CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale flags Donald Trump’s ‘fake history’ lessons: ‘The president is making stuff up again’
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale accused President Donald Trump of repeatedly inventing events and historical anecdotes, pointing to a series of recent claims he said were demonstrably false.
‘The president is making stuff up again’
Appearing on CNN with anchor Erica Hill, Dale focused on a statement Trump made referencing an event he suggested Americans should remember.
“So, Daniel, you’ve been digging into these claims,” Hill began. “The most recent one from President Trump … saying, ‘Oh, remember when all the TVs went out because there was no wind to power the wind turbines that brought the electricity,’ which was an event the president asked us to remember that never actually happened. And it’s not the first time he’s done this.”
“It’s not. The president is making stuff up again!” Dale replied.
Donald Trump’s ‘fake history’
Dale said Trump’s description of a nationwide television outage tied to wind power has no basis in reality.
“So he’s asking people to recall this massive nationwide television outage caused by the wind not blowing on June 27, 2024, when he debated Joe Biden,” Dale said. “Did not happen, obviously. He said, ‘Nobody could watch that debate.’ More than 51 million Americans watched that debate on television alone, including people, of course, in the state that produces by far the most wind power: Texas. Republican-dominated Texas — then and now the nation’s leader in wind.”
The fact-checker argued the incident is part of a broader pattern in which Trump has urged supporters to recall events that never occurred.
“There have been at least a few times where he’s asked people explicitly to remember something that absolutely did not occur. For example, last year he said, ‘Remember when I was at my golf course in Scotland the day of the Brexit vote and I correctly predicted that Brexit was going to pass in the referendum?’ In fact, he was at that golf course the day after. So obviously couldn’t make a prediction at the time,” Dale continued. “And then he has repeatedly offered fake history. This month alone, he’s, at least on two other occasions, told stories that are also made up: one about George Washington and one about the construction of the Panama Canal.”
Fact-checked
CNN then aired footage of Trump discussing America’s first president.
“When President Trump started telling this, ‘George Washington had two desks’ story during his first term, I reached out to a number of historians who were experts on George Washington,” Dale said. “They say they have no idea what the president is talking about. George Washington did not have two side-by-side desks — one for business, one for official matters.”
“So, the president is making up numbers, making up anecdotes and making up things he’s asking people to remember even though he made them up,” Dale concluded.