CNN Fact Checker: Trump “Repeatedly Lied” During Speech to Military Leaders

By Staff, CNN

CNN’s chief fact checker Daniel Dale has accused President Donald Trump of “repeatedly lying” during a speech to senior military leaders on Tuesday, including making a provably false claim about CNN itself — one that was disproven live on air.

Reporting on The Situation Room, Dale dismantled what he called “numerous false claims” made by Trump during his address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Among them were misleading assertions about Joe Biden, Ukraine, NATO, Venezuela and protests in Portland — as well as an attack on CNN.

“Fake news CNN,” Trump said during his speech, gesturing toward the media cameras. “Oh, their camera just went off. You know, their camera, every time I mention them, they turn it off because it’s never good”.

However, the speech was broadcast live — and in full — on CNN itself. The network’s camera, which also served as a “pool” feed for other outlets, remained active the entire time. “This claim was simply false,” Dale said.

Trump has made similar claims for years, alleging that CNN cuts away from him when it dislikes what he says. During a 2016 campaign rally in Pennsylvania, he accused CNN of shutting off its cameras as he criticized the network. NBC reporter Katy Tur, covering the event, countered in real time: “CNN’s camera is on. Trump is lying right now”.

Dale went on to list a series of additional falsehoods from Trump’s Tuesday speech. The president claimed that Portland “is burning down” — an assertion Dale said was “simply not true”. Trump also alleged that former President Biden allowed “25 million” migrants into the United States. “That figure is fictional,” Dale clarified, noting that even Trump’s previously repeated figure of 21 million was “a wild exaggeration”.

“There were just so many false claims,” Dale told anchors Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown. “I say that after almost every Trump speech, unfortunately, but this one stands out because of the audience — he was speaking to America’s top military leaders”.

In a detailed post on X, Dale enumerated 13 false or misleading claims from the address. These included Trump’s boast that he “personally ended seven wars”, his statement that Washington, DC, used to be the country’s “most dangerous city” until he “cleaned it up” and his assertion that the US suffered “300,000 drug deaths” last year — nearly four times the real figure of 79,383 reported by the CDC.

An addiction expert cited by FactCheck.org said Trump’s number represented “a gross exaggeration”.

Dale concluded that Trump’s remarks reflect a consistent pattern of falsehoods — a claim he has documented “in virtually every one of Trump’s speeches”.