The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which Trump mockingly referred to as the “unselect committee,” falsely and repeatedly asserted that it had “deleted and destroyed all evidence” gathered throughout its investigation. According to Trump, the select committee heard testimony for a year and a half. “Wait, all of the proof that they discovered was erased and destroyed. Do you know why? Because Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker at the time, was guilty. Ten thousand troops were rejected by Nancy Pelosi. If others had been guilty, you wouldn’t have had a J6. And all of this material surfaced. People were dishonest.
Accuracy of statements
The Jan. 6 committee published a more than 800-page report in 2022 that explained how the Capitol riot was caused by Trump’s fabrications that compromised the validity of the 2020 election. In addition, the committee made public recordings, depositions, and documents, including emails, voicemails, and memos, as well as more than 140 transcripts of the testimony that were used to compile the report. Trump responded, “Bennie Thompson the Democratic congressman who chaired the committee wrote a statement that he has destroyed all evidence,” in response to Welker’s observation that the committee denied it had destroyed any evidence. On July 7, 2023, Thompson wrote to Republican Representative Barry Loudermilk to inform him that, in collaboration with the Committee on House Administration and the National Archives and Records Administration, over a million records had been prepared for publication and archiving.
Fact-checking the interview
“The Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities,” Thompson clarified in a footnote to that letter. Following receipt of the letter, Loudermilk later stated that certain papers, data, and video depositions had not been sufficiently maintained by the committee. However, Loudermilk refuted Trump’s assertion that the committee’s records were destroyed. Instead, Loudermilk expressed worries about the types of materials that required archiving. The committee’s preserved evidence is still accessible to the general public on a government website. The House select committee on the Capitol attack stated that it could find “no evidence” to support Trump’s assertion that Pelosi rejected his request for 10,000 National Guard troops for the attack.
Disputed facts explained
According to a long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship grants citizenship to children born in the United States even if one or both of their parents are in the country illegally. Trump declared that he was “absolutely” dedicated to stopping this practice. Trump falsely asserted that “we’re the only country in the world that has it,” calling the policy “ridiculous.” According to a 2018 research by the Global Legal Research Directorate, a section of the Law Library of Congress, while most nations lack such a policy, over 30 do, including Canada and several other Central and South American nations.
Facts | Detail |
Interview Overview | Trump spoke about important political topics on NBC’s Meet the Press. |
Key Claims Made | Trump has said many things about political rivals, economic policy, and election integrity. |
Fact-Checked Statements | A few assertions about election outcomes and voter fraud were verified. |
Disputed Claims | Foreign policy, the COVID response, and election fraud statements were hotly debated. |
Expert Responses | Fact-checkers and political commentators offered corrections and rebuttals. |
Media Reactions | After the interview, there was both positive and negative coverage in the media. |
Media reactions to claims
“Do you know that Venezuela’s prisons are at the lowest point in terms of emptiness that they’ve ever been?” Trump stated as evidence. They are removing thousands of their people from those prisons and dropping them off in the United States. Roberto Briceño-León, the founder and head of the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, told us, “We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying the prisons or mental hospitals to send them out of the country, whether to the USA or any other country.” Within ten minutes of a post-election phone conversation” with the president of Mexico, Trump said, “We noticed that the people coming across the border, the southern border having to do with Mexico, there was a trickle.”
During the call, Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Mexican imports if it didn’t help deter illegal immigration to the United States. Only a trickle. Trump asserted that the Mexican government has “largely stopped” migrant caravans traveling to the US border as a result of his tariff threat.
Author
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The New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs (NYCFPA) is a policy, research, and educational organization headquartered in New York State with an office in Washington D.C. NYCFPA is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, institution devoted to conducting in-depth research and analysis on every aspect of American foreign policy and its impact around the world. The organization is funded by individual donors. The organization receives no corporate or government donations.