Trump made a speech on Sunday at the annual Rolling Thunder biker rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC this weekend, to a largely lukewarm response if the above video is to believed. Trump goes on at about the 33:00 mark, but watch some of the earlier footage, when the camera is focused on the crowd. There is plenty of space perhaps only 40 feet from the stage, the rally seems much more lightly attended than many of Trump’s rallies. Which makes his remarks about the number of people “trying to get in” to the rally all the more bizarre.

The first thing he says in his speech to mention that he saw “hundreds of thousands of bikers” on his way into DC: “So in riding over there are hundreds of thousands of people along the highways, and they can’t get in. In other words, you’re very good at real estate. You got in. Congratulations.”

At the 49:45 mark he again addresses the attendance, saying “I thought this would be like Dr. Martin Luther King, where the people would be lined up from here all the way to the Washington Monument, right? Unfortunately, they don’t allow them to come in.” Trump doesn’t elaborate on who “they” are, or why they would not be allowed to attended the rally. He does make up a number at the 51:30 mark, saying “we have the biggest rallies by far, far bigger than Bernie Sanders, far bigger. I mean look at today, they say you have 600,000 people essentially here, trying to get in. But that’s not gonna happen. But they say you have 600,000.” Again, not sure who “they” are.

When Dr. King spoke at the Washington Mall and it was completely filled as Trump described, it was estimated that there were 200,000 people present. 600,000 people is the entire population of the city of Washington, DC. A small roped off part in front of the Lincoln Memorial was about half full for Trump’s speech.

A spokesperson for the Rolling Thunder rally confirmed that the event was attended by 5,000 people.

Sources:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is-VB73O6nw
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-600000-people-tried-to-attend-my-d-c-rally/
https://news.fastcompany.com/trump-tells-biker-rally-of-5000-people-that-600000-more-were-trying-to-get-in-4008773

Donald Trump likes to talk about how rich he is. He thinks that being rich makes him more qualified to be President. He mentions his wealth and business acumen in nearly every speech. According to a statement on his own website last week, he submitted his Personal Financial Disclosure, of which Trump modestly said “I am proud to say is the largest in the history of the FEC.” His campaign claims at the end of the statement that “as of this date, Mr. Trump’s net worth is in excess of $10 billion dollars.”

Trump has repeated this $10 billion number multiple times, I guess it has a nice round ring to it. All other sources point to the fact that this number is inflated and exaggerated. As Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns, all the media has to go off of are estimates from publicly available information and previously submitted Personal Financial Disclosures.

As of July of 2015, Bloomberg estimated Donald Trump’s net worth at $2.9 billion.

As of September of 2015, Forbes estimated Donald Trump’s net worth at $4.5 billion.

As of May of 2015, Fortune estimated Donald Trump’s net worth at $3.7 billion, raising it to $3.9 billion in March of 2016.

These publications went over the PFDs with a fine toothed comb in order to get these numbers, and Fortune especially said they took the most optimistic numbers from the wide ranges given in the document.

Is Donald Trump a very rich man? Yes, definitely. Is he worth the $10 billion that he loves boast? Almost certainly not, yet the public will never know until Mr. Trump releases his tax returns.

Sources:
http://www.refinery29.com/2016/05/111892/what-is-donald-trumps-net-worth
Here’s How Much Donald Trump’s Net Worth Jumped in the Past 10 Months
http://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/#2fb1a2df790b
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-28/here-s-our-tally-of-donald-trump-s-wealth
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-files-personal-financial-disclosure-form-with-the-federal-e
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/elections-2016-donald-trump-worth-reveals-in-deposition-tim-obrien-lawsuit-2006/

Trump spoke at a rally in Fresno California where he told the gathered Trump supporters that there was no drought in California. “We’re gonna solve your water problem, you have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous. Where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea.” Trump went on to say that there was no drought, that there was “plenty of water” and “nobody knew why” the water was being shoved out to sea. He vaguely blamed environmentalists and attempts to save “a certain kind of three inch fish,” probably referring to the critically endangered Delta Smelt

Donald Trump did not give any details about where the water is going or what fish is trying to be saved, but he is ignoring overwhelming evidence that California is experiencing a massive and severe drought. 2015 was the driest year on record in California, with 2012-2015 being the driest four year period on record. In a recent study using tree rings, the American Geophysical Union found that California was experiencing its worst drought in 1200 years, driven by record temperatures and low precipitation.

Sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/05/28/donald-trump-tells-californians-there-no-drought/85082174/
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-denies-california-drought-464619
http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/environmental-issues/california-drought-tree-ring-05122014/
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Trump-vows-to-solve-California-s-water-crisis-7949775.php

The Donald Trump campaign finally released an energy plan this week in a poorly written and confusing press release. There is a lot of hyperbole and various logical fallacies included, and plenty of attacks on Hillary Clinton. Here is one passage:

“It’s a choice between sharing in this great energy wealth, or sharing in the poverty promised by Hillary Clinton.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Just listen to Hillary Clinton’s own words. She has declared war on the American worker.

Here is what Hillary Clinton said earlier this year: “We are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work.”

She wants to shut down the coal mines.

And if Crooked Hillary can shut down the mines, she can shut down your business too.”

Dismissing the baseless “war on the American worker” statement, let’s examine the “coal miners out of work” statement, but look at it in the context of the rest of that statement. She has made speeches talking about a plan for the dying coal industry as America and the world transition into cleaner sources of energy, certainly more than this energy “plan” of Trump’s.

Hillary Clinton did say “we are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work,” in what was a poor choice of words in a speech in West Virginia this year. However her meaning is completely different when you put that quote in its full context:

“So for example, I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?

And we’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.

Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.”

Trump continues to believe that coal is a viable long term energy solution. Hillary Clinton is being realistic about the future of coal and trying to find a solution as that industry continues its slide. The domestic and international demand for coal is falling, and it’s not coming back. If you read that press release, Donald Trump doesn’t actually say what he plans to do, using the bulk of the release to rage against Obama and Clinton. Towards the bottom he spouts toothless rhetoric about making America wealthy and energy independent, but doesn’t have any facts or policy plans to back it up.

Sources:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/an-america-first-energy-plan
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/may/10/context-hillary-clintons-comments-about-coal-jobs/

Donald Trump doesn’t care about making enemies. He has insulted almost everyone in the media and political sphere in the last year, perhaps no one more than “Lightweight” Marco Rubio. He called him a scammer, a loser, a choker, Mr. Meltdown, a mess, desperate and a joke. Trump likes to coin puerile pet names for his opponents and “Lightweight” was the one that Trump settled on for Rubio. Here are a few choice name calling tweets collected by CBS News:

But what is this on Twitter yesterday? Is Trump actually encouraging Mr. Meltdown to again run for Senate?

Despite calling him a loser and a scammer, Trump wants him to run because he is polling well. That is perhaps the scariest of all, as it means that Donald Trump is becoming a more sophisticated politician. Not only is he looking a polling data, which he rarely did  in the primaries, but he is looking ahead to a Senate that very well could lose the Republican majority in November. Rubio has also been reluctant to speak on Trump’s behalf at the Republican National Convention, not to mention release his delegates to vote for Trump.

Sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/05/27/trump-rubio-senate-re-election/85023370/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/feud-marco-rubio-donald-trump-escalates/story?id=37223251
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-gop-lawmakers-pressure-marco-rubio-to-run-for-senate/

 

Despite the criticism of Donald Trump’s treatment of women recently, Trump has come out very strongly against Bill Clinton’s past indiscretions and allegations of sexual misconduct in the 80s and 90s. At a rally early in May he said of Bill Clinton that “nobody in this country was worse than Bill Clinton with women. He was a disaster. He was disaster.” In a new attack ad against Bill Clinton, women who accused him of sexual misconduct voice their stories about incidents occurring in the 80s and 90s.

It is a hypocritical move for multiple reasons, as earlier this month Trump dismissed old allegations of impersonating his own publicist saying “When was this? Twenty-five years ago? Wow, you mean you’re going so low as to talk about something that took place 25 years ago.” Trump apparently has no problem “going that low.” Trump’s problems with women have been well documented, as allegations of sexual harassment and rampant misogyny have continue to plague the presumptive GOP nominee.

Donald Trump was a big fan of President Bill Clinton in the 90s, going on record multiple times with his support of the President, and his disgust for the scandal. In a 1997 CNN interview Trump gushed “I think Bill Clinton is terrific. I think he’s done an amazing job. I think he’s probably got the toughest skin I’ve ever seen, and I think he’s a terrific guy. I just have to view the economy and the country. I think Bill Clinton has done a terrific job. I don’t think he’s been treated very fairly, but I think he’s done a terrific job.” He also stated that the “same allegations you guys are talking about now were a waste of time, were wrong, were hollow, that Bill Clinton was a terrific guy, that he was a great president, that the impeachment was wrong.”

Even as recently as 2012 in a Fox News interview Trump said “I’ve known [Hillary] and her husband for years and I really like them both a lot.” Trump donated $100,000 to the Clinton’s foundation and had Bill Clinton speak at Trump’s Mar-a-lago Resort, a speech that Trump described as “very well received.”

If Donald Trump really believes that Bill Clinton was a rapist and a sexual predator, why would he say all of these niceties and allow him to speak at his club?

Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/24/opinions/trump-attack-on-bill-clinton-opinion-obeidallah/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-escalates-attack-on-bill-clinton/2016/05/23/ed109acc-2100-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/24/trumps-flip-flop-on-whether-the-bill-clinton-sex-scandals-are-important/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/24/politics/donald-trump-clinton-1990s-scandals/

Trump famously bailed out of a Fox News debate earlier this year in order to hold his own fundraiser for United States military veterans organizations. WDTLAY already covered the discrepancies in the amounts given out. But new questions have arisen about Donald Trump claim that he gave $1 million to those organizations.

It turns out that Trump raised about $4.5 million dollars for vets in that fundraiser. While that is a respectable thing to do, leave it to Donald Trump to do something nice and then exaggerate it for his own political gain. Trump’s own campaign manager Corey Lewandowski released the actual numbers on Saturday in an interview with the Washington Post, three days before the above Twitter post.

Donald Trump’s campaign manager knew that the actual figure was $4.5 million and Trump still posted that he raised “between 5 & 6 million dollars” two days after Lewandowski publicly stated it.

There are also questions about Trump’s claim that he gave $1 million personally. None of the veterans’ groups that the Post talked to admitted receiving a personal donation from Donald Trump, though it could have been funneled through his foundation. The Washington Post has made repeated requests to the Trump campaign for details and documents about the donations. Donald Trump replied with “Why should I give you records? I don’t have to give you records.” If Trump actually gave the $1 million, why wouldn’t he give up some proof?

Sources:
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-veterans-donations-2016-5
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-said-he-raised-6-million-for-vets-now-his-campaign-says-it-was-less/2016/05/20/871127a8-1d1f-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html?postshare=3661464036459474&tid=ss_tw
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-fox-news-debate-fundraiser-veterans-2016-1
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

Donald Trump has repeatedly and loudly proclaimed that he does not “believe” in climate change, calling it “bullshit” and a “hoax.” This is in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is happening in is man made.

In spite of these pronouncements, Trump’s company applied for a permit for a seawall for his Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland in County Clare to prevent erosion. According to Politico, the permit application it explicitly mentions the wall is to protect the golf course from “global warming and its effects.” Specifically the application mentions erosion from rising sea levels and the extreme weather displayed this century.

It’s hard to say whether Donald Trump actually believes that his golf course will be harmed by rising sea levels or if he thought that his application would be expedited by invoking global warming.

Here are some bonus mind numbing and very misinformed Donald Trump tweets about global warming collected by CBS News:

Sources:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-denies-climate-change-but-wants-to-protect-one-of-his-golf-courses-from-effects/

In a phone interview with Donald Trump on Fox And Friends today Trump “clarified” his stance on gun control after Hillary Clinton slammed him. He managed to contradict himself in consecutive sentences, seeming to have no self awareness of what he was saying. Here is the quote:

“I don’t want to have guns in classrooms. Although, in some cases, teachers should have guns in classrooms,” Trump said, and he wasn’t kidding. “Things that are going on in our schools are unbelievable. You look at some of our schools, unbelievable what’s going on. But I’m not advocating guns in classrooms.”

He went on: “But remember, in some cases and a lot of people have made this case, teachers should be able to have guns. Trained teachers should be able to have guns in classrooms.”

So not only did he contradict himself several times in a single interview, but yesterday he called out Hillary Clinton in a tweet for being “wrong!” for saying that he wanted guns in classrooms:

Seriously, what are you talking about Donald?

Sources:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9quUujpmnuM
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-changes-tune-on-allowing-guns-in-classrooms/

Donald Trump spoke at the NRA’s Leadership Forum in Louisville, KY on Friday, gladly accepting their endorsement for President. In his speech he spent a lot of time exaggerating “heartless Hillary” Clinton’s stance on gun control. But we already covered that set of lies.

Donald Trump was understandably very pro-gun in his speech to the NRA. He proposed eliminating gun-free zones, including schools and the White House. He warned that Clinton wanted to disarm the populace, and release violent criminals from prison, putting women at risk. It is not clear where Trump got these ideas, as Clinton has not vocalized them. The Clinton campaign responded that “along with the vast majority of Americans, Hillary Clinton believes there are common-sense steps we can take at the federal level to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while respecting the Second Amendment.”

Donald Trump has not always been so fervently in favor of guns. In his 2000 book The America We Deserve, he criticized the size and power of the gun lobby in the US, and stated “I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”

After the school shootings at Sandy Hook in 2012, President Obama made an emotional speech in support of the victims, and a call to come together as a country to find a solution to our gun problem. Trump responded on Twitter with “President Obama spoke for me and every American in his remarks in #Newtown, Connecticut.”

Trump has not held his own hotels and golf courses to his own standards however, as several of his properties are gun-free zones, even to guests with concealed carry permits. As of 2015 the Trump Tower and Hotel in Chicago is a gun-free zone, as is the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles and Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk in Honolulu. If Trump feels so strongly about the safety of abolishing gun-free zones, perhaps he should start with his own hotels.

Sources:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/campaign-2016-fact-checking-donald-trumps-nra-speech/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-rifle-association-endorses-donald-trump/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/12/14/president-obama-speaks-shooting-connecticut