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Fact-checking Trump’s CPAC speech President Trump made a triumphant return to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the place where Trump says he gave his first major political speech and concluded, “I think I like this business.” But we found that Trump’s speech to his conservative “friends” at the conference contained a lot of the same false and misleading claims we’ve been fact-checking for months. Trump said that media “shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name,” but his own White House staff regularly holds “on background” conversations with reporters with the condition that officials’ names not be used. The president claimed the media “make up sources,” citing one news story with nine anonymous sources as evidence. But the likely story in question — a Washington Post story on former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s discussions about sanctions with the Russian ambassador in December — was confirmed by the White House. Trump doubled down on his exaggeration about crime in Sweden as a result of its liberal policy of accepting refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries. Trump made the curious claim that “Obamacare covers very few people,” despite the fact that the number of uninsured Americans has fallen by 20 million since the health care law was enacted. Trump said that building the Keystone XL pipeline could lead to “somewhere around” 42,000 jobs. The State Department estimated that many “direct, indirect and induced” jobs could be created temporarily. But after construction, only 50 workers would be required to operate the pipeline. He also repeated exaggerations about NAFTA’s impact on the economy, welfare, and the election’s impact on job growth — taking credit for recently announced investments. Trump said that a Los Angeles Times poll “did a great job” predicting his election victory. Actually, the poll wrongly predicted that Trump would win the popular vote. The Feb. 24 speech was Trump’s fifth appearance at the annual conference, but his first as president. Trump signaled his presidential aspirations in his first appearance at CPAC back in 2011, when he made headlines for questioning President Obama’s birth certificate. And he built up his conservative following in subsequent appearances in 2013, 2014 and 2015. On ‘Fake’ News and Anonymous Sources Trump opined that media “shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name,” but his own White House staff regularly holds “on background” conversations with reporters with the condition that officials’ names not be used. In fact, just hours before Trump’s speech, the White House held a “background briefing by senior administration officials” (with the condition that those sources not be named) to push back against news reports that some members of Trump’s campaign had communicated with Russian officials during the campaign. Trump: "I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there. Let their name be put out. 'A source says that Donald Trump is a horrible, horrible human being.' Let ’em say it to my face. Let there be no more sources." The use of anonymous sources has long been debated in media circles. Some argue its necessity, while others warn of its risks to credibility, and caution against its overuse. Some newspapers eschew the practice entirely. Last year, The New York Timesannounced stricter guidelines for using anonymous sources, requiring the approval of a top editor. So Trump is certainly entitled to his opinion. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the hypocrisy of this stance. Trump administration officials regularly hold “on background” briefings with reporters on the condition that officials not be named (as did the Obama administration before it). As ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl pointed out, the same morning that Trump gave his CPAC speech, the White House gave some reporters a background briefing by senior administration officials on the condition that reporters couldn’t use the officials’ names. According to a press pool report filed by Dan Freedman of Hearst Newspapers, the officials provided “major pushback” on news reports that Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. The anonymous White House officials relayed purported details of private conversations between Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, and FBI Director James Comey and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. At a press briefing after Trump’s speech, press secretary Sean Spicer noted that reporters had obtained permission to use some of his quotes on the record. Said Spicer: “There’s a big difference between making serious allegations, us coming back on the record, and reporters saying ‘well, we have five sources, that are unnamed, that say contrary to that.’ I think there’s a point at which there’s an obligation if you’re going to make a very serious allegation, and we’re willing to push back on the record, that there be somebody at the very least who’s willing to push back on this and say they’ll put their name attached to it.” But the White House has done these background briefings before. Honesty is the best policy. |
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Everybody has two eyes, two ears and one brain to judge which news is true or fake. Trump supporters say media is fake, the other 50 percent of people say Trump lied or twist the news. So, here is the fact-checking. Honesty is the best policy.
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