Watch This Devastating Fact-Check of Trump’s Lie-Filled Fox News Interview
CNN anchor Brianna Keilar dissected President Trump’s weekend interview with Fox News, and the number of lies she found is so mind-boggling that at one point she said, “He’s even lying about the lie there.”
On the coronavirus, Keilar said that the president is “denying reality” so much so that he “has crossed the threshold to negligence,” adding, “He can’t even be honest about how deadly the virus is.”
On Trump denying that he and his administration have tried to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, the host gave three examples showing that the opposite is true.
“The attacks are real and they’re right out there. They are verifiable. The top trade adviser wrote an op-ed. The social media director pushed a cartoon out on social media, and the White House anonymously pushed out a list of opposition research on Dr. Fauci,” Keilar said.
On Trump’s claims that he’s responsible for military soldiers receiving the “biggest pay raises” in American history, Keilar said not so fast.
“No, he actually did not.… The military got bigger ones in 2008, 2009, and 2010,” the host said.
Keilar also blasted the president for calling WW I and WW II “beautiful world wars” by pointing out that Trump received five draft deferments.
“Beautiful? No. War is hell. And Trump knew that well enough to get five draft deferments and made sure that he never saw war. Millions and millions of people were killed in those world wars,” Keilar said.
Keilar then took Trump to task for saying that he may not accept the presidential election results come November.
“That is the president there undermining the institution of American democracy,” the host said.
Keilar also fact-checked Trump’s lie about Joe Biden agreeing to defund the police in a 100-page policy compact that Biden put together with Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“It didn’t say abolish. It did not say abolish. It does not say defund,” she said.
Also in the Fox News interview, Trump farcically claimed that with a President Biden, “Religion will be gone.” To which Keilar pointed out that politicians from both parties have put limits on gatherings that affect churches in order to “save lives” during the pandemic.
Additionally, Trump consistently lies about expanding health benefits for veterans while taking credit for a program put in place by President Obama, and he did so again on Sunday. Keilar set the record straight.
“It was President Obama actually who signed the Veterans Choice Program into law in 2014, not President Trump. That was nearly three years before President Trump moved into the Oval Office,” the host said.
Trump then lied again, but this time about voting by mail.
“I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do,” the president said.
Keilar corrected Trump, saying, “All right. That’s just false.”
The host continued, “Studies also show mail-in voting has not benefited one party over the other. Also, the president, along with many of his advisers, have voted by mail for years.”
Keilar ended the segment by covering what may have been the most viral portion of the completely bizarre interview — when Trump bragged about how he performed during a cognitive test and supposedly “answered all 35 questions correctly.”
During the Fox News interview, Trump told Chris Wallace that the last five questions of the test were so hard that he would bet Wallace could not answer them correctly.
According to Keilar, Wallace should have taken that bet.
“So the last questions on that test: What day is it? And what city are you in?” the host said.