We Fact-Checked All the Lies Donald Trump's Administration Told This Week

Last weekend President Donald Trump falsely suggested a terrorist attack in Sweden at a campaign-style rally at Orlando Melbourne International Airport in Melbourne, Florida. That rally set the tone for yet another week of misinformation from the White House.

To help you stay informed, we’ve broken down all the lies Trump and his team told this week.

He incorrectly implied there was a terrorist attack in Sweden.

Trump confused the international community when he spoke at a rally on Saturday in Florida and implied that there was an immigrant-linked terrorist attack in Sweden. "You look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden...Sweden, they took in large numbers," Trump said. "They're having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what's happening in Brussels. You look at what's happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris."

Although Trump never explicitly said there was a terrorist attack the previous night in Sweden, he vaguely referenced “what’s happening last night” while listing places that had terror attacks by Islamic extremists. By mentioning Sweden’s immigration policy it sounded like he implied that the two ideas were connected.

As reported in The Guardian, one of Sweden’s official government Twitter accounts, run by a different citizen every week, promptly responded by describing Trump’s statement “incorrect information on top of incorrect information" in the tweet.

Trump has since clarified that his statement referred to an an interview the previous night on the Fox News show Tucker Carlson Tonight with Ami Horowitz, who directed a documentary about immigration in Sweden. During the interview, Horowitz said, "Sweden had its first terrorist Islamic attack not that long ago.”

By all accounts, there was no major violence related to refugees in Sweden the night before Trump’s Florida rally. According to PolitiFact, the most recent example of terror in Sweden was in January, when homemade bombs were used to attack a center for asylum-seekers. The suspects involved in that attack had previously belonged to a group that "openly promotes racist and anti-Semitic views and has vocally opposed non-white immigration to the country," according to the Independent.

He claimed "liberal activists" were the cause of public dissent with Republican members of congress.

On Tuesday, Trump falsely blamed “liberal activists” for protests in some Republican congressional districts, according to the Washington Post. He tweeted that the “so-called angry crowds” in the home districts of some Republican leaders were actually publicity stunts organized by “liberal activists.”

Over the past few weeks, several Republican congressmen have faced a chorus of pointed questions and jeering crowds when they returned to town hall meetings in their home states. For example, in Kentucky, senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was met by nearly a thousand protesters at a speech he gave on Tuesday, as reported by the Associated Press. Some lawmakers, like republican representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, are avoiding open forums altogether and holding selective teleconferences to avoid outraged voters “hijacking” the meetings, according an Associated Press report.

Press secretary Sean Spicer echoed the president’s claim on Wednesday, saying, “there is a bit of professional protester, manufactured base,” as reported on NPR. On Twitter, journalists, media outlets, and citizens posted evidence that critics were local citizens, not paid activists.

The White House misrepresented the precedent for security advisers who might have a conflict of interest.

Trump announced Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster would be his new National Security Adviser on Monday. According to ABC News, the White House told the press that day that McMaster will stay on active duty like former advisers Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell. That claim spread quickly and was reprinted by news outlets across the country. However, as the Military Times reported, Scowcroft actually retired before he became an adviser in order to avoid any conflict of interest. Former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley also tweeted about this misinformation.

When press secretary Sean Spicer addressed the appointment at a press briefing on Tuesday, he repeated the misrepresented precedent, while omitting Scowcroft’s name. “He will stay on active duty,” Spicer said. “That was the case with Powell and I think some other folks.”

Trump exaggerated the amount he saved on military planes.

On Wednesday, Trump boasted about renegotiating military contracts with airline companies. “We’ll end up either getting many more planes free, or we’re going to save a lot of money,” Trump said at a White House budget meeting. “But we’ve already saved a lot; billions and billions of dollars have been saved.”

This statement follows a similar claim the president made during his Florida rally over the weekend, talking about his contract negotiations with Boeing over Air Force One. He said, "We got that price down by over $1 billion, and I probably haven’t spoken, to be honest with you, for more than an hour on the project." But BloombergPolitics reported that the Air Force said they couldn't account for the $1 billion dollars in savings. Back in December, Trump famously referred to Boeing’s new 747 Air Force One project as an order worth “over $4 billion.”

In December, PolitiFact noted that experts believed the cost could end up around $3.73 billion if the project wasn’t finished by 2021. The price was determined by national-security requirements from the government, not just Boeing. The Atlantic reported that the program is still in its early design stages, so there isn’t a concrete budget yet.

Since none of the parties have yet released detailed statements about the closed-door negotiations, it’s impossible to say how much the president actually saved. However, there is no evidence showing Trump reduced military spending by “billions and billions.” There were only a few billions on the table to start with this time around. Plus, the Washington Examiner reported that some experts said the original numbers were only an estimate, saving room for future potential costs.

"That was a fabrication. Then when he was told, it's a $2.7-2.9 billion program, he said I just saved a billion dollars," Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the aerospace and defense consultancy Teal Group, told the Washington Examiner. "I'm embarrassed there are people who believe this."

Correction: A previous version of this article had an incorrect title for Philip J. Crowley. He is the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State.

Related: We Fact-Checked All the Lies Donald Trump's Administration Told This Week

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