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Former President Donald Trump continues to make false claims about his New York trial.

Trump frequently speaks to media cameras before entering and after exiting the Manhattan courtroom where he is facing charges of falsifying business records.
He has peppered his hallway remarks with inaccurate assertions about a variety of subjects — most frequently about the trial itself.

Here’s a fact check of four false claims and one misleading claim he made about the trial in his courthouse comments last week. (And here’s a link to our fact check of his courthouse falsehoods from the week prior.)

Trump falsely claimed after leaving the courtroom Thursday afternoon that he is not allowed to testify in his own defense – then acknowledged Friday morning that he is indeed allowed to testify.

Trump told reporters Thursday, “I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order. I guess, right?” He added, “I’m not allowed to testify, because this judge, who’s totally conflicted, has me under an unconstitutional gag order.” He continued by complaining that he’s “not allowed to talk” even when others attack him, then said again, “So I’m not allowed to testify because of an unconstitutional gag order.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. As he noted the next day, he is allowed to testify at the trial; the decision is entirely up to him. Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order, which narrowly restricts his out-of-court speech, does not in any way stop him from testifying. The gag order also does not broadly prevent Trump from talking. He is permitted to speak to the media, speak at campaign events, attack President Joe Biden and other political opponents, and even attack Merchan and the Manhattan district attorney behind the case.

On Friday morning, Trump told reporters as he entered the courtroom: “No, it won’t stop me from testifying. The gag order’s not for testify[ing]. The gag order stops me from talking about people, and responding, when they say things about me.” When court proceedings began shortly after, Merchan told Trump that he has the “absolute” right to testify and that the gag order “does not prohibit you from taking the stand and it does not limit or minimize what you can say.”

Rather, the gag order forbids Trump from three specific categories of speech:

1) Speaking publicly or directing others to speak publicly about known or foreseeable witnesses, specifically about their participation in the case;

2) Speaking publicly or directing others to speak publicly about prosecutors (other than Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg), members of the district attorney’s staff and the court staff, or family members of any of these people including Bragg, if those statements are made with the intent to interfere with the case;

3) Speaking publicly or directing others to speak publicly about jurors or prospective jurors.

Trump has repeatedly made the gag order sound far broader than it is. He claimed at a Wednesday campaign rally in Michigan that “I’m not even supposed to be, I would say, talking to you, because he gagged me” – though the gag order actually says nothing to prevent him from making a campaign speech.

Merchan wrote in the gag order: “Defendant has a constitutional right to speak to the American voters freely, and to defend himself publicly.”

Trump’s public stance on whether he will testify has varied. After declaring before the trial started that “I’m testifying,” he said in a television interview last week that he would testify “if it’s necessary.” Thursday was the first time he has publicly claimed he is not permitted to testify.

Trump and bail

Trump said: “New York City is a violent city; it’s become violent with the cashless bail. I’m the only one who has to put up bail.” 

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. Like many other New York defendants whose alleged crimes are non-violent, he didn’t have to put up bail. After his arraignment in 2023, he was released on his own recognizance — in other words, without having to post any cash. 

Trump did have to post a $200,000 bond in his separate election subversion case in Fulton County, Georgia (contributing 10% himself and working with a bail bonds company to cover the rest), but his clear Friday suggestion was that he is being treated uniquely harshly in New York. He was released on his own recognizance in his two federal criminal cases — one in Washington, DC, over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and one in Florida over his post-presidency retention of classified documents.

Trump’s assertion that New York City is “a violent city” is subjective. It’s worth noting, though, that violent crime in the city has plummeted over the last two decades, that the city has long had lower crime rates than many other big and small communities around the country, and that the impact of New York state bail reforms on the city’s recent crime levels is disputed.

Trump continued Friday to complain that the New York trial is preventing him from being on the campaign trail. This time, he said: “We were already marked down — months ago, we were marked down to be in Georgia today, where we’re doing very well at the polls, by the way. But that’s where we were supposed to be. We’re supposed to be in Ohio tomorrow and we’re supposed to be in Florida on the next day, doing — campaigning, essentially campaigning. So now I have to go through this trial day after day.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim that the trial is preventing him from having campaign events this weekend is false. The trial is not being held on weekends (or on Wednesdays), so he was free to campaign wherever he wants on Saturday and the day after — and he was planning to fly to Florida. Trump was scheduled to headline a closed-door Republican National Committee fundraising luncheon at his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday, and he attended the Miami Grand Prix Formula One race on Sunday. 

There is no apparent basis for Trump’s claim that he was supposed to be in Ohio on Saturday; he is planning to visit the state on May 15, another court-free Wednesday. And it’s unclear what his campaign internally “marked down,” but he had never publicly scheduled a campaign event for Georgia on Friday.

Trump held campaign rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, and he had a rally planned for North Carolina the previous Saturday that was called off because of severe weather. However, he has regularly declined to visit swing states or hold public events on his days without court, opting instead to host dinners and meetings at Trump Tower in Manhattan or to play golf at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Trump and the ‘advice of counsel’

Trump complained Tuesday that Merchan was not allowing him to invoke the advice he claims he was given by lawyers. Criminal defendants sometimes employ an “advice of counsel” defense to try to demonstrate that they had not intended to break the law.

“Here, I’m not even allowed to say ‘advice of counsel.’ This is a new one to me, ‘advice of counsel,’” Trump told reporters outside the courtroom. “When you have a lawyer and the lawyer does something or advises you on something, you say ‘advice of counsel.’ He said you’re not allowed to say that.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim is misleading. He failed to mention that the reason Merchan will not allow Trump’s legal team to invoke “advice of counsel” during the trial is that, when Trump was asked before the trial whether he would be using an “advice of counsel” defense, his lawyers told Merchan he would not.

An “advice of counsel” defense typically requires the defendant to waive attorney-client privilege. Trump’s lawyers told Merchan before the trial that instead of a “formal” defense of “advice of counsel,” Trump wanted to use a different defense in which he would not waive attorney-client privilege but would still “elicit evidence concerning the presence, involvement and advice of lawyers in relevant events giving rise to the charges in the Indictment.”

Merchan rejected this proposal. He wrote in March: “To allow said defense in this matter would effectively permit Defendant to invoke the very defense he has declared he will not rely upon, without the concomitant obligations that come with it. The result would undoubtedly be to confuse and mislead the jury. This Court can not endorse such a tactic.”

Therefore, Merchan ruled, Trump could not invoke or even suggest a “presence of counsel” defense in the trial.

Biden and the case

Trump continued to declare that Biden had orchestrated the case. He said upon leaving court on Tuesday: “They have me sitting here for a Biden trial. It’s a Biden trial.”

Facts First: There is no basis for Trump’s claim. There is no evidence that Biden has had any role in launching or running Bragg’s prosecution – and Bragg is a locally elected official who does not report to the federal government. The indictment in the case was approved by a grand jury of ordinary citizens.

Trump has repeatedly invoked a lawyer on Bragg’s team, Matthew Colangelo, while making such claims; Colangelo left the Justice Department in 2022 to join the district attorney’s office as senior counsel to Bragg. But there is no evidence that Biden had anything to do with Colangelo’s employment decision. Colangelo and Bragg had been colleagues before Bragg was elected Manhattan district attorney in 2021.

Before Colangelo worked at the Justice Department, he and Bragg worked at the same time in the office of New York’s state attorney general, where Colangelo investigated Trump’s charity and Trump’s financial practices and was involved in bringing various lawsuits against the Trump administration.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes contributed to this article.

Former President Donald J. Trump has baselessly and publicly cast doubt about the fairness of the 2024 election about once a day, on average, since he announced his candidacy for president, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Though the tactic is familiar — Mr. Trump raised the specter of a “rigged” election in the 2016 and 2020 cycles, too — his attempts to undermine the 2024 contest are a significant escalation.

A line chart shows the number of times Donald J. Trump cast doubt on the fairness or integrity of the election during the 2016, 2020, and 2024 election cycles. The line for 2024 shows that Trump started casting doubt months earlier during this election cycle and has made hundreds more statements than in past elections. Three videos on the chart show early instances of Trump casting doubt, in 2016, 2019 and 2022.

Mr. Trump first raised questions about the 2016 election in August of that year, about 100 days before the election.

He did so earlier — and more frequently — before the 2020 election.

But in the 2024 cycle, the falsehoods have been baked in since Mr. Trump announced his candidacy, almost two years before Election Day. They show no signs of subsiding.

Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election had historic consequences. The so-called “Big Lie” — Mr. Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him — led to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol and two of four criminal indictments against Mr. Trump, as well as his second impeachment.

But Mr. Trump had planted seeds of doubt among his followers long before Election Day, essentially setting up a no-lose future for himself: Either he would prevail, or the election would be rigged.

He has never given up that framing, which no evidence supports, even well after the end of his presidency. And as he seeks to return to the White House, the same claim has become the backbone of his campaign.

Long before announcing his candidacy, Mr. Trump and his supporters had been falsely claiming that President Biden was “weaponizing” the Justice Department to target him. But it took until March of last year for Mr. Trump to settle on a new accusation: that the multiple legal challenges related to Mr. Trump’s business and political activities constituted a “new way of cheating” in order to “interfere” in the 2024 election. He has made versions of that accusation more than 350 times.

“This is a rigged deal, just as the 2020 election was rigged, and we can’t let them get away with it,” Mr. Trump said on Nov. 18, 2022, three days after announcing his 2024 candidacy. His comments were in response to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s appointment of a special counsel to supervise the Justice Department’s criminal investigations related to the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot and Mr. Trump’s decision to keep classified documents at his Florida resort.

By last summer, Mr. Trump had honed the language and made it a staple of his stump speech: “They rigged the presidential election of 2020, and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election of 2024.”

The Times has documented more than 500 campaign events, social media posts and interviews during the 2024 cycle in which Mr. Trump falsely accused Democrats or others of trying to “rig,” “cheat,” “steal” or otherwise “influence” the next election — or of having done so in 2020.

Mr. Trump has adapted the specifics of his accusations with each of the three election cycles. But in each case, his pattern of discourse has followed the same contours. He sows doubt about the legitimacy of the election, and then begins to capitalize on that doubt by alluding to not necessarily accepting the election results — unless, of course, he wins.

This rhetorical strategy — heads, I win; tails, you cheated — is a beloved one for Mr. Trump that predates even his time as a presidential candidate. He called the Emmy Awards “a con game” after his television show “The Apprentice” failed to win in 2004 and 2005. And before he officially became the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, he began to float the possibility that the primary contest was, as he said, “rigged and boss controlled.”

By May of that year, Mr. Trump spoke plainly about why he had stashed the argument away. “You’ve been hearing me say it’s a rigged system,” he said, “but now I don’t say it anymore because I won.”

Late that summer, with his sights set on the November general election, Mr. Trump tested out a new line, contending that “the media” was “rigging” the election in favor of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. His assertions intensified in October after a recording surfaced of him speaking in vulgar terms about women.

“I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in 2016, three weeks before Election Day. And though he would end up winning the Electoral College and the presidency, his failure to secure the popular vote led him to form a Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to “prove” that rampant voter fraud was to blame.

In December 2019, well into Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives impeached him, saying he used the levers of government to solicit election assistance from Ukraine in the form of investigations to discredit Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump subsequently said that Democrats were using the “impeachment hoax” to “interfere” in the election.

The Covid-19 pandemic gave him a new rallying cry, centered on election integrity: Mail-in ballots were “dangerous,” “fraught with fraud” and were being used to “steal” and “rig” the election, he said.

About six weeks before Election Day in 2020, Mr. Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. “We want to make sure that the election is honest, and I’m not sure that it can be,” Mr. Trump said.

This time, it was half a year before Election Day 2024 — and after more than a year of pushing the “election interference” line about the criminal charges against him and repeatedly warning that Democrats are “cheating” — that Mr. Trump again placed conditions on his acceptance of election results.

“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” he said in a May 1 interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins laughed along with fact-checker Daniel Dale at the volume of repeated “lies” in former President Donald Trump’s latest courthouse rant.

Although Trump and his defense team filed silently past shouting reporters Wednesday morning without stopping, Trump made an appearance to rant at the press after Judge Juan Merchan completed his instructions and the jury began to deliberate.

On Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s branded coverage of the trial, Collins followed up Trump’s rant by tossing to Dale for a fact check. They both laughed as they noted the many times Dale had already debunked Trump’s falsehoods, and then knocked them down again:

KAITLAN COLLINS: As I mentioned. Daniel Dale, I don’t know. You’ve checked all of these before, I believe. I don’t think any of these will be new to you.I know you and I have been on together several times to fact check the claim about people emptying their insane asylums, countries, and sending them to the United States, which I know there’s no basis for.Also, his claims, wrongly, that President Biden is the one driving this, when, of course, he was indicted by a jury of his peers here. And it is the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who brought this case.DANIEL DALE: Yeah. You barely need me anymore. (laughs) You got these facts down. Everything you said is correct.KAITLAN COLLINS: (laughs)

.DANIEL DALE: He also referred to to fake elections in this country, a vaguer than usual reference to his false claims, his lies that the 2020 election was rigged.We have entirely legitimate elections in this country, including the 2020 election he lost.He also used this figure — he’s had 15, 16, 17 million people being let in, over the border under Joe Biden. Those are wildly exaggerated figures.We were under 10 million so-called encounters. That includes many millions who were sent back, under title 42, after they were encountered. So not all of them were let in.And I think a point of clarification, he said something true. He said that judge, had donated to President Biden, to Joe Biden’s campaign. That is true. But I think it’s important to note that the amount of the donation was $15. So just a point of fact there.KAITLAN COLLINS: Well. And that’s why whenever he claimed, he said the judge is so conflicted that he, quote, “can’t breathe” was his quote.I mean, that has been something that that Trump has long claimed during this trial. I should note, as someone who’s been in that jury room or in that courthouse, that courtroom, watching this, the judge often, strives at great lengths to be fair to both sides here, both the prosecution and the defense. And also this has gone through a process where he was asked if he was too conflicted to to preside over this, and he was told no.DANIEL DALE: Yeah. And Kaitlan, I there’s one more thing I should mention. He said that we, that that the Trump side, his defense had a leading election expert and the judge just refused to allow him to testify.That is not what happened. What happened was the judge, as is common, limited the scope of the possible testimony that this expert could have offered.And then Trump’s defense said, okay, we’re just not going to call him at all.So they could have called him to talk about various matters. Maybe it would have helped them. The judge did not completely reject this possible witness. And the Trump, Trump’s team instead made its own call not to have him up there on the stand.KAITLAN COLLINS: Yeah, that’s an important one. It was the defense who decided not to call Bradley Smith to the witness stand. Daniel Dale, thank you for that.

Watch above via CNN’s branded coverage of the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial.

Anyone tapped into the political scene or even scrolling on social media couldn’t miss Donald Trump’s historic conviction. We knew he was a felon, but not even a guilty verdict for lying can get this man to tell the truth.

Source: The Washington Post / Getty

According to Politico, he responded in a bizarre, rambling 33-minute monologue from Trump Tower on Friday, May 31. Donald Trump’s speech continued his legacy of misinformation and racist dog whistles following his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

This speech was a masterclass in deception, with Trump targeting President Biden, the justice system, and entire communities with his baseless claims.

The Trial Was “Rigged”? C’mon, Now…

This man is a convicted felon. Nonetheless, in his usual fashion, Trump painted himself as the ultimate victim, railing against what he called a “rigged” trial. He attacked the judge, calling him a “devil,” and criticized the district attorney. “It’s my honor to be doing this, but it’s a really unpleasant thing, to be honest,” he lamented. 

However, according to CNN, there is no evidence to support his claim that President Biden or the DOJ orchestrated the prosecution. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who prosecuted the case, is a locally elected official, and the grand jury’s indictment was based on substantial evidence. 

Racist Dog-Whistles: New York And The Congo

Trump’s speech was not just a tirade against the legal system; it was also laced with racist undertones. He falsely claimed that New York City is experiencing record-high violent crime rates, stating, “You have violent crime all over this city at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.”

CNN states this claim is outright false. Violent crime in New York City has decreased dramatically since the 1990s. For example, murders in 2023 were down about 83% from their 1990 peak.

Trump also made baseless claims about immigration, asserting that the Congo has released prisoners and brought them to the US. This statement, according to experts and officials from both the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, is entirely unfounded.

There is no evidence that Congolese prisons have been emptied, nor that ex-prisoners have been brought to the US.

The Numbers Don’t Lie, But Trump Reportedly Did About Biden’s Tax Policy

Source: Andrew Lichtenstein / Getty

Another central theme of Trump’s speech was the economy. He falsely accused President Biden of wanting to quadruple Americans’ taxes. However, analyses of Biden’s budget proposals show that taxes would primarily increase for the highest-income taxpayers, with no tax hike for those earning under $400,000 per year.

Trump’s 2017 tax plan, which he touted as beneficial for all, actually favored the wealthy while hitting most Americans’ pockets. Households in the top 1% received an average tax cut of over $60,000, compared to less than $500 for households in the bottom 60% 

The 2017 Tax Plan: A Windfall for the Wealthy

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) highlights how the 2017 tax law was designed to benefit the rich. It cost $1.9 trillion over ten years and eroded the U.S. revenue base. Revenue as a share of GDP dropped from about 19.5% before the Bush tax cuts to 16.3% after the Trump tax cuts.

Making these tax cuts permanent would further deepen the deficit, costing an additional $350 billion annually from 2027.

Despite promises that the corporate tax cuts would trickle down to workers, this has not been the case. The CBPP points out that workers below the 90th percentile saw no change in earnings from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries soared.

The 20% pass-through deduction, another feature of the tax law, disproportionately benefited wealthy business owners without significantly benefiting their workers. 

The Real Impact On Everyday Americans

Trump’s tax plan has not delivered the promised economic benefits. Instead, it has further widened the gap between the wealthy and everyone else. 

According to CBPP, the law created new tax advantages for the wealthy, such as a large, permanent cut in the corporate tax rate and a new 20% deduction for pass-through income. Meanwhile, the supposed benefits for lower and middle-income families have been minimal, with modest tax cuts that are dwarfed by the gains seen at the top. 

The Facts Are Facts, And Social Media Is Not For The Lies

Online, social media users have been quick to point out the inconsistencies and falsehoods in Trump’s speech. While some of his supporters continue to praise the stimulus checks that were part of his administration’s economic relief efforts, many are beginning to see the larger picture. The benefits of the 2017 tax law overwhelmingly helped the rich get richer, leaving middle and lower-income families with the short end of the stick.

A Call For Course Correction

The expiration of these tax provisions is approaching in 2025. Policymakers have a crucial opportunity to correct course. Ending the tax cuts for those making over $400,000, raising more revenue from wealthy individuals and profitable corporations, and prioritizing investments in people and communities are essential steps. 

The CBPP recommends extending and expanding tax provisions like the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit to support low- and moderate-income families.

Trump’s post-verdict speech was a desperate attempt to deflect attention from his legal woes and failed policies. It’s time for Americans to see through the lies and demand a tax system that works for everyone, not just the top 1%.

Now, let’s just hope this man won’t STILL make it into office. Considering, Uncle Sam’s terrible track record, it’s hard to put anything past this system.