Biden lied about his involvement in his son’s business dealings. Democrats disagree with that portrayal of Archer’s testimony, which won’t become public for weeks.

On Truth Social, Donald Trump questioned the timing of the indictment, which he said came "the day after the Crooked Joe Biden SCANDAL."

With multiple federal and state investigations of Trump coinciding with House Republicans’ multiple investigations of the Bidens, there are bound to be overlapping developments.

Trump was indicted by a Florida grand jury June 8 related to his possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home after leaving office. Also that day, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., held a press conference to describe a redacted FBI document containing unsubstantiated bribery allegations against Hunter and Joe Biden.

Trump argued that the indictment was meant to distract from the bribery allegations, even though the allegations were 3 years old and the documents case had been in progress since spring 2022.

Like the documents case, the Jan. 6 investigation has progressed for a while. Jack Smith was named Nov. 18 as special counsel to lead both investigations.?

Trump announced July 18 that Smith told him he was a criminal target in the Jan. 6 investigation.

Archer, meanwhile, was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee on June 12 to testify about his knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business dealings on June 16. Archer rescheduled his appearance at least three times before he testified July 31 before the committee in a closed-door hearing.?

Read more?for background on Archer and what he told the House and Tucker Carlson.

— Jeff Cercone, Amy Sherman and Maria Brice?o


Is inflation coming down or historically high under Joe Biden? Yes

If you’ve heard the recent political rhetoric about inflation, you might think Democrats and Republicans are on different planets — and that one side isn’t telling the truth.

During a July 28 visit in Maine, President Joe Biden said inflation is “down from 9% to 3%.” Two days later, on CNN’s "State of the Union," Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said, “Everything is 17% more expensive today than it was when he took the oath of office.”

How can this be? Biden and Christie are taking the same data and using it to make opposite, yet credible, arguments. As always where political rhetoric is concerned, listener beware.

Biden based his statement on inflation’s change year to year by percentage. By this measurement, inflation was under 2% when Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. It then surged, peaking at about 9% in June 2022. In June 2023, it fell to about 3%.

Christie, by contrast, is measuring inflation’s cumulative effect during Biden’s presidency. This shows inflation’s cumulative increase since January 2021 — an about 16% rise, which is close to what Christie said.

Christie’s 16% shouldn’t be compared with a baseline of 0% inflation. Consider a recent two-and-a-half-year period during which inflation was at or below 2% — January 2017 to June 2019. During that period of nearly ideal inflation, prices still rose by almost 5% cumulatively.

Read Louis Jacobson’s?full explainer.


Quick links to more fact-checks & reports?

  • Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., recently said millions of U.S. residents can’t find a medical doctor. He’s?mostly right.
  • Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican presidential candidate, said, "In Biden’s America, 7 million people illegally crossed the border and are given a free cellphone and airline tickets."?Mostly False.
  • What is chestfeeding??Read how?it relates to transgender parents and what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about it.
  • Unpacking?Democratic spin about consumer confidence?being the highest “in years.”
  • July mailbag: PolitiFact readers?respond?to our fact-checks about transgender stats, book bans and climate change. You can always reach us at?[email protected].


A meter with flames coming out of it and text that reads: Pants on Fire! PolitiFact Truth-O-Meter

Do you smell smoke??

Here's your Pants on Fire fact-check of the week:?We give you many for the price of one. A?parade of outrageous claims?followed when the Obama’s personal chef died in a paddleboarding accident.

See what else we've rated?Pants on Fire?this week.?


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