Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is presented by the Chair of the Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen, left, during the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo City Hall, Norway, Tuesday Dec. 10, 2019. (NTB Scanpix via AP)
CNN
Reverting to his usual level of dishonesty, Trump made 81 false claims last week
Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump made just 15 false claims two weeks ago, a holiday week during which he uttered few public remarks.
He gave fact checkers only a brief respite. Back to Washington and back to doing interviews and campaign rallies, Trump made 81 false claims last week. That is tied for the fifth-highest total in the 27 weeks we have counted at CNN.
It was an eclectic batch of dishonesty. Among other things, Trump took unearned credit for both the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace agreement and for the drop in the US cancer death rate, absurdly claimed that NATO “had no money” before his presidency, wrongly denied that his golf excursions cost taxpayers any money, and repeated his usual varied inaccuracies about impeachment, immigration and the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Trump made 27 of the false claims at his campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio. He made 16 more in a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham. He made six in his speech on National Environmental Policy Act regulations, plus 10 in his exchange with reporters after the speech.
Trump’s total of 81 false claims last week was above his average of about 61 per week. Trump is now up to 1,636 false claims since July 8, an average of about nine per day.
The most revealing false claim: Ethiopia and the Nobel Peace Prize
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in large part for Ahmed’s successful effort to make a peace deal with neighboring Eritrea.
Trump is an incorrigible acclaim-seeker who has been open about his desire for a Nobel. At his January 9 rally, he claimed that he was a more deserving recipient than Ahmed — not for some other initiative of his own but because, he suggested, he was the one who actually made Ethiopia’s big deal. “I made a deal. I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country,” he complained.
This left Ethiopians baffled. Experts on Ethiopia say there is no sign Trump played an important role in the deal.
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Related:
Abiy to Trump: You can take your Nobel issue to Norway (BBC)
Is Trump Mad at Obama or Ethiopia? (TADIAS)
Ethiopia PM Reacts to Trump’s Head Scratching Nobel Prize Comments (Voice of America)
Puzzlement in Ethiopia as Trump claims hand in Nobel prize (The Associated Press)
Trump says he deserves Nobel Peace Prize not Abiy Ahmed (BBC)
TRUMP INSISTS HE WAS ROBBED OF NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AT OHIO RALLY (Vanity Fair)
Foreign Affairs Democrats: ‘Trump is confused’ on Ethiopian claim (The Hill)
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