President Donald Trump stepped back into the presidency this week moving quickly to set a new agenda, but from his inaugural address continuing through a flurry of executive actions, press conferences and interviews Trump relied on an array of false and misleading information to support his case.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: Speaking to attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, Trump said he won by millions of votes in the 2024 election, which gave him “a massive mandate from the American people, like hasn’t been seen in many years.”
THE FACTS: Trump’s margin of victory in the 2024 election was not as large as he makes it seem. He won the electoral vote 312 to 226, including all seven swing states. The popular vote, however, was far closer, with Trump receiving 49.9% of the vote with 77,303,573 votes cast to Harris’ 75,019,257 votes (48.4%), according to news agencies Vote Cast. That’s a difference of 2,284,316 votes. In 2020, Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes.
CLAIM: In an interview Wednesday night with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump said that he “won youth by 36 points.”
THE FACTS: That’s false. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the 18 to 29 age group by 4 percentage points, 51% to 47%; and the 30 to 44 age group 50% to 47%, according to news agencies VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters in the November election.
Trump won voters over 45 against Harris, with 52% supporting him. Slightly fewer than half, 47%, voted for Harris.
Like all surveys, news agencies VoteCast results are not an official count of how young people voted, instead providing an estimate that is subject to sampling error. However, other survey estimates also provide no signal that supports Trump’s claims.
CLAIM: Trump told Hannity that rather than let it go into the Pacific Ocean, California Gov. Gavin Newsom “can release the water that comes from north” to help fight ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles. “There is massive amounts of water, rainwater and mountain water that comes due with the snow, comes down when — it as it melts,” he continued. Trump also claimed that “they turned off the spigot from up north in order to protect the Delta smelt.”
THE FACTS: About 40 percent of Los Angeles city water comes from state-controlled projects connected to northern California, where the Delta smelt fish live, and the state has limited the water it delivers this year. Yet the southern California reservoirs these canals help feed are at above-average levels for this time of year.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has enough water in storage to meet roughly three years of water demand, said Deven Upadhyay, the agency’s interim general manager.
“We can deliver what our agencies need,” he said.
Some fire hydrants in Los Angeles ran dry in early efforts to fight the fires, prompting a swirl of criticism on social media, including from Trump.
But state water supplies are not to blame for hydrants running dry and a key reservoir near Pacific Palisades that was not filled. The problem with the hydrants was that they were overstressed, and the Santa Ynez Reservoir was empty because it was undergoing maintenance.
Newsom has called for an investigation into how the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power managed both issues.
The farms-versus-fish debate is one of the most well-worn in California water politics and doesn’t always fall along party lines. Some environmentalists think Newsom is too friendly to farming interests. But that debate is not connected to fire-related water troubles in Los Angeles.
Two complex systems of dams and canals channel rain and snowmelt from the mountains in northern California and route it south. Both transport water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an estuary that provides critical habitat to fish and wildlife including salmon and the delta smelt.
The delta connects inland waterways to the Pacific, and keeping a certain amount of water flowing through helps support fish populations and the waterway itself.
CLAIM: Asked by Hannity why he pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police at the Capitol, Trump said, “They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.” He noted that some of the rioters engaged with police, “but they were very minor incidents.”
THE FACTS: Rioters at the Capitol engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police and many of the rioters were carrying weapons, including firearms, knives, brass knuckle gloves, a pitchfork, a hatchet, a sledgehammer and a bow. They also used makeshift weapons, such as flagpoles, a table leg, a hockey stick and a crutch, to attack officers. One officer was crushed in a doorframe and another suffered a heart attack after a rioter pressed a stun gun against his neck and repeatedly shocked him. One rioter was charged with climbing scaffolding and firing a gun in the air during the melee.
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