Another softball interview. Another collection of apparent lies from the president.
President Donald Trump’s dialog with conservative New York Post columnist and podcaster Miranda Devine, released on Wednesday morning, featured a few of Trump’s longest-debunked false claims about elections, the economic system and immigration. As along with his inaccurate comments in a Fox News interview that aired on Saturday, which was performed by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, these assertions went unchallenged.
Here is a truth examine of a few of his remarks in the Post interview. This shouldn’t be supposed as a complete record.
Mail-in ballots: Trump falsely claimed, as he has on quite a few earlier events, “We’re the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots. No other country does it anymore.”
In truth, dozens of countries — together with Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and Switzerland — enable some or all voters to vote by mail, although the specifics of their insurance policies range.
The 2020 election: Trump repeatedly uttered his acquainted lie that the 2020 election was “rigged,” this time including that “it’s been proven to be rigged.” Trump misplaced honest and sq. to Joe Biden, the election wasn’t “rigged,” and – five-and-a-half years later — there isn’t any proof for Trump’s assertion.
Trump additionally stated of Biden: “Should have never been president. He lost the election in a landslide.” Biden truly gained the election 306 to 232 in the Electoral College, and he earned greater than 7 million extra votes than Trump did.
Trump’s election efficiency: Trump lied of his election efficiency: “I won it three times.” Trump gained the 2016 and 2024 elections and misplaced the 2020 election.
The 2024 election: Trump described the 2024 election he gained as “a great election,” however then stated, “They had a lot of rigging going on there too,” including, “There were areas that were just rigged. I could see it. In other words, rigged against me.” There isn’t any foundation for these claims, both; Trump gained the election legitimately however misplaced some communities and states legitimately.
Democrats and elections: Trump repeated his lie that Democrats “couldn’t win” with out dishonest, additionally saying, “If they didn’t cheat, they could not win because their policies are so bad” and that “if they didn’t cheat you wouldn’t have them in.” This is just baseless; Democrats, like Republicans, win elections legitimately.
Ballots in California: Reprising a false declare he made in May, Trump stated, “You know, in California, they mail out 38 — I think 38 million ballots.” He added, “And some people get three, four, five ballots. Republicans get, oftentimes, none.” Both of those claims are incorrect. California had about 22.6 million voters registered as of about two weeks prior to the final presidential election and about 23.2 million voters registered as of about two weeks prior to Tuesday’s primaries; there isn’t any foundation for any suggestion that some 15 million extra ballots are distributed in any California election. And each lively registered voter in the state, regardless of their social gathering affiliation, is sent a mail-in ballot; there are occasional administrative errors by counties or the postal service, however there isn’t any foundation for Trump’s suggestion that there’s some kind of normal anti-Republican bias in distributing the ballots.
Talarico and masking: Trump claimed of James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Texas: “A couple of months ago, he’s wearing a mask.” NCS may discover no proof that Talarico was sporting a masks “a couple of months ago”; some Republicans have lampooned him over a video displaying him sporting a masks at an occasion in 2022. (This wasn’t a one-time exaggeration by Trump; he said in May that Talarico was sporting a masks “six months ago.”)
McConnell’s 2020 reelection: As he has earlier than, Trump took credit score for the 2020 reelection of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was the Senate majority chief at the time and has since drawn Trump’s ire. Trump stated, “Without me, he wouldn’t have been elected. It was my endorsement that got him elected. He was losing by a lot, I endorsed him, and he won the election quite easily along with everyone else.”
McConnell was by no means “losing by a lot” in his race in a state that had been electing him to the seat since 1984, had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992, and ended up giving him a victory of almost 20 share factors.
A single ballot in May 2020, performed for a bunch calling for time period limits on members of Congress, confirmed longtime senator McConnell 1 level behind Democratic candidate Amy McGrath, 41% to 40% — however as NCS reported in 2021, this was the solely public ballot for the entirety of the race by which McConnell was down, and the (now-defunct) political forecasting web site FiveThirtyEight by no means had his probabilities of profitable under 93%. Kevin McLaughlin, who was government director of Senate Republicans’ marketing campaign arm in 2020, posted on social media after Trump made such claims about McConnell in 2021: “I personally showed Trump polling in the Oval Office that had (McConnell) up 20 points. He knows this isn’t true.”
Harris and the border: Trump claimed that former Vice President Kamala Harris “was the border czar” however “never went there.” Harris truly visited the US southern border twice as vice chairman, once in 2021 and once in 2024; Trump is free to argue that this wasn’t sufficient, however “never went there” isn’t true. (And the Biden administration repeatedly stated she was by no means truly “border czar” — noting she had been given a narrower “root causes” mission of main diplomacy with Central American international locations in an try to deal with the causes for his or her residents’ migration to the US.)
Border numbers below Biden: Trump falsely claimed that due to Biden’s victory, “like 25 million people” poured into the nation over the border; at one other level in the interview, he omitted the “like” and stated it was “25 million” individuals.
The “25 million” determine is fake; even Trump’s earlier “21 million” determine was a wild exaggeration. Through December 2024, the final full month below the Biden administration, the federal authorities had recorded below 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants throughout that administration, together with hundreds of thousands who have been quickly expelled from the nation. Even including in the so-called “gotaways” who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no approach the complete was even near what Trump has stated.
Migration and jails: Trump claimed that, below Biden, migrants got here into the US from jails and psychological establishments – then added, “I mean literally, they emptied out jail, the jail populations; the whole jail was emptied into our country.” Trump and his crew have by no means substantiated his claims about jails being emptied into the US, although he has been making them since his 2024 marketing campaign. An knowledgeable on worldwide jail coverage, Helen Fair, has repeatedly told NCS that she noticed no proof of any nation emptying jails for migration functions below Biden, not to mention that these international locations someway inserted former prisoners into the US. (In the previous, Trump has recognized Venezuela and “the Congo” as locations that had supposedly executed this; consultants on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo told NCS throughout the Biden administration that that they had seen no foundation for Trump’s tales, and the governments of each of the Congo international locations told NCS the stories are false.)
Border crossings below Trump: Trump claimed, “So now the border is sealed. We have nobody coming in. Nobody. We actually had, for the last 11 months, zero people coming, because they don’t even try.” This is an exaggeration. US Customs and Border Protection said in May that the authorities hadn’t launched any migrants into the nation over the final 12 months after encountering these migrants crossing the border. But it’s clear that some migrants evaded authorities to cross the border illegally throughout that interval, although it seems the variety of gotaways was a lot smaller than it was throughout the Biden administration. Then-Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks told the Washington Examiner final yr that on December 18, simply 17 migrants crossing the southern border evaded arrest. The Examiner reported that Banks was “anticipating a day in the near future where not a single person who crosses illegally will get away,” however clearly that day hadn’t occurred but.
Migration and murderers: Describing Democrats as “dumb,” Trump claimed, “We had 11,888 murderers, most of whom committed more than one murder, allowed into our country.” Trump was misleadingly describing federal knowledge, as he has on quite a few earlier events. As regular, he didn’t clarify that, as the Department of Homeland Security and independent experts noted in 2024, the determine it seems he’s referring to is about noncitizens who entered the US not slightly below Biden however over the course of a number of a long time, together with throughout Trump’s personal first administration. They have been convicted of murder sooner or later, often in the US after their arrival, and are nonetheless in the US whereas being listed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “non-detained docket” — which incorporates people who find themselves at the moment serving their jail sentences. And it has by no means been clear whether or not there’s a factual foundation for Trump’s declare that greater than half of the individuals in query dedicated multiple homicide; the White House didn’t reply in January to a NCS request to elucidate the place Trump may need gotten this data. You can learn extra here.
Biden and inflation: After he was requested about individuals fearful about the price of fuel or groceries, Trump stated, “I inherited the highest inflation in the history of our country. You know, Biden had like 9, 10% inflation. And I inherited that, and we have it way down.” In truth, inflation is now increased, not decrease, than the degree he inherited — which was nowhere near the highest in the historical past of the nation.
The year-over-year inflation price was 2.9% in Biden’s final full month in workplace, December 2024, and it was 3.0% in January 2025, when Trump took over; the most up-to-date price is 3.8% in April 2026. Peak inflation below the Biden administration, 9.1% in June 2022, was the highest in additional than 40 years — however even that 9.1% price was removed from the all-time high of 23.7%, which was reached in 1920, or the highest level of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, 14.8%, which was reached in 1980.
Investment in the US: Trump repeated one among his favourite false figures, saying, “We have $18 trillion being invested in the country in just 11 months,” including that this “$18 trillion” is “a record for any country anywhere in the world.” The $18 trillion determine is fiction. As of Wednesday morning, the White House’s own website stated the determine for “major investment announcements” throughout this Trump time period was “$10.6 trillion,” and even that was a significant exaggeration of precise funding. A detailed NCS review in October discovered the White House was counting trillions of {dollars} in imprecise funding pledges, pledges that have been about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” relatively than funding in the US, and imprecise statements that didn’t even rise to the degree of pledges.
Gas costs: Trump stated of fuel costs: “You know, I had it — I had it down to $1.85 a gallon — think of it, $1.85, in Iowa. I was in Iowa just before the war started, and I had it down to $1.85 a gallon in various parts of the country.”
On the day he visited Iowa in late January, a month earlier than he launched the battle with Iran, the common worth in the state for normal gasoline was $2.57 per gallon, in response to AAA; the agency GasBuddy discovered simply 4 stations in the state promoting that day for below $2 per gallon — $1.97, to be particular, not $1.85 — out of two,036 stations the agency was monitoring there. And a NCS reporter noticed that the station proper outdoors the venue the place Trump spoke was at $2.69 per gallon that day.
It’s potential Trump was referring to the price of E85, an ethanol-gasoline mix that’s bought in a minority of gas stations and may solely be utilized in the small percentage of automobiles which can be appropriate with it; the mix was promoting for round $1.85 per gallon in Iowa at the time of his go to. But, as when he made this declare about Iowa fuel costs on previous occasions, he provided no indication on this interview that he was speaking a few area of interest product.
The AAA nationwide common worth of fuel on February 28, the day the battle started, was $2.98 per gallon, and the lowest state common was Oklahoma’s $2.47 per gallon. Four nights earlier than the battle, on February 24, GasBuddy told NCS that simply 4 stations nationwide, out of about 150,000 it screens, have been promoting for below $2 per gallon (except for particular reductions).
The FBI and January 6
Again taking part in down the pro-Trump revolt at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump described it as mere “nonsense where the FBI said, ‘Go in. Go in.’ Police: ‘Go in.’” More than 5 years later, there may be nonetheless no proof the FBI or police stated this to rioters. It’s additionally price noting that Trump was president on January 6 and had personally appointed the FBI director at the time, Christopher Wray.
Before Trump returned to workplace in 2025, and shortly granted sweeping clemency to just about all of the roughly 1,600 individuals charged over the riot, the Justice Department said about 140 law enforcement officials have been assaulted on January 6; video footage reveals how dozens of officers engaged in hand-to-hand fight with rioters in a determined effort to maintain them out of the constructing. In some areas round the Capitol, police have been so outnumbered by the mob that they retreated, stood apart or tried to politely engage with rioters to de-escalate the scenario relatively than preventing or making mass arrests, however that’s clearly not the similar as explicitly telling rioters to enter.
Though dozens of individuals criminally charged over the riot claimed of their authorized defenses that police had allowed them in, at least 1,270 people were convicted and solely two have been acquitted on all costs, just one of them in reference to this protection; the choose stated he thought this defendant fairly believed officers had allowed him in, but additionally stated the officers “were grossly outnumbered at that point” and had “acted responsibly and reasonably throughout.”
As for the FBI, the inspector normal overseeing the Justice Department found in 2024 that there have been zero undercover FBI agents at the Capitol on January 6. And in 2025, after Trump seized on a deceptive right-wing media report and falsely claimed the FBI had secretly positioned 274 brokers into the crowd “just prior to, and during” the riot, his present FBI director, Kash Patel, issued a rare debunking — telling Fox News that the brokers “were sent into a crowd control mission after the riot was declared by Metro Police.”
The inspector normal present in 2024 that 26 confidential human sources (paid FBI informants) have been in Washington that day, however that none of them have been approved to interrupt the legislation or encourage others to take action; the inspector normal discovered that 23 of them went to Washington on their very own, with out having been requested by the FBI, whereas three of them have been requested by the FBI to report on particular individuals thought-about “domestic terrorism subjects” who have been presumably planning to go to rallies on January 6.
None of that’s even near what Trump asserted to Devine.
NCS’s Marshall Cohen and Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this merchandise.