Donald Trump gave his first network interview since the election and spread falsehoods about immigrants, the Affordable Care Act and — of course — the 2020 election.
In an interview that aired on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Trump gave his usual bluster and ignored some important facts.
13,099 Murderers
Trump claimed that the U.S. had “13,099 murderers released into our country over the last three years” who were undocumented immigrants. That claim is false.
Trump may have pulled that number from a letter the deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent to Rep. Tony Gonzales that listed “the number of noncitizens on ICE’s docket convicted or charged with a crime.”
On the letter, ICE lists 13,099 non-citizens who had been convicted or charged with homicide who are living in the U.S. and who are on ICE’s “non-detained docket,” but those numbers are from not just the Biden administration but all administrations over the last 40 years, including Trump’s. Plus, not all of those people listed are walking free. The list includes those who are currently in jail or prison but who are not being held in immigration detention.
Welker confronted Trump with that fact, saying, “The 13,000 figure I think goes back about 40 years.”
“Nope. No it doesn’t,” Trump said. “It’s within the three-year period. It’s during the Biden term. No, that was a fiction that they put that out. This was done by the border patrol. It’s 13,099 and it’s during the Biden period of time. And these are murderers, many of whom murdered more than one person. You don’t want those people in this country.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN in a September email: “The data in this letter is being misinterpreted. The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration. It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.”
Trump went on to claim that prisons in Venezuela are “at the lowest point in terms of emptiness that they’ve ever been,” implying that those criminals are coming to the U.S.
But FactCheck.org writes, “Experts in and out of Venezuela told us there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claim. Reported crime is trending down in Venezuela — though not nearly as dramatically as Trump claims — but crime experts in the country say there are numerous reasons for that and they have nothing to do with sending criminals to the U.S.”
“I Am the One That Saved Obamacare”
Trump repeated a false claim that he said during the presidential debate, alleging that he “made it so that it (Obamacare) works” and said, “I am the one that saved Obamacare.”
But as president, Trump tried to repeal and roll back the Affordable Care Act through multiple channels, including executive action, lawsuits, and Congress.
On day one of his first administration, Trump signed an executive order that stated: “It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” The order also told government agencies to “exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of parts of the ACA that constituted a burden. He also cut $90 million in funding for promotion of ACA enrollment and decreased funding by nearly half for people who helped others sign up for ACA coverage.
He then supported legislation — the American Health Care Act — that would repeal ACA subsidies. Trump even complained during the Meet the Press interview that then-Sen. John McCain was part of the effort that stopped that bill from passing in the Senate. “So, when John McCain let us down by voting, and [Sens. Lisa] Murkowski and [Susan] Collins, and whoever it was that voted against, but they really let us down,” Trump told Welker.
The Trump administration also joined with 18 Republican state attorneys general to legally challenge the ACA, but the Supreme Court ruled they lacked standing to sue.
But Trump did have one legislative victory when it came to the ACA. He used his tax-reform bill to get rid of the individual mandate by removing tax consequences for the uninsured, rendering the mandate toothless.
Trump has vowed to replace the ACA with his own healthcare legislation but stuck with his line that he only has “concepts of a plan” to do so.
“Yes. We have concepts of a plan that would be better,” Trump said on Meet the Press, adding, “Because Obamacare stinks. It’s lousy. There are better answers. If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and to everybody else and I’d do something about it.”
He also said that under his “concepts of a plan,” people would be able to obtain coverage for pre-existing conditions — coverage that is protected under the ACA.
Won’t Concede 2020
Welker asked Trump directly, “For the sake of unifying this country, will you concede the 2020 election and turn the page on that chapter?”
But Trump refused. “No. No, why would I do that?” he said.
Welker pushed back, asking, “Sir, Democrats have control of the White House now. They didn’t in 2020. If they are going around stealing elections, why didn’t they do it this time… So why didn’t they steal this election? Since they have more power now?”
“Because I think it was too big to rig,” Trump said. “It was too big to rig.”
But Trump didn’t think his victory would be “too big to rig” throughout the campaign, including when he falsely claimed less than a week before the election that “We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania. Must announce and PROSECUTE, NOW!”
There remains no evidence of widespread fraud during either the 2020 or 2024 presidential elections.
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