Clinton, Democrats, Allies and the First Presidential Debate

Hilary for America
September 27, 2016
The reviews are in. Last night, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met on the presidential debate stage for the first time and Hillary Clinton was the clear winner.  Once again, Donald Trump showed why he lacks the knowledge, values and temperament to be president.

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Correct The Record
Hillary for America
Sept. 23, 2016

Clinton Campaign: Trump Cannot Pass Debate Test If He Repeats These Debunked Lies

In a prebuttal to the first presidential debate, Hillary for America officials today released a damning list of Donald Trump's most discredited lies from the campaign so far, and said that repeating these false claims would make it impossible for him to get a passing grade in Monday's critical test before the voters. According to PolitiFact, a whopping 70% of Trump’s claims are untrue.

“Debates are about each candidate laying out their vision for America, not making things up. Donald Trump has shown a clear pattern of repeating provably false lies and hoping no one corrects him. Voters and viewers should keep track: any candidate who tells this many lies clearly can’t win the debate on the merits,” said HFA Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.

HFA will be holding a press call TODAY at 2:00pm to preview Trump’s lies during the debate.

WHO: HFA Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri
WHEN: Friday, September 23 at 2:00pm ET
WHERE: Register here.

Trump’s Seven Deadly Lies  

1.  FALSE: Trump opposed the Iraq War.

Washington Post: Trump: "I was totally against the war in Iraq." // Four Pinocchios." 

As our timeline shows, Trump was not ‘totally’ against the Iraq War. Trump expressed lukewarm support the first time he was asked about it on Sept. 11, 2002, and was not clearly against it until he was quoted in the August 2004 Esquire cover story. (We even made a video documenting how this is a bogus claim.) Yet he repeatedly claims he opposed the war from the beginning — and thus, earns Four Pinocchios.”

2.  FALSE: Trump opposed intervention in Libya.

Factcheck.org: Donald Trump on Libya, May 20 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:  I would have stayed out of Libya.” // False.

“Trump’s claim that he ‘would have stayed out of Libya’ doesn’t square with his comments at the time. In February 2011, Trump, referring to Gadhafi, said that the U.S. should go into Libya ‘on a humanitarian basis’ and ‘knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively and save the lives.’”

3. FALSE: Clinton supports open borders.

PolitiFact: Trump says Clinton wants to create ‘totally open borders.’ // False

“This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals. Clinton has praised work already done to secure the border, and she said she supported a 2013 bill that would have invested billions more in border security while creating a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. Her plan calls for protecting the border and targeting deportation to criminals and security threats.”

4. FALSE: Clinton wants to get rid of the Second Amendment.

ABC News: “Claim: Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment” // False.

“When Trump made this same claim earlier in the cycle, Politifact rated the claim false after finding no evidence of Clinton ever advocating for the abolishment of the Second Amendment… Bottom line: there’s no evidence to support Trump’s claim.

PolitiFact: “Donald Trump falsely claims Hillary Clinton 'wants to abolish the 2nd Amendment,'” // False.

“We found no evidence of Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment, and the bulk of Clinton’s comments suggest the opposite. She has repeatedly said she wants to protect the right to bear arms while enacting measures to prevent gun violence.”

5. FALSE: President Obama and Clinton founded ISIS.

Washington Post: “Is Obama the founder of ISIS?” // Absolutely not.

“Absolutely not. It’s like saying that Ronald Reagan is the founder of al-Qaeda because the arms he sent to the mujahideen in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion led to the creation of al-Qaeda. It’s a ludicrous claim.”

Washington Post: “Trump also claims Hillary Clinton was a “co-founder” of ISIS. Does that make sense?” // No.

“No. Within the administration, Clinton was one of the loudest forces for keeping a residual force in Iraq and for intervening in Syria, such as arming the rebels. So the criticism especially does not apply to her, since she advocated a more hawkish policy than was undertaken by Obama.”

6. FALSE: Clinton would allow 620,000 refugees into the U.S. with no vetting.

Washington Post: Trump: “This includes her plan to bring in 620,000 new refugees from Syria and that region over a short period of time.” // This is an “invented figure.”

“Trump has used this number before, but it stems from the unverified assumption that Clinton, who has called for 55,000 additional refugees from Syria, would continue at that pace for every year of her first term, on top of the Obama administration’s proposal for 100,000 refugees for fiscal year 2017. Trump then multiplies 155,000 times four years to reach 620,000 refugees. Clinton has never proposed such a “plan,” so this is an invented figure.”

Washington Post: Trump: “Under the Clinton plan, you’d be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children.” // “It’s false...”

“Trump has repeatedly made this “hundreds of thousands” claim, usually referring to Syria, but it’s false… Trump also falsely claims there is “no system to vet” refugees. The process actually takes two more years, after vetting that starts with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and then continues with checks by U.S. intelligence and security agencies.”

7. FALSE: Trump will make Mexico pay for the wall.

NPR Fact Check: Trump: “And Mexico will pay for the wall. 100 percent.” // Mexican President “would not pay” for the wall.

“After his meeting with Donald Trump today, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto reiterated his insistence that Mexico would not pay for construction of a border wall. Peña Nieto said he made that clear to Trump during their meeting, although Trump told reporters that the issue of payment was not discussed. — Scott Horsley”

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For Immediate Release, September 23, 2016

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Hillary for America
Sept. 20, 2016 fundraising email

Eric --

For more than a year now, Donald Trump has used his platform on the campaign trail to try to silence and bully anyone who looks or acts differently than him.

So here’s what I’m promising you today: When I step onto the debate stage a week from now, I’m going to use my voice, my platform, and my microphone to speak out on behalf of the Americans he’s trying to put down.

I’m going to stand up for the 11-year-old girl in Nevada, who’s worried that her parents would be deported under a Trump presidency. For the Muslim family in Queens whose young children are terrified of how their family would be treated if Donald Trump becomes their Commander-in-Chief. I’ll speak up for every American who needs someone in their corner -- not someone backing them into one.

Eric, I’ve taken part in quite a few debates in my life. But Monday’s is the most important. With so much on the line, I’m ready to give my all.

It’s going to be a historic night, and I’d love for you to be there for it. Will you add your name before tonight’s final deadline for a shot to sit in the audience as I challenge Trump? Time’s running out, the contest ends at midnight:

I hope to see you there!

Hillary

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Correct The Record
FROM:         David Brock, Founder, Correct The Record
TO:         Members of the Press
DATE:         September 26, 2016

Correct The Record’s Guide to Spotting Donald Trump’s Debate Lies

Trump is a serial liar. Don’t let him get away with it.

Donald Trump Is A Serial Liar

Tonight, Donald Trump will take his campaign of lies to its biggest stage yet: the presidential debate.

Reporters can't let him get away with it.

Over the past fifteen months, Trump has waged a one-man war on the truth. For Trump, lying is not just about simply spouting inaccuracies. It is literally who he is. His businesses, his biography, his policy proposals, his campaign rhetoric—they are all based on lies. Trump’s entire public persona for the past five decades is a carefully woven fiction.

This pattern of deception goes far beyond simply saying inaccurate statements. It is an all-out assault on the fact-based politics that have been the cornerstone of modern American politics. Trump’s lies are literally off the charts. PolitiFact has rated 70 percent of Trump’s statements that they fact checked lies. The previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, received a 42 percent false rating—a 28 percent difference. Last week alone, Trump told at least 83 lies.

This level of mendacity is unprecedented in American politics and poses a unique challenge to political journalists covering the first presidential debate. Already, the Republican nominee is spreading lies in an attempt to influence and neutralize any fact checking by the debate moderators. Trump has falsely attacked moderator Lester Holt as a Democrat (Holt has been a registered Republican since 2003) and insisted Holt should not “succumb to pressure” to fact-check during the debate.

Even without this pressure from the Trump campaign, the volume, breadth and ubiquity of Trump’s falsehoods demands a historic commitment to fact checking from media outlets. Trump’s unprecedented lying must be met with an unparalleled effort from reporters to debunk Trump’s many falsehoods. The current standard—where fact checkers and reporters will simply check the most obvious and egregious lies—leaves many of Trump’s more bizarre lies unexamined. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has written Trump’s “lies are constant, coming in steady torrent, and are never acknowledged, simply repeated [...] keep[ing] the news media flummoxed, unable to believe, or at least say openly, that the candidate of a major party lies that much.”

It’s time to acknowledge that Trump does lie “that much”—and hold him accountable for it.

How to Identify Trump’s Lies
There are five broad categories that help demonstrate how Trump lies and what he commonly lies about. First, Trump constantly lies about his own biography. Second, he deflects criticism by criticizing his opponents of doing the same thing, only worse. Third, Trump has a penchant for inventing imaginary characters and conversations that validate his beliefs. Fourth, Trump uses easily identifiable rhetorical “tells” whenever he lies. Finally, Trump insists on making outlandish and bizarre claims without evidence or supporting information—he cannot answer, “How?”

Myths
Trump is a master mythmaker. For decades, Trump has built a specific image of himself as a 21st Century Daddy Warbucks who conquered Manhattan real estate yet remains a champion of middle class Americans. The truth? Trump depended on millions from his father to launch his business and is likely worth billions of dollars less than he claims—a subject he’s especially sensitive about. Trump has even lied about the height of Trump Tower. We usually trust politicians to tell the broad outlines of their own personal narrative—but in this case, reporters should be on the lookout for Trump’s fictitious mythmaking.

I Know You Are, But What Am I?
With little facts or specific proposals to rely on, projection is one of Trump’s go-to rhetorical strategies. Trump has a tendency to respond to every serious criticism with ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ After Hillary Clinton delivered her speech on the alt-right, Trump accused her of being a “bigot.” During the rollout of his widely-panned maternity leave plan, Trump said that Hillary Clinton had no child care plan—an outright falsehood. Projection is a clear sign that Trump is both lying and desperately looking for a way to muddy the waters.

Imaginary Friends
Decades ago, Trump invented his own spokesman “John Barron” and then impersonated him for years. Old habits die hard. Throughout his presidential bid, Trump has created a whole coterie of characters who supposedly provide him with information, shower him with compliments and give him updates about subjects as diverse as the California drought and ISIS.

One of the most troubling examples of Trump’s wayward imagination occurred earlier this year when Trump invented an ISIS advisor. On January 21, Trump claimed that a “very good soldier” told him that ISIS’ equipment was superior to the United States. On February 1, he told the same story, but this time the story featured his friend’s son who had served two tours. Other times, he notes that doesn’t know if the soldier is injured—while in some stories, he’s still in the Middle East.

Tells
Trump also has a few very simple “tells” when he lies. Trump often makes claims that are so outrageous and disingenuous that he’ll literally ask his audience to suspend their disbelief or bear with him. “Believe me,” “that I can tell you” and “everybody is saying” are all tell-tale signs that what’s coming next—or what immediately preceded—is a complete falsehood.

How?
In Trump’s world, he is not only the smartest—he has a superhuman ability to single-handedly make Mexico build the wall, defeat ISIS, deport 11 million people, implement racial profiling and fix the economy. Trump has taken credit for popularizing the word “rigged,” identifying the California drought as a hoax and making polling a major factor in presidential campaigns. Trump doesn’t offer any real explanations of his past achievements or future plans, he just asks us to “believe” him. Tonight, it’s critical to remember that despite his bluster, Trump doesn’t have superhuman powers—and simply repeating the same falsehoods will never make any of his claims true. By simply asking “how?” Trump’s biggest boasts fall apart.

Conclusion
As The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold has shown in his dogged reporting on the Trump Foundation, Trump’s most basic claims often fall apart under scrutiny. Tonight, reporters must look at the stories Trump tells about himself very skeptically. Since launching his presidential campaign (and before) Trump has literally lied about his own biography, made up campaign validators and said that as president, he can do the impossible. Trump tells a dizzying number of lies and displays a disturbing pattern of deceit and deception. Instead of letting Trump get away with it, tonight journalists must counter Trump’s falsehoods with the most powerful tool they have: the truth.

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American Bridge 21st Century
September 21, 2016

Ever Want To Know How To Outfox Trump?

In advance of Monday's presidential debate, American Bridge today launched a new resource, "How to Outfox Trump." Facts are inconsequential to Donald Trump, and he has no problem shifting positions and ducking not only the hard facts but also what he's said, when he's challenged on his lies. 
 
Hillary for America
Sept. 20, 2016 fundraising email