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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is spinning a convoluted tale of an Amtrak conductor who congratulated him during his vice presidency for logging more miles riding the train home to Delaware than by flying on Air Force Two. "I apologize because some have heard this," Biden told a crowd Monday in New Jersey, starting up a story he has repeated in various forms at least five times, dating back to the 2020 campaign. "I swear to God. True story," he said Monday, for emphasis. But it's a mangled one. By his own accounting, Biden's Amtrak miles...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump clung to his core election falsehoods in his first post-presidential speech, wrongly blamed wind power for the catastrophic power failures in Texas and revived a variety of the baseless claims that saturated his time in office, on immigration, the economy and more. A look at Trump's remarks Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference: WIND POWER TRUMP, assailing Democrats on energy policy: "The windmill calamity that we’re witnessing in Texas ... it’s so sad when you look at it. That will just be the s...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Explaining his deceptive assurances about the pandemic, President Donald Trump suggested he was doing what Winston Churchill had done, soothing the public in a time of danger. That's not how it went down in World War II. Churchill did not tell Britons that Nazi Germany was "under control " or that, "like a miracle, it will disappear," to cite Trump's words on the virus. The British prime minister spread fear, as well as resolve, as he summoned Britons to national purpose against the "hideous apparatus of aggression" e...
WASHINGTON (AP) — On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, President Donald Trump told a rally that people who are in the United States illegally are paying for his Mexico border wall. It was the latest iteration of his effort to convince the public that Mexico is covering the cost, just as he promised throughout his 2016 campaign and since. Evidence to the contrary came three days later. The Pentagon announced it is taking $3.8 billion approved by Congress for fighter aircraft, ships and other military programs and using the money to pay for t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Abroad, at home and in Twitter's ether, President Donald Trump unleashed a fusillade of statements over the past week as the Senate impeachment trial unfolded and the Davos economic forum played out in Switzerland. On impeachment, the state of the country, abortion, pollution and more, Trump didn't tell the story straight. A week in review: MISSILE ATTACK TRUMP, on U.S. troops targeted by the Iranian missile attack in Iraq this month: "I heard they had headaches and a couple of other things ... and I can report it is not v...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he was just exercising his right to free speech. Democrats said he was intimidating a witness. Whichever is the case, Trump’s Twitter assault on an ex-ambassador’s record came with a heavy dose of distortion. He portrayed her, in a few choice words, as a wrecking ball in every country where she served U.S. interests in a long diplomatic career that has spanned danger zones and emerging democracies. The tweet jolted impeachment hearings where Marie Yovanovitch was already testifying to the perso...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans pressed the discredited theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election in defending President Donald Trump in Wednesday’s impeachment hearings. A look at some of the remarks in the House Intelligence Committee proceeding: ___ REP. DEVIN NUNES, top Republican on the panel: “The Democrats cooperated in Ukrainian election meddling. ... Officials showed a surprising lack of interest in the indications of Ukrainian election meddling that deeply concerned the president at whose pleasure they serve...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump fabricated a tale about foreshadowing Osama bin Laden's 9/11 attack and warning against a war in Iraq before it happened in a weekend of exaggerated boasts and faulty assertions about the U.S. fight against extremists. In a national address Sunday to announce the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, Trump inflated his importance in assessing the threat while persisting in his deception that he's bringing troops home from Syria. The remarks helped cap a week in which T...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A dozen Democrats seeking the presidency tussled in a debate packed with policy, flubbing some details in the process. Several gave an iffy explanation Tuesday of why they're not swinging behind a bold proposal to make people turn over their assault-style weapons. Sloppiness also crept in during robust exchanges over foreign policy, health care, taxes and more. How some of their claims from Westerville, Ohio, stack up with the facts: SYRIA JOE BIDEN: "I would not have withdrawn the troops, and I would not have withdrawn the a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump falsely claimed exoneration from Robert Mueller on Wednesday even as the former special counsel told Congress he offered no such vindication. Mueller spoke as few words as possible through the hours of hearings . But much of what he did say was bent by Trump and partisans on both sides to suit their purposes. A look at some of the statements inside and outside the hearings: TRUMP to his critics, in a fundraising letter from his 2020 campaign: "How many times do I have to be exonerated before they s...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has a silent partner behind several of the accomplishments he likes to boast about: Barack Obama. Despite assailing his Democratic predecessor for waging a "cruel and heartless war on American energy," for example, Trump can brag about U.S. energy supremacy thanks to the sector's growth in the Obama years. And the Obama-Trump decade is soon to yield an economic record if things stay on track a little longer — the most sustained expansion in U.S. history. Though Trump claims all the credit, the exp...
WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Donald Trump's reckoning, an Iran tamed by him no longer cries "death to America," the border wall with Mexico is proceeding apace, the estate tax has been lifted off the backs of farmers, the remains of U.S. soldiers from North Korea are coming home and China is opening its wallet to the U.S. treasury for the first time in history. These statements range from flatly false to mostly so. Here's a week of political rhetoric in review: IRAN: TRUMP, speaking about Iranians "screaming 'death to America'" when Barack O...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Boastful on the occasion of Memorial Day, President Donald Trump and his Veterans Affairs secretary are claiming full credit for health care improvements that were underway before they took office. Trump said he passed a private-sector health care program, Veterans Choice, after failed attempts by past presidents for the last "45 years." That's not true. The Choice program, which allows veterans to see doctors outside the government-run VA system at taxpayer expense, was first passed in 2014 under President Barack Obama. Trump...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump held up and read from a sheet of paper in the Rose Garden this past week as he argued he's been hounded by investigators in the Russia probe for no reason. "Nearly 500 search warrants," says the page, from an ABC News graphic. "More than 2,500 subpoenas." And: "19 special counsel lawyers & 40 FBI agents worked the case." If that sounds like overkill by the Robert Mueller inquiry, it's only half the story. Trump did not show or quote from a second page that goes with the graphic, laying out the results o...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump spoke this past week as if he's unaware that drug prices have gone up and tariffs came before him. His boast that the U.S. never collected a dime on goods from China until he imposed them marked a series of statements misrepresenting how trade works as the two countries escalated their dispute with new and retaliatory taxes on each other's products. Meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared inaccurately that no traces of collusion between his country and Trump's 2016 campaign were found in t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — With release of the special counsel's fuller report looming, President Donald Trump and his campaign are twisting the words of his attorney general and the facts of the Russia investigation. His 2020 campaign is telling supporters in fundraising pitches that Attorney General William Barr had revealed illegal spying against Trump during the 2016 presidential race. But it's not true. While Barr told lawmakers that he believed spying took place, he never concluded it was illegal and made clear several times he was not suggesting...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is offering a distorted account of John McCain's actions in the Russia investigation and trying to blame the media for making him talk about the late senator, despite plain-as-day evidence that he's assailing McCain without any prodding. On a recent tear against McCain, Trump also claimed credit for steps aimed at improving health care for veterans and denigrated the senator's record on the issue. "McCain didn't get the job done for our great vets," Trump said. "I got it done." In reality, McCain got i...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The political fallout from President Donald Trump's push for his border wall is giving rise to overwrought rhetoric from Republicans and Democrats alike. Trump, as he has so often done, claimed progress on the wall that isn't borne out by what's going on along the border. In the Democrats' 2020 presidential campaign, Trump was assailed for confining kids in "cages," though his administration's fenced facilities for migrant children are the same the Obama administration used to hold children by the thousands. And a R...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's plan to declare a national emergency to free up money for his border wall would be an extraordinary step, despite his statement that predecessors liberally used such power. The White House said Thursday that Trump plans to go ahead with the declaration as part of his effort to direct money unilaterally to wall construction, because Congress agreed to give him far less than he demanded in the deal averting another government shutdown. It's a contentious move, likely to be legally challenged, and not s...
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a week of half-truths, changed stories and outright fabrications in President Donald Trump's Washington. Trump assailed Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for playing on the beach in Puerto Rico, though she never went. His vice president echoed Trump's declaration of victory against the Islamic State group despite a deadly suicide bombing for which the militants claimed responsibility. Trump overstated what he's done for veterans. A look at some of the rhetoric from Trump and his team as the president f...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Eager to defend a prolonged government shutdown over his border wall, President Donald Trump is pretending that he's holed up nonstop at the White House waiting for a deal with Democrats. He's also rewriting history regarding his promise to make Mexico pay for the wall. Trump says he hasn't left the White House in "months," including during the partial shutdown that began Dec. 22. Actually, he has ventured out numerous times — to the Mexico border just this past week, for instance — and will again on Monday to New Orlea...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump inflated the projected benefits of an arms deal with the Saudis as he defended his wait-and-see attitude about Saudi complicity in the disappearance of a journalist whose apparent murder has sparked world outrage. On immigration enforcement, the president made the unsubstantiated claim that migrants are being paid to mass at the border and somehow disrupt the Nov. 6 elections in the United States. This claim followed his distortions in an Associated Press interview about climate change and the Russia i...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump misrepresented the testimony of his Supreme Court nominee's chief accuser in a mocking turn on a rally stage over the past week as campaign politics and the pitched struggle over Brett Kavanaugh's fate provided fertile ground for distortion. A look at some of his rhetoric and how it compares with the facts: KAVANAUGH TRUMP, as if recounting the questioning of Christine Blasey Ford at her Senate hearing: 'How did you get there?' 'I don't remember.' 'Where is the place?' 'I don't remember.' 'How many y...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Juggling a suddenly hot-potato Supreme Court nomination and midterm-election jousting, President Donald Trump flubbed facts across a broad front over the past week. His comments about nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser betrayed a misunderstanding of how the process works. His claim to be in the league of George Washington when it comes to placing judges on the bench is refuted by the record. His statements that the economy has never been better ignore the bad mixed in with the good. His boast about moderation in "Obamacare" p...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is seeing steels mills spring up where they aren't and cleaner air than his government is tracking in its records. Over the past week, his comment that people need photo IDs to shop in stores displayed a misunderstanding of the marketplace obvious to any average shopper with cash or a credit card. A sampling of comments by Trump and his officials, spanning NATO, the Russia investigation, environmental matters and more: CLEAN AIR TRUMP, on air quality in the U.S.: "It's the best it's ever been." — Pen...
