President Donald Trump said on Truth Social on Sept. 2, “CHICAGO IS THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!” That’s not the case, experts told us, and Chicago’s overall homicide rate declined more than 30% in the first six months of this year as compared with last year.
Q: Did President Donald Trump solve seven wars in seven months?
A: Trump has claimed he “ended” six or seven wars since returning to the White House in January. Experts in international relations said the president has had a significant role in ending fighting in four conflicts, though officials in one country refute Trump’s claim. But some of the international disagreements Trump cites have not been wars, and some clashes have not ended, experts said.
The Trump administration has accused the Washington, D.C., police department of reporting “phony crime stats” and “cooking the books,” citing the suspension of a police commander for allegedly altering crime data. The U.S. attorney’s office in the district reportedly opened an investigation into whether city officials had manipulated crime statistics. Here’s what we know about the allegations.
President Donald Trump launched his second-term assault on mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines on Aug. 18, firing off a series of unfounded claims while announcing an effort to do away with both.
President Donald Trump inaccurately claimed that the murder rate in Washington, D.C., “reached the highest rate probably ever” in 2023, and he ignored a decline in murders since then to justify a federal takeover of the city’s law enforcement.
President Donald Trump has cited a $40 billion trade deficit with Switzerland to justify a new, high tariff on imported Swiss goods. But his figure ignores trade in services. The overall goods-and-services deficit is less than $9 billion.
About six months into the second term of President Donald Trump, Republicans and Democrats are making conflicting and often misleading assessments of the Trump administration’s impact on inflation and prices. Both sides cherry-pick examples of consumer products to support their claims, while sometimes wrongly taking credit for lower prices or falsely casting blame for rising costs.
An attack ad by a super PAC called MAGA Kentucky targets Republican Rep. Thomas Massie — a longtime conservative foil of President Donald Trump — with claims that distort the congressman’s votes on some of Trump’s policy goals.
Q: Is it true that if President Donald Trump hadn’t defunded the National Weather Service, the death toll in the Texas flooding would have been far lower or nonexistent?
A: The Trump administration did not defund the NWS but did reduce the staff by 600 people. Those staffing cuts did not cause the high number of deaths in the flash floods on July 4, experts said. Local forecasting offices were sufficiently staffed and issued timely warnings.
Q: Are FEMA funds being used to construct an immigrant detention facility in the Everglades?
A: Yes, the immigrant detention facility in Florida, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is being “funded largely” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services Program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. The funding does not come from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.