Indy100 Staff
Mar 01, 2017
JIM LO SCALZO/AFP/Getty Images
United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered his first address to Congress, and event fact checkers were watching like hawks.
Given the 45th President's well-documented and open attitude to proliferating myths and false statements, the stage was set for a night of disproving the President.
Politifact listed a number of points of inaccuracy and contention - largely criticising the president for not providing context to remarks or for taking credit for pre-existing policy points.
The Center for American Progress claimed that he made 51 incorrect statements, crowdsourcing factcheckers in a Google doc:
The full document (which cannot be edited), a copy of which is embedded below, can be accessed here.
Donald Trump also claimed during his address:
Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.
As The New York Times noted, this is an incredibly misleading statement.
As Donald Trump should know, this figure encompasses the number of Americans older than 15 who do not have jobs.
It includes students in high school or college education, disabled people, stay-at-home parents and retirees and pensioners, all of whom are unlikely to be looking for immediate work.
The number is a different statistic to the 7.6 million who were unemployed in January, yet Donald Trump used it in the following context:
Tonight, as I outline the next steps we must take as a country, we must honestly acknowledge the circumstances we inherited.
Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.
Over 43 million people are now living in poverty, and over 43 million Americans are on food stamps.
He is clearly trying to paint the picture of a country with a poor employment record and with poor economic circumstances. To disregard the unemployment figures and use out of work figures instead, is misleading - unless of course his intention is to abolish higher education, the retirement age and force all heavily disabled people to work.
We should remember, however - it is Donald Trump we're talking about.
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