Fact check: Trump makes at least 11 false claims in foreign policy interview

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump did a Monday interview focused on foreign policy. And he repeated a bunch of his regular false claims on that subject and others – while sprinkling in some new inaccuracy for good measure – making at least 11 false claims in all.

In the interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, Trump also made an assertion that he has been to Gaza. Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt insisted to CNN that the claim is true, but she could not provide a single detail about Trump’s supposed Gaza visit, and CNN and other media outlets have found no evidence that Trump ever went; he certainly did not go as president. You can read more here.

Below is a quick fact check of Trump’s 11 provably false claims in the interview.

Terrorist attacks: Trump repeated his false claim that “we didn’t have one terrorist attack” during his presidency. There were multiple terrorist attacks during his presidency, including some he has spoken about himself.

The defeat of ISIS: Trump repeated his false claim that although others said it would take years to “get rid of” the ISIS terror group, “I got rid of it in a month.” Leaving aside the fact that Trump certainly doesn’t deserve sole credit, the ISIS “caliphate” was declared fully liberated more than two years into Trump’s presidency.

Iran and funding for terror groups: Trump repeated his false claim that Iran did not fund terror groups during his presidency: “They weren’t giving any money, because they had no money.” Iran’s funding for entities designated by the US government as terror groups, like Hezbollah and Hamas, did decline in the second half of his presidency, in large part because his sanctions had a major negative impact on the Iranian economy, but the funding never stopped – as Trump’s own administration acknowledged in 2020.

China’s oil purchases from Iran: Trump repeated his false claim that he successfully pressured Chinese leader Xi Jinping into ending oil purchases from Iran; Trump claimed, “He said, ‘I’ll pass.’ He passed. Everybody passed. They did no business.” China’s oil purchases from Iran briefly plummeted in 2019, but they never stopped, and they quickly rebounded while Trump was still president – back up to hundreds of thousands of barrels per day.

Nuclear weapons: Repeating a false claim he made during his presidency, Trump said, “I rebuilt our entire nuclear force.” He simply did not do so, though he did undertake efforts to modernize the US arsenal. “Long story short: then, as now, Trump’s nuclear braggadocio is utter fantasy, wholly divorced from reality,” said Stephen Schwartz, an independent expert on US nuclear weapons policy. “And not only did he not rebuild ‘our entire nuclear force,’ on his watch the total operational nuclear stockpile of warheads and bombs actually decreased by about 100 weapons!”

Global warming and sea levels: Trump delivered another version of his usual false claim about global warming, minimizing the threat by saying it will cause the ocean to rise merely “1/8th of an inch in the next 500 years.” Sea levels are currently rising more than an eighth of an inch per year.

Harris, immigrants and crime: Trump repeated his false claim that Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the presidential election, let in 13,000 murderers and 425,000 criminals over the border. The statistics he was referring to are not specifically about people who entered the country during the Biden-Harris administration; rather, they cover numerous presidential administrations, including his own, over the span of decades – “over the past 40 years or more,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a September statement to CNN. You can read more here.

Pelosi and a stock sale: Trump falsely claimed that the former speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, sold stock in Visa “the day before the lawsuit” that was filed against the company by the Justice Department in September. An official disclosure shows the stock was actually sold by Pelosi’s husband more than two and a half months before the Justice Department filed the lawsuit.

Biden and foreign income: Trump repeated his false claim that President Joe Biden “gets a lot of money from China, or he got a lot of money from China, tremendous amount of money.” After years of investigation by House Republicans, there is still no evidence Biden has received any payments from China.

Chris Wallace in 2020: Trump repeated his false claim that journalist Chris Wallace, now of CNN and formerly of Fox News, tried to stop him, during a presidential debate Wallace moderated in 2020, from asking Biden about a supposed payment from the mayor of Moscow’s wife (which actually went to a company connected to Biden’s son Hunter Biden, not to the president); Trump claimed, “And Chris Wallace wouldn’t let me ask. (Biden) couldn’t answer the question. Chris Wallace stepped in and said, ‘Well, we’re not going to be talking about that.’”

Wallace never said anything like that. As the transcript shows, Wallace interjected during this debate exchange to try to get Trump to allow Biden to answer Trump’s question about the money, not to stop Trump from talking about the subject.

Military equipment surrendered to the Taliban: Trump repeated his false claim that $85 billion in US military equipment was left to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden and Harris. Trump’s figure is a massive exaggeration; the Pentagon has estimated that this equipment was worth about $7.1 billion – a chunk of the roughly $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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