Trump’s recent Four Pinocchio flights of fancy

Former president Donald Trump tells so many tall tales that it’s hard to keep track. Sometimes, one of his invented stories blows up into an actual news story, such as when he related a dramatic but fake tale of a helicopter ride he said he shared with Willie Brown, a former mayor of San Francisco, that involved a near-death experience and Brown, who once dated Kamala Harris, saying “terrible things” about her. Brown has said the ride never took place. Trump’s nonsensicalstory involving a sinking electric boat, a potential electrocution and a ferocious shark attack also earned news coverage — and mockery. (We won’t even begin to fact check whether his claim that Arnold Palmer was “all man” is true.)

But most of the time, Trump rambles on, in rally after rally, interview after interview, virtually unchecked in the friendly media environs he favors. We fact check when we can, but the overwhelming nature of his onslaught of falsehoods — and the trivial nature of many of them — makes it difficult to keep up. He has a standard repertory that he used often during his presidency, which he has augmented with updated or new false claims.

Here’s a list of some of his latest made-up stories, all of which would earn Four Pinocchios.

Hydrogen cars blow up and ‘you’re not even recognizable’

“If you want a gasoline-propelled car, if you want to have a hybrid, you should have it. You should be able to have it. The new thing is hydrogen. They have hydrogen cars. They have one problem — on occasion it will blow up and when it blows up, you are not recognizable. No, you’re not even recognizable. This is like a massive bomb being dropped. When it blows up, you are no longer — your wife cannot identify you. Let me put it that way.”

— Rally in Erie, Penn., Sept. 29

This is nonsense. A riff along these lines — warning of the dangers of exploding hydrogen-powered cars — has popped up in a number of Trump’s recent speeches when he trashes the Biden administration efforts to promote electric vehicles. Usually, the former president will recount that the person in the exploded car was obliterated beyond recognition.

When asked for an explanation, a Trump campaign official provided a link to an article about a 2023 explosion at a hydrogen fueling station for buses in California. No one was hurt. That’s not the scenario portrayed by Trump. We couldn’t find any news report that came close to Trump’s description.

As is usual with Trump, there are tiny threads of factual information that he appears to have twisted into a fantastic story. For instance, Ukrainian forces recently turned a fully loaded hydrogen fuel cell from a Toyota Mirai into a bomb that was used against Russian troops. In 2019, Toyota and Hyundai suspended car sales in Norway after a refueling station exploded — but again, no one was hurt.

Hydrogen Fuel News, an industry publication, says that fears of exploding cars is based on a misunderstanding about the nature of the gas. Safety regulations ensure that the tanks can survive a crash — confirmed in crash testing — and so “fuel cell vehicles are often considered to be even safer than conventional gasoline-powered internal combustion engines.”

Deere reversed plans to move to Mexico because of Trump

“John Deere, great company. They announced about a year ago, they’re going to build big plants outside of the United States. They’re going to build them in Mexico … I said, ‘If John Deere builds those plants, they’re not selling anything into the United States.’ They just announced yesterday they’re probably not going to build the plants. I kept the jobs here.”

— Remarks at the Economic Club of Chicago, Oct. 15

This is nonsense. Farm equipment maker Deere & Co. issued a statement after Trump’s remarks saying it has not changed plans to move some manufacturing from plants in Iowa to Mexico. The company has said the move would free up space for employees at U.S. plants for additional types of farm equipment.

Electric trucks will cause bridges to collapse

“Much of the [electric] truck is used. The capacity for batteries. The batteries are very heavy and very big. Very, very big. Many times the size of a tank that carries lots of gallons of diesel. You have to stop six times and you have to get charges …. The truck is so heavy because batteries are very heavy. The truck weighs more than twice as much as a gasoline truck. So what happens to diesel? So what happens is they have to fix every bridge all over the United States to handle the weight. Every bridge has to be rebuilt because the weight is double and triple that of a gasoline or diesel tank truck.”

— campaign rally in Las Vegas, June 9

This is nonsense. Batteries for electric trucks can be heavy, making most electric trucks heavier than diesel trucks, though Trump is wrong to say they weigh twice as much. The additional weight cuts into profit margins because less material can be carried. Why’s that? Because a semi-truck, even an electric one like the Freightliner eCascadia or Tesla Semi, can legally weigh a maximum of 80,000 pounds. So electric trucks would not weigh any more than diesel trucks unless the law is changed. Trump’s fears about bridges collapsing are misplaced. The bridges are designed to handle weight of 80,000 pounds.

Schools send students to sex-change operations

“Pushing transgender ideology on minor children, how about that one? Your child goes to school and they take your child. It was a he and comes back a she. And they do this and they do it … and often without parental consent. Can you even believe we’re saying this?”

— campaign rally in Reading, Penn., Oct. 9

This is nonsense. Trump keeps saying this in his rallies, but the Trump campaign has never produced evidence to back it up — not of such a procedure being done at a school or of a school sending a student for such surgery with or without parental consent. A Harvard study based on insurance claims in 2019 and published in July found that no transgender surgeries were performed on youth ages 12 and younger. For teens ages 15 to 17, the rate was 2.1 per 100,000, making it a rare procedure. The majority of the surgeries were for breast reduction — and they did not involve schools.

He won environmental awards at Doral and elsewhere

“I own Doral [golf course] right next door, and we did that in a very environment … I get awards, environmental awards for the way I built it, for the water, the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and the water …. I’ve had many awards over the years for environmental, the way I’ve built. Because you know about building, that’s what you do.”

— Remarks at Univision town hall, Oct. 16

This is nonsense. There is no record of the Doral winning environmental awards, let alone for the “mixing of the sand and the water.” (The Trump campaign did not respond to a message requesting evidence.) Trump has long claimed to have won environmental awards, but our exhaustive review in 2017 showed the evidence was slim.

We found one award: The 2007 Metropolitan Golf Association Club Environmental Award was given to the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. But in 2011, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection cited the golf course for a series of environmental violations. Other golf courses owned by Trump earned the ire of environmentalists;for example, the one in Loudoun County, Va., where more than 400 trees along the Potomac River were felled during a renovation.

We found only one personal award given to Trump. The Friends of Westchester County Parks Inc., gave him a “Green Space Award” in 2007 for donating 436 acres of land to the state of New York. Trump had purchased the land in the 1990s to build a golf course but withdrew plans after facing opposition from local residents and environmental restrictions. Trump donated the land to be built into the Donald Trump State Park. But the land was never developed; the state of New York closed it after budget cuts in 2010.

Harris will get rid of cows

“I love cows but if we go with Kamala, you won’t have any cowsanymore …. According to Kamala, who’s a radical left lunatic, you will not have any cows anymore.”

— Trump, appearing on “Fox & Friends,” Oct. 18

This is nonsense. This line is a staple at his rallies, twisted from a comment Harris made in 2019 on whether dietary guidelines should be changed to encourage less consumption of meat. In essence, she said she would support a change in the guidelines, as there had to be incentives to encourage less consumption of meat — even though she loved a cheeseburger from time to time. But there is no requirement for Americans to follow dietary guidelines — and she certainly never called for the elimination of cows.

At a roundtable for Hispanic voters in Las Vegas on Oct. 12, Trump not only mentioned cows but claimed windows would be banned, too: “They want to do things like no more cows and no windows in buildings. They have some wonderful plans for this country. Uh, honestly, they’re crazy and they’re really hurting our country badly.”

That’s also nonsense.

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