FACT CHECKS This series will focus upon fact checks done by recognized and reputable sources Washington Post Mar. 2. 2021 “I requested … I definitely gave the number of 10,000 National Guardsmen, and [said] I think you should have 10,000 of the National Guard ready. They took that number. From what I understand, they gave it to the people at the Capitol, which is controlled by Pelosi. And I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it would look good. So, you know, that was a big mistake.” —Former president Donald Trump, in an interview with Steve Hilton of Fox News, Feb. 28, 2021 We’re going to try to have a high bar for fact checks of former president Donald Trump. His speech Sunday to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was mostly a replay of false claims he has said many times before, all documented in our Trump claims database. So we took a pass on that. But this is something new. Trump’s claim generated a lot of attention in right-leaning circles, especially after Fox News headlined its story: “Trump says he requested 10K National Guard troops at Capitol on day of riot.” A large majority of senators — even those who did not vote to convict him at his impeachment trial — regard Trump as responsible for the riot and believe he failed to act decisively as the violence unfolded. So it would be significant if Trump actually requested the dispatch of National Guard troops at the Capitol — especially if, as Trump suggests, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) then blocked that deployment. But it did not happen. Indeed, the official Defense Department planning and execution memo on the Jan. 6 events also makes no mention of any such discussion. Instead, it notes the possible activation of 340 National Guard troops to assist the District government with traffic control. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said officials checked the records after Trump’s remarks. “We have no record of such an order being given,” he told The Fact Checker. Like many of Trump’s falsehoods, there’s a seed of reality here. But then the former president nurtures it into a bush of fictions as part of his continuing effort to evade responsibility for how his own actions led to the Capitol Hill riot. He earns Four Pinocchios. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/02/trump-falsely-claims-he-requested-10000-troops-rejected-by-pelosi/?utm_campaign=wp_fact_checker&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_fact

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Do You Do, If You're Unqualified to Run? Find Some Way to Demonize Your Opponent

On Behalf of WEA’s More Conservative Members #6 Why I’ve Decided to Support Kim Wyman, Despite WEA’s Failure to Endorse Her for a Third Time. 4.17.20 What does a political candidate do when he or she has no qualifications for the job she or he is seeking? That’s easy! Simply try to tie the incumbent to some nefarious individual and then demonize him or her. It is called an ad hominem attack, though I tend to think of it as character assassination. It has been a popular tool in the campaign tool box of thousands of candidates. When Tina Podlodowski refers to Secretary of State Kim Wyman as a “Trump ally”, that’s exactly what she is trying to do, tie Wyman to Trump. Kim Wyman is on record stating that WA State has not experienced the voter fraud to which Pres. Trump constantly refers. When Pres. Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission demanded extensive data on every WA State voter, Wyman told him he could only have what the law requires her to give and nothing more. Wyman has an env...
Read more

Union Leader and Life Long Republican

On Behalf of WEA’s More Conservative Members #26 The “Other Washington” Republicans 6.8.20 I’m sure it sounds strange to some readers that this writer is both a union leader and a life long Republican. Since this will become an ongoing dialogue, I think it appropriate for me to explain. I grew up in Yakima, WA, in the late 1940s, 1950s, & early 1960s. In those days, Yakima was a center of ultra-conservatism in the form of the John Birch Society. An entrepreneur/inventor by the name of Floyd Paxton, who was president of the JBS at one time and founder of the “American Eagle” as the JBS’s newspaper, was in his prime. His niece and I attended school together in elementary, junior high, and high school. I still remember her as a fine person. I was also the grandson of a small businessman, who ran a Rexall Pharmacy called the Pioneer Drug Store, and a straight ticket Republican voter, who was the wife of that small businessman. To give you a sense of my grandmother, she c...
Read more

Doesn’t vote by mail and absentee voting lead to more fraud?

On Behalf of WEA’s More Conservative Members #33 Why I’ve Decided to Support Kim Wyman Questions Put to Sec. of State Wyman Doesn’t vote by mail and absentee voting lead to more fraud? “I am confident that the answer is no. Washington has earned national recognition for its process of matching voter signatures on envelopes to signatures on file, "air-gapping’" computer systems to prevent hacking, and ensuring appropriate chain-of-custody for every ballot. Local election officials can communicate in real-time to ensure each voter can have only one ballot counted.” “While some are worried about non-citizens voting, I think Washington’s experience shows otherwise. Our counties of Thurston and Yakima are similar in population, but demographically very different. Yakima (an agricultural producer) has a higher population of non-citizens than Thurston. If we expected many non-citizens to be registered to vote, we might expect them to have similar numbers of registered voters...
Read more