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  • World - North America
  • Updated: October 26, 2020

Fact Check:  4 Inaccurate Claims Trump Made In His '60 Minutes' Interview

Fact Check:  4 Inaccurate Claims Trump Made In His '60 Minu

In an interview with CBS' Lesley Stahl, Trump made some claims that existing facts effectively contradict.

Although, CBS released an edited version of the interview, Trump, unhappy with Stahl's line of questioning, went ahead to release the full length of the interview.

From the coronavirus to the state of employment in the US, Trump's claims, in this article, will be given a closer look to verify some of those claims - with some help from CNN.

Expected Deaths From Coronavirus

Trump claimed that he had predicted that the death toll from the pandemic was 2.2 million. 

Fact: Trump's prediction was in fact not his, as the Imperial College, London, had said that if the United States Government did nothing to contain the pandemic, the number of Americans that would die was 2.2 million. 

The college only estimated based on a worse-case situation and not a static expectation.

Mask Wearing

Trump had recently come under fire for stepping out without donning a face mask; even after he was discharged from the military hospital where he was admitted - after he and his wife, Melania, had contracted the virus - he was seen taking off the face mask, leaving him open for more scathing remarks.

During the interview - in the extended version - Trump claimed that during the rally in Arizona, "Everybody behind me had a mask."

He added that "A lot of people had masks and it was outside."

Fact: At the campaign rally in Arizona, there was only a handful of people wearing face masks, contradicting Trump's claim that "everybody" behind him was in face masks.

Number of Tests Conducted and Cases

Trump said that the reason cases in the US kept seeing a sharp rise was "because we're doing so much testing." 

He went on to claim that the US would see a lot fewer cases "If we didn't do testing".

Fact: Before the US expanded the number of tests conducted, there had been a record of an increase in the number of cases and hospitalisations.

There is no lie that testing in the US has increased, although, that is not a direct link to the increase in cases reported.

READ ALSO: US Presidential Debate 2020: From Race To Coronavirus

Increase in Employment

Trump claimed that in the last five months there had been a total of 11.4 million jobs created.

Fact: There have been over 11.4 million jobs in the past five months, yes, but Trump did not take into consideration the fact that the people who make up that number are people who only returned to the jobs they were previously laid off from.

Two months prior, there had been a record of 22.2 million job losses in the US.

Restrictions on Travels

Trump said, "I closed it very early from China, heavily infected, and even from Europe, heavily infected."

Fact: While the US did restrict travelers from China, it did not include US citizens who returned home from China.

At least, 40,000 people entered the United States from China after the US Government imposed travel restrictions.

When things got unbearable for the world leader, he exited the interview on the grounds that "Joe Biden has never been asked a question that’s hard,"

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