White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Thursday conflicted with President Donald Trump's own account of a misleading statement that he claimed to make up about trade with Canada.
According to The Washington Post, Trump "boasted in a fundraising speech Wednesday that he made up information in a meeting with the leader of a top U.S. ally, saying he insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the United States runs a trade deficit with its neighbor to the north without knowing whether that was true."
At Thursday's press briefing, NPR correspondent Mara Liasson pointed out that the U.S. actually had a trade surplus with Canada.
Sanders asserted that Liasson's figures did not "take into account some of the additional things like energy and timber."
"It shows that there actually is a deficit," she said. "The president was accurate because there was a trade deficit. He didn't have to look at the specific figures because he knew there was a trade deficit."
Sander admitted, however, that she did not have proof of the claims "in front of her."
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