"We’ve documented many times the false claims that
former president Donald Trump has made about his
achievements during his presidency. But there are also
instances when Trump claims credit for something that
either former president Barack Obama or President Joe
Biden did. Here’s a recent sampling.
Capped insulin at $35 a month
“Low INSULIN PRICING was gotten for millions of
Americans by me, and the Trump Administration, not by
Crooked Joe Biden. He had NOTHING to do with it. It was
all done long before he so sadly entered office. All he
does is try to take credit for things done by others,
in this case, ME!”
— Trump, in a social media post, June 8
“And Kamala and Crooked Joe, they try and take credit
for $35 insulin. But I was the one that did the $35
insulin, not them.”
— Trump, in a rally speech in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., Aug.
17
“I got insulin down, and they took credit for it, but I
got it down to $35. And I said, ‘I hope I win because
somebody’s going to take credit.’ It takes a period of
time before it kicks in statutorily. And I got it down
to $35, which was a very low price, and they took
credit for it, which is, you know, now, I’m taking
credit because I’m talking to you.”
— Trump, in an interview with comedian Theo Von, Aug.
20
In a constant refrain, Trump accuses Biden and Vice
President Kamala Harris of claiming credit for imposing
a $35-per-month cap on insulin; in one speech, he
denounced it as “a lie.” But this is highly misleading,
especially when he says Biden and Harris had nothing to
do with a $35 cap.
Trump did establish a voluntary, time-limited model for
a $35 monthly cap on insulin that was available only to
some seniors enrolled in certain insurance plans. Fewer
than half of Medicare Part D prescription drug plans
chose to participate, and they were able to select
which insulin products would be available at $35.
Medicare estimated that the two-year model was made
available to about 800,000 Medicare enrollees who used
insulin.
Naturally, when Trump ran for reelection in 2020, he
falsely claimed that the $35 cap was available to every
senior. When he announced the temporary program in
2020, he jabbed, “Sleepy Joe can’t do this.”
Even today, notice how Trump, in one interview, said
the program took a “period of time before it kicks in
statutorily.” That misleadingly suggests he passed a
law, not just authorized a temporary pilot program.
A law is what Biden achieved. Over the opposition of
the pharmaceutical industry, the 2022 Inflation
Reduction Act (passed with a tiebreaking vote in the
Senate by Harris) permanently required all Part D plans
to charge no more than $35 per month for all insulin
products; it also limited cost sharing for insulin
covered under Part B (Medicare medical insurance) to
$35 per month. KFF, a nonprofit health-policy
organization, estimated that nearly 3.3 million
Americans would benefit from this provision of the law.
That’s four times more than people who were covered
under Trump’s temporary measure.
Trump announced a small pilot program for a group of
seniors with an expiration date; Biden passed a law
that benefited every senior. There’s no comparison.
Lowest Black unemployment rate
“Achieved the lowest African American unemployment
rate, the lowest ever.”
— Trump, in remarks to Black American business leaders,
June 26
The current Black unemployment statistic has been in
existence for about 50 years. It fell to 5.3 percent
for two months in 2019 during Trump’s presidency before
rising to 6.1 percent in February 2020 — and then of
course soared above 15 percent during the pandemic.
Trump keeps talking about this “lowest ever”
achievement but the Biden-Harris administration topped
his brief record. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows
the Black unemployment rate reached a new low of 4.8
percent in April 2023. The unemployment rate was lower
or matched Trump’s 5.3 percent for a total of five
months under Biden. As of August, the rate is 6.1
percent.
Passed VA Choice
“In my first term, I gave the VA Choice and made it
permanent. You know, VA Choice, when you don’t have a
doctor, you go, and you go outside. I mean, people were
waiting for four months, for five months. You people
probably know it. You have friends that know it very
well. They go in for something that was not a big deal,
and they’d end up being terminally ill because they
couldn’t get to see a doctor. So, I created and have VA
Choice. They’d been wanting to do it for 57 years. I
got it done, passed in Congress.”
— Trump, remarks to National Guard Association
Conference in Detroit, Aug. 26
This was a favorite claim during Trump’s presidency —
he said it more than 200 times, according to our
database of Trump’s false and misleading claims — but
he actually signed the MISSION Act, which was a modest
update of the VA Choice law passed by Obama in 2014.
The Obama legislation expanded veterans’ ability to go
to private doctors.
In 2020, our colleague Ashley Parker documented how
this falsehood took root, using it as an example of
Trump’s method. “The president’s handling of the VA
Choice legislation offers a crystalline window into the
anatomy of a Trump lie: the initial false claim, the
subsequent embellishment and gilding, the incessant
repetition and the clear evidence that he knows the
truth but chooses to keep telling the falsehood — all
enabled by aides either unwilling or unable to rein him
in,” she wrote.
It’s four years later, and Trump is still trying to
claim credit for Obama’s achievement.
Saved the auto industry
“When I came into office, the auto industry was on its
knees, gasping its last breaths after eight long years
of Obama and Biden … It is no exaggeration to state the
Trump presidency and the deftly used and applied Trump
tariffs and taxes saved the American auto industry from
extinction time and time again.”
— Trump, remarks at a campaign rally in Clinton
Township, Mich., Sept. 27, 2023
Yet another false claim. During the 2008-2009 Great
Recession, Obama (and George W. Bush before him) saved
the auto industry with significant interventions.
Obama’s Treasury Department, for instance, organized
taxpayer-financed reorganizations of General Motors and
Chrysler. The auto industry was in good shape when
Trump took office in 2017.
Auto retail jobs under Trump declined 77,000 from
February 2017 to February 2021, according to the BLS.
Auto and auto parts manufacturing jobs saw a slight
increase — 2,500 jobs — in the same period. If one
looks at job creation before the pandemic tanked the
economy, there were 61,000 new auto manufacturing jobs
and 38,000 auto retail jobs under Trump though February
2020.
But compare that to Obama’s record: a gain of 238,000
auto manufacturing jobs and 332,000 auto retail jobs.
That’s a total of 570,000 jobs — more than five times
more than Trump’s pre-pandemic number. Under Biden,
auto manufacturing jobs have risen 125,000 and auto
retail jobs 146,000 — almost three times more than
Trump’s pre-pandemic number. (In a speech on Tuesday in
Savannah, Ga., Trump falsely said “our auto industry
has been decimated.”)
As for Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum helping
the auto industry, that’s wrong too. Automakers
reported that Trump’s tariffs cost hundreds of millions
of dollars in profits and led to job losses and plant
closings"
|
|