‘Not true at all’: CNN fact checker slams Trump’s Oval Office claims
President Donald Trump’s repeated claims on Wednesday about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the 2020 election all came under a factual microscope by CNN’s Daniel Dale.
“A lot of golden oldies there in terms of false claims by President Trump,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said before Dale delivered his stinging fact check in response to Trump’s Oval Office comments just moments earlier.
The CNN in-house fact check went after Trump over his continual insistence that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected an offer of 10,000 National Guard troops to respond to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot four years ago.
“That is not true at all,” Dale told viewers. “That's not what the tape shows.”
He said that while it was true that Pelosi has a filmmaker daughter who recorded her on the day of the riot “saying on that tape, she said, ‘I take responsibility for not having them prepare more,’ talking about capitol security.”
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“But nothing in that general statement,” Dale added, “is a specific admission that Trump made some sort of offer to her. In fact, she has steadfastly denied that he ever made such an offer to her, not admitted it, denied it.”
Besides, Dale pointed out, “it wouldn't even have made sense” because “it is the president, not the House Speaker, who is the commander of the D.C. National Guard. So, even if he had made such an offer to her, she would not have had the power to turn it down.”
Dale closed by quickly squashing Trump’s claim that “January 6 rioters were there because they were protesting a crooked election.”
“You hardly need me to fact check this,” Dale said. “But no, they were rioting because they were denying the results of a legitimate election.”
Watch the clip below or at this link.