He'll lie anywhere, anytime, in front of anyone! [View all]

[yallerdawg]

AP FACT CHECK: Trump's facts on Navy's size don't float by Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor


TRUMP: "We are going to have very soon the finest equipment in the world."

THE FACTS: Pentagon leaders have said for years that the U.S. already has the world's best weaponry and military equipment...


TRUMP: "This great aircraft carrier provides essential capabilities to keep us safe from terrorism and take the fight to the enemy for many years in the future."

THE FACTS: Aircraft carriers are not the crucial element in the defense against terrorism...The Pentagon's counterterrorism campaigns rely more on special operations forces, Air Force fighters and surveillance drones, military trainers and advisers and the intelligence agencies.


TRUMP: "I am calling for one of the largest defense spending increases in history."

THE FACTS: Three times in recent years, Congress raised military spending by larger amounts, in percentage terms, than the $54 billion, or 10 percent, increase that Trump proposes.The base defense budget grew by $41 billion, or 14.3 percent, in 2002; by $37 billion, or 11.3 percent, in 2003, and by $47 billion, or 10.9 percent, in 2008, according to Defense Department figures...


TRUMP: "Our Navy is now the smallest it's been since, believe or not, World War I. Don't worry. It's going to soon be the largest it's been."

THE FACTS: No, the fleet is not growing to the largest it's been, or anything close.The fleet indeed shrank to its smallest size since the decade after World War I - bottoming out at 271 in 2015 before rising to 274 this year, compared with 139 in 1930...The fleet stood at a record high of 6,768 fighting ships during World War II, declined gradually in the 1950s and '60s and shrank significantly after the Vietnam War...



Some of the Liar-in-Chief's victims this time: