WASHINGTON \u2014 In his final remarks as president, Donald Trump tried to take credit for accomplishments of his predecessor and even those to come under President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
Falsehoods suffused his farewell remarks Wednesday morning and the night before, though he was spot on with this: \u201cWe were not a regular administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well, in noting Americans were \u201chorrified\u201d by the storming of the Capitol this month, he brushed past the encouragement he had given to the mob in advance and his praise of the attackers as \u201cvery special\u201d people while they were still ransacking the seat of power.<\/p>\n
A look at some of his statements to well-wishers at Joint Base Andrews en route to Florida on Wednesday and in his videotaped address Tuesday:<\/p>\n
TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe got the vaccine developed in nine months instead of nine years or five years or 10 years, a long time. It was supposed to take a long time. \u2026 We have two out, we have another one coming almost immediately.\u201d \u2014 remarks Wednesday before leaving Washington.<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cAnother administration would have taken three, four, five, maybe even up to 10 years to develop a vaccine. We did in nine months.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> Actually, the administration didn\u2019t develop any vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies did. And one of the two U.S. companies that have come out with vaccines now in use did not take development money from the government.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s contention that a vaccine would have taken years under a different administration stretches credulity. COVID-19 vaccines were indeed remarkably fast, but other countries have been developing them, too. A vaccine for the coronavirus is not a singular achievement of the United States, much less the Trump administration.<\/p>\n U.S. drugmaker Pfizer developed its vaccine in partnership with Germany\u2019s BioNTech, eschewing federal money for development, though benefitting from an advance commitment from Washington to buy large quantities if the vaccine succeeded. A vaccine by Moderna, from the U.S., is also in widespread use.<\/p>\n But Britain\u2019s AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is being administered in several countries, and vaccines from China and Russia are also in limited use. More than a dozen potential vaccines are in late stages of testing worldwide.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe passed VA Choice.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> No, he did not get the Choice program passed. President Barack Obama did. Trump expanded it. The program allows veterans to get medical care outside the Veterans Affairs system under certain conditions. Trump has tried to take credit for Obama\u2019s achievement scores of times.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe also got tax cuts, the largest tax cut and reform in the history of our country by far.\u201d \u2014 remarks Wednesday.<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> His tax cuts are not close to the biggest in U.S. history.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the total economy, a tax cut of that size ranks 12th, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan\u2019s 1981 cut is the biggest, followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that had financed World War II.<\/p>\n Post-Reagan tax cuts also stand among the historically significant: President George W. Bush\u2019s cuts in the early 2000s and Obama\u2019s renewal of them a decade later.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe have the greatest economy in the world.\u201d \u2014 remarks Wednesday.<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe also built the greatest economy in the history of the world.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> No, the numbers show it wasn\u2019t the greatest in U.S. history. And he is the first president since Herbert Hoover in the Depression to leave office with fewer jobs than when he started.<\/p>\n Did the U.S. have the most jobs on record before the pandemic? Sure, the population had grown. The 3.5% unemployment rate before the recession was at a half-century low, but the percentage of people working or searching for jobs was still below a 2000 peak.<\/p>\n Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer looked at Trump\u2019s economic growth record. Growth under Trump averaged 2.48% annually before the pandemic, only slightly better than the 2.41% gains achieved during Obama\u2019s second term. By contrast, the economic expansion that began in 1982 during Reagan\u2019s presidency averaged 4.2% a year.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP<\/strong>, on the economy after the pandemic: \u201cIt\u2019s a rocket ship up.\u201d \u2014 remarks Wednesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> Not so.<\/p>\n There\u2019s been no dramatic, V-shaped economic recovery under Trump. Employers cut jobs during his final December in office. But economists say the additional aid approved in December and the prospect of more from Biden could cause the strongest growth this year in more than two decades.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe reignited America\u2019s job creation and achieved record-low unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women \u2014 almost everyone. \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> Not an ignition. Job creation actually slowed in 2017, Trump\u2019s first year in office, to about 2 million, compared with nearly 2.5 million in 2016, Obama\u2019s last year in office.<\/p>\n The low unemployment rates refer to a pre-pandemic economy that is no more. The pandemic has cost the U.S. economy 10 million jobs and has made Trump the first president since Hoover to oversee a net loss of jobs. The U.S. has about 2.8 million fewer jobs now than when Trump was inaugurated, and lost 140,000 just in December. And the job losses have fallen disproportionately on Black Americans, Hispanics and women.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe rebuilt the American manufacturing base, opened up thousands of new factories, and brought back the beautiful phrase Made in the USA.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> That\u2019s a stretch. There are now 60,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in the U.S. than when Trump took office. Despite gains before the pandemic, the manufacturing base had not exactly been \u201crebuilt.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the coronavirus, nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs were added under Trump, somewhat better than the nearly 400,000 gained during Obama\u2019s second term. Still, even before the pandemic, the U.S. had 4.3 million fewer factory jobs than it did in 2001, the year China joined the World Trade Organization and a flood of cheaper imports from that country entered the U.S.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cAll Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> That may sum up the reaction of most Americans but it ignores his own part in stirring the anger of his supporters before they staged the violent melee.<\/p>\n For months, Trump falsely claimed the November election was stolen, then invited supporters to Washington and sent them off to the Capitol with the exhortation to \u201cfight like hell.\u201d<\/p>\n With the uprising still underway and the velocity of the attack apparent from video and reports from the scene, Trump released a video telling them \u201cto go home now\u201d while repeating \u201cthis was a fraudulent election\u201d and adding: \u201cWe love you. You\u2019re very special.\u201d<\/p>\n The House impeached Trump, accusing him of inciting an insurrection. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump political ally for four years, said Tuesday the Trump supporters were \u201cfed lies\u201d and \u201dprovoked by the president and other powerful people.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe rebuilt the United States military.\u201d \u2014 remarks Wednesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> That\u2019s an exaggeration.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that his administration accelerated a sharp buildup in defense spending, including a respite from what the U.S. military considered to be crippling spending limits under budget sequestration.<\/p>\n But a number of new Pentagon weapons programs, such as the F-35 fighter jet, were started years before the Trump administration. And it will take years for freshly ordered tanks, planes and other weapons to be built, delivered and put to use.<\/p>\n The Air Force\u2019s Minuteman 3 missiles, a key part of the U.S. nuclear force, for instance, have been operating since the early 1970s and the modernization was begun under the Obama administration. They are due to be replaced with a new version, but not until later this decade.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe obliterated the ISIS caliphate.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\n THE FACTS:<\/strong> His suggestion of a 100% defeat is misleading as the Islamic State group still poses a threat.<\/p>\n IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, then lost the last of its land holdings in Syria in March 2019, marking the end of the extremists\u2019 self-declared caliphate. Still, extremist sleeper cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria in recent weeks and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings against local officials and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.<\/p>\n The continued attacks are a sign that the militant group is taking advantage of governments otherwise focused on the pandemic and the ensuing slide into economic chaos. The virus is compounding longtime concerns among security and U.N. experts that the group will stage a comeback.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n TRUMP:<\/strong> \u201cWe imposed historic and monumental tariffs on China. \u2026 Our trade relationship was rapidly changing, billions and billions of dollars were pouring into the U.S., but the virus forced us to go in a different direction.\u201d \u2014 address Tuesday.<\/p>\nTAXES<\/h3>\n
ECONOMY<\/h3>\n
CAPITOL INSURRECTION<\/h3>\n
MILITARY<\/h3>\n
CHINA<\/h3>\n