WASHINGTON — At a rally in Arizona on Saturday, former President Donald J. Trump reiterated his lie that the 2020 election was stolen and made other false claims about the pandemic and the attack on the Capitol on January 6 last year. Here’s a fact check.
What Mr Trump Said
“The Left is now rationing life-saving therapies based on race, discriminating and denigrating, just denigrating, white people to determine who lives and who dies. If you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine, or if you’re white, you don’t get drugs.”
false. There is no evidence that white Americans are denied access to vaccines or treatments.
Mr. Trump referred to a Wall Street Journal opinion column that criticized New York State guidelines on two limited antiviral treatments that ask health care providers to prioritize therapies for immunocompromised patients and patients with risk factors. The guidelines, released in late December, said: “Non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as long-term systemic health and social inequalities have contributed to an increased risk of serious illness and death from Covid- 19. ”
State officials have defended their guidelines by citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that black, Hispanic and Native Americans are about twice as likely to die from Covid-19 than white Americans. A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health told Fox News that race did not disqualify patients from treatment, but the guidelines instead considered race a risk factor.
In New York, white residents are more likely to be vaccinated than black residents, which is in line with most of the country.
What Mr Trump Said
“Why did Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Police turn down the more than 10,000 National Guard troops or soldiers I authorized to help control the huge crowd I knew was coming?”
false. There is no evidence that Mr Trump ever made a request for 10,000 National Guard troops or that Chairman Nancy Pelosi turned down such a request. The Speaker of the House has no control over the National Guard.
Vanity Fair reported that Mr. Trump brought the 10,000 figure to then-Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller on the night before Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Trump’s loyalists stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification. of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election victory. According to Mr Miller, Mr Trump had suggested 10,000 National Guard troops were needed to contain the crowd he had anticipated for his rally that day.
But there is no record of Mr Trump making that request. The Pentagon’s timeline of events leading up to the riot notes that the Department of Defense has revised a plan to activate 340 members of the District of Columbia National Guard, “if requested.” But the timeline makes no mention of a 10,000-troop request by Mr. Trump. Nor did a Pentagon inspector general report on the breach, instead citing suggestions by Mr. Trump that his Jan. 6 meeting had gone safely. A Pentagon spokesman also told The Washington Post that it had “no record of any such order being given.”
What Mr Trump Said
“So we lost, they say, by 10,000 and yet they marked more than – listen to these numbers – 57,000 highly suspicious ballots for further investigation, one. 23,344 ballots were counted, despite the person no longer living at that address – a minor glitch. Five thousand people seem to have voted in more than one province.”
Key figures in the January 6 survey
false. Mr Trump lost the state of Arizona by about 10,500 votes, but his claim of tens of thousands of fraudulent votes is groundless. These numbers are based on a report by Cyber Ninjas, a company hired by Republicans to investigate voting in the state.
election officials have said that the company’s claims are not evidence of fraud. Cyber Ninjas, for example, found that tens of thousands of voters did not live at addresses recorded in a specific commercial database, but election officials have noted that students, military personnel or people who own a vacation home may have addresses other than those listed in the database. Likewise, the company’s claims of double voting can be explained by the simple fact that many Arizona residents have the same name or year of birth.
Additionally, the Cyber Ninja audit found that in Maricopa County, which Phoenix is a part of, Mr. Biden had 99 additional votes and Mr. Trump 261 fewer votes.
