. . . does not equal Correct . . .
(http://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/)
"Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC."
in fact: There is still no evidence of this. And the surveillance Trump was complaining about on this day, of Carter Page, only began after Page left the campaign.
"Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of 'Justice' and FBI misled the courts."
in fact: The documents do not show that the Department of Justice and the FBI misled the courts in seeking a warrant to surveil a former Trump adviser, Carter Page. In fact, the newly released documents proved that a Republican memo about the documents was misleading when it accused the Department of Justice and FBI of misleading the courts. As the New York Times reported: "The Republican memo issued in February said the FBI had failed to 'disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.' But Democrats at the time contended that the court had been told that the research had politically motivated origins. The application contains a page-length explanation that does alert the court that the person who commissioned Mr. Steele's research was "likely looking for information to discredit" Mr. Trump's campaign. It goes on to explain why, notwithstanding Mr. Steele's 'reason for conducting the research,' the FBI believed it was credible. Republicans had also faulted the application for not explicitly identifying Mrs. Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee by name. But that criticism ignored the fact that law enforcement officials were following a general policy not to name Americans, even referring to Mr. Trump only as 'Candidate #1' in renewal applications despite noting that he was now the president-elect and then the president. David Kris, an expert on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act who served in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, dismissed the notion that the intelligence court judges had been misled. 'Now we can see that the footnote disclosing Steele's possible bias takes up more than a full page in the applications, so there is literally no way the FISA Court could have missed it,' he wrote on the blog Lawfare."
"The Rigged Witch Hunt, headed by the 13 Angry Democrats (and now 4 more have been added, one who worked directly for Obama W.H.), seems intent on damaging the Republican Party's chances in the November Election."
in fact: By "rigged witch hunt," Trump means special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into his campaign's relationship with Russia. The investigation is being run by a Republican, Mueller himself. Though Mueller has indeed filled his team with Democrats, it is false to say the investigation is "headed" by these Democrats.
Trump has repeated this claim 2 times
"Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer's office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal."
in fact: The government executed a search warrant at Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's office in April; it did not "break in." We'll continue let this claim go as a matter of rhetorical license, but the second part of Trump's tweet is flat-out incorrect: it was not illegal for Cohen to tape phone calls with Trump. Under New York state law, only one party to the conversation must consent for the recording to be legal.
"Now, we then go to a news conference. I mean I had these -- some of these fools from the media saying, 'Why didn't you stand there, look him in the face, walk over to him, and start shouting at him?'"
in fact: Unless we're missing something -- we'll remove this item from the list if someone shows us we were indeed missing something -- Trump's critics in the media did not demand he walk over to Putin and shout in his face; some of them merely said Trump should have professionally denounced Putin from his own spot at the press conference. According to a Wall Street Journal report, it was Trump's own aides who wanted Trump to get up in Putin's "face." The Journal reported: "In preparatory meetings, Mr. Trump and his aides discussed using the indictment to forcefully make the case. The plan was for Mr. Trump to invoke the indictment both in private meetings and in the public news conference afterward, a White House official said. The idea, the official said, was to 'shove it in Putin's face and look strong doing it,' depicting it as hard evidence of Russian crimes against America's electoral process."
"With Mexico, $120 billion (trade deficit). Mexico. Who would think Mexico? Mexico's making a fortune."
in fact: The U.S. trade deficit with Mexico was $69 billion in 2017, $71 billion in 2017 when counting goods alone. Trump has usually claimed that the deficit with Mexico is $100 billion; this was the first time he exaggerated all the way to $120 billion.
"China: with China, $507 billion a year in deficits." And: "We're down 500. Now some people would say $375 billion. I'm not talking about million. I'm not talking about pennies. I'm talking about -- we're down $375 billion, but other estimates could say $507, it doesn't matter. So it's in between there, or it's there." And: "And it's very interesting because I actually asked them the question, 'So we're down 507 -- recently -- we're down $507 billion in trade deficits. How did it happen?' And they told me, 'Nobody ever complained. Nobody ever talked to us.'" (Trump has repeated this claim 34 times)
in fact: The U.S. has never once had a $500 billion trade deficit with China, according to U.S. government data. The deficit was $337 billion in 2017, $375 billion if you only count trade in goods. There are no estimates by which it "could say" $507 billion.
"You know last year, and for years, we have been losing $150 billion with the EU nations, with the European Union..." And: "With the EU $151 billion..." (Trump has repeated this claim 46 times)
in fact: The U.S. had a $102 billion trade deficit with the European Union in 2017. The $150 billion figure -- $151 billion, to be precise -- counts only trade in goods and excludes trade in services. Trump, as usual, did not say he was excluding services.
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