The Return Of “Alternative Facts”: False Statements In Trump’s CPAC Speech

On Feb. 24, President Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference. During his speech, he tried to discredit his opponents as he complained about the “mess” he inherited. Along with critiquing the Obama Administration, Trump also pledged to deliver on campaign promises. However, while attempting to reassure that he is a representative for all citizens of the United States, there are some things that were said do not check out.

“Not that I’m a fan of Bernie, but a lot of Bernie people voted for Trump, you know why?”

Here, Trump claims many Bernie supporters jumped ship and voted for him. Although there were many predictions about Bernie supporters not voting for Hillary, this fact has not been officially proven; we know he is a big opponent of “fake news” so how can we be sure of this declaration?

“We’ve defended other nations’ borders while leaving ours wide open — anybody can come in”

This is not true. According to the American Immigration Council, immigration is limited to “three different routes: employment, family reunification, or humanitarian protection,” and “most unauthorized immigrants do not have the necessary family or employment relationships and often cannot access humanitarian protection, such as refugee or asylum status.” With this in mind, the immigration process can take anywhere from 5 to 25 years and requires strong commitment.

“Obamacare covers very few people — and remember, deduct from the number all of the people that had great health care that they loved that was taken away from them — it was taken away from them.”

Sorry, President Trump but more than 20 million Americans have been supported by Obamacare. Even though there is much controversy behind the Affordable Care Act, the current administration has not yet created an alternative that guarantees to health care to even more people.

“I want to protect our environment…we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good, and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, okay.”

President Trump claims he wants to “protect our environment” but just last month, the Trump administration temporarily suspended grants to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This halt in funding had many advocates concerned about the detrimental effect this may have had on ongoing scientific research. Furthermore, The Dakota Access Pipeline has continued construction under the direction of the Trump administration and interestingly enough, the EPA found that an increase in pipeline construction will result in an increase of the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mr. Trump then continues to promise that we will “see America be great again.”

Although President Trump is strongly against false facts, they are ironically present in his CPAC speech. Trump’s rhetoric has been raising eyebrows since his campaign days, but this does not give him permission to modify facts and mislead his audience.

Click here to read a full transcript of the speech.