CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale and anchor Abby Phillip ripped through a series of former President Donald Trump’s falsehoods minutes after what Phillip called a “very friendly” special on Fox News.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham moderated a town hall with Trump Tuesday night in South Carolina days ahead of that state’s primary, where Trump leads ex-Amb. Nikki Haley in her home state by approximately one country mile. Fox is hosting a Haley town hall later in the week.
On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip described Fox as “comfortable territory” as she introduced Dale to lead her through a fact-check of Trump claims that turned out to be (spoiler alert) false:
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump returning to comfortable territory, facing questions at a very friendly town hall on Fox News. No surprises there. He’s making some claims that aren’t all there.CNN’s Daniel Dale joins me now with a fact check of what Trump said and what’s actually true in it. Let’s start with the claim about Ukraine. Let’s listen.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)TRUMP: First thing I get on the phone is with the European nations who are in of 25 percent of what we’re in.We’re in for over $200 billion. They’re in for $35 billion.INGRAHAM: It’s been about $100 billion so far, but it
will be $160.TRUMP: It’s a difference of $150 billion. They’ve got to start paying up.(END VIDEO CLIP)TRUMP: So, Daniel, what’s going on there, really?DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Abby, those numbers appear pulled out of thin air. They’re not even close to true. According to one reputable tracker of aid to Ukraine, the Kiel Institute, which is based in Germany, is actually E.U. countries and E.U. institutions that are far outpacing the U.S. when it comes to aid commitments to Ukraine, $156 billion for the E.U. starting in 2022 around when the war began, to $73 billion to the U.S.Now, those are commitments, not allocations, not actual spending. If you look at actual spending, it’s closer, but even then, Abby, the E.U. outpaces the United States.PHILLIP: There’s also, Daniel, a claim that Trump made about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Let’s listen to that too.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)TRUMP: I went in, got in, and I stopped Nord Stream 2. Most people don’t know what that — that’s the Russian pipeline, the most important economic deal-plus, I call it economic-plus, much more than economic, ever. I stopped it. I told Germany you’re not having it. I told all of Europe you’re not having it. Anybody that wants to have it, they’re not dealing with you. I ended it.(END VIDEO CLIP)PHILLIP: What are the facts in that one?DALE: You hear this a lot from former President Trump that he ended or killed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. It is also not true. What Trump actually did, Abby, was approve sanctions on some of the companies working on the project.But here’s the critical thing. He only did that about three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already about 90 percent completed. And even after he imposed those sanctions, the Russian state-owned company behind the pipeline said, okay, fine, we’ll just complete it ourselves.And before Trump left office in December 2020, they announced that construction was resuming. Germany announced in January 2021, again, before Trump left office, that they were renewing permission for construction in their waters. So whatever he told Russia, Europe, Germany, he did not kill that pipeline.PHILLIP: Yes, despite what he adamantly says falsely.Look, there’s another topic that he keeps coming back to. This time, it’s the classified documents situation at Mar-a-Lago. Let’s listen to that one as well.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)TRUMP: Bush took them, everybody, Reagan took them out, everybody took them out. It only became a big subject when I took things out. The difference is I had what’s called the Presidential Records Act. I was allowed to do what I did, absolutely allowed. That’s why they passed the act in 1978.First of all, I didn’t have to hand them over, but, second of all, I would have done that. We were talking, and then all of a sudden they raided Mar-a-Lago.(END VIDEO CLIP)PHILLIP: Once again, confidently stating things that are true or false, Daniel?DALE: This is like upside-down imaginary history. I counted at least four inaccurate claims in that short segment. So, number one, Reagan and Bush did not take classified documents home. In fact, the National Archives debunked this claim last year when Trump made it then. He was not allowed to take these documents. It is in black and white in the Presidential Records Act that all official records belong to the government after a president leaves office.Allowing a president to take documents, classified documents, home was not why this act was passed in 1978. In fact, it was the opposite. The act was passed to make sure that the government, the people, owned presidential records, unlike when Richard Nixon tried to take them home and destroyed some of them.And then the last claim that, you know, we were talking, we were having friendly chats, and then all of a sudden the FBI raided Mar-a- Lago. In fact, the FBI search in Mar-a-Lago came more than a year after the National Archives started its polite asking to try to get these documents back. So, Abby, it was not even close to something sudden.PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, repeated and very politely asking for the documents that belong to the government back.Daniel Dale, thank you, yeoman’s work as always.
Watch above via CNN NewsNight.