During Donald Trump's first presidency, CNN's Daniel Dale aggressively fact-checked him and found numerous inaccuracies or flat-out lies. Dale fact-checked former President Joe Biden as well, describing, at times, some of his statements as misleading. But Trump gave Dale a lot more material to work with.
In a fact-check published by CNN early Friday morning, Aug. 29, Dale debunks 10 claims Trump made in the course of only one week.
"President Donald Trump keeps saying the same false things over and over," Dale explains. "Trump's lying has always been notable for its audacity — his willingness to make obviously untrue claims that can be very quickly debunked. But it has also been distinguished by its repetitiveness — his unwillingness to stop deploying an exaggerated statistic, baseless accusation or fictional tale after months or even years of debunkings…. The president's recent public remarks have featured many old lies."
Dale adds, "In the interest of not letting them go uncorrected, here is a look at 10 debunked claims he repeated over the past week alone."
Those debunked claims, according to Dale, include: (1) "imaginary sub-$2 gasoline," (2) "an impossible '1500 percent' reduction in prescription drug prices," (3) "no inflation amid continued inflation," (4) "The (non-)uniqueness of U.S. mail-in voting," and (5) "The water Trump says he sent to Los Angeles (he didn't) by turning a 'valve' (that doesn't exist)."
The other false claims Dale cites are: (6) "the 2020 election, again," (7) "that nonexistent monument law," (8) "a phony Ukraine aid total," (9) "a fictional story about Biden and South Korea," and (10) "a disproven tale Trump claimed had been proven."
The "disproven tale" in #10 is Trump's false description of a late 2024 post-election conversation with Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
"Trump told a story on Monday, (August 25) in which he claimed a Democratic governor with whom he has been trading public barbs this month, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, told him during a behind-the-scenes conversation last year, 'Sir, you're the greatest president of my lifetime,'" Dale observes. "The story was disproven by Trump-friendly Fox News the very same day: it turned out that a Fox documentary show had recorded the conversation, in which Moore didn't say anything close to what Trump claimed."
Dale continues, "Trump was undeterred by the footage. He told a similar story on Tuesday, this time falsely saying Moore had told him, 'Sir, you're the greatest president' — and adding, 'They caught him on camera.' In reality, it was Trump who the camera had caught in a lie."
In that 1976 ruling, Justice Potter Stewart, a Republican appointee of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, wrote, "The history of mandatory death penalty statutes in the United States, reveals that the practice of sentencing to death all persons convicted of a particular offense has been rejected as unduly harsh and unworkably rigid."
Sarat argues, "When the time comes, it will be up to the courts to defend the Supreme Court's precedent on mandatory death sentences and to put a stop to the racial politics that restoring it to D.C. would represent. In the meantime, it is well worth remembering that the last person executed there was a 28-year-old Black man who killed a white police officer and was subject to a mandatory death penalty."
Daniel Dale's full Donald Trump fact-check for CNN is available at this link.