FACT CHECK: 3 Claims From Trump’s Rally In Wisconsin

David Sivak | Fact Check Editor

President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, Wednesday night ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

Here are three checks on his claims.

Claim 1: “You know, many presidents don’t get a chance to put a Supreme Court justice on, and here we are in less than two years – we put two of them on. Right?”

Only four presidents have not appointed a Supreme Court justice – Jimmy Carter, Andrew Johnson, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison (who died after one month in office). Johnson put forward one nomination that never received a Senate vote.

Forty different presidents have appointed 114 Supreme Court justices, with a median of two appointments per president. The presidents with the most appointments were George Washington, who appointed 11, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed nine.

Claim 2: “Japan’s an immensely wealthy nation. They send millions and millions of cars to the United States.”

Over 8 million new passenger cars and light trucks were imported into the U.S. in 2017, according to the International Trade Administration. Japan ranked third in terms of U.S. imports, with 1.7 million vehicles sent to the U.S. that year. Mexico sent 2.4 million, and Canada sent 1.8 million.

The U.S. exported $57 billion worth of new cars and light trucks in 2017, compared to $192 billion in U.S. imports.

Claim 3: “We’ve created half a million new manufacturing jobs … In fact, now the number’s almost 600,000. And that’s since our election.”

Trump overstates the number of manufacturing jobs created since the 2016 election. From November 2016 to September 2018, the manufacturing sector added 410,000 jobs. Since Trump’s inauguration, 378,000 jobs were added.

Manufacturing jobs have not yet returned to pre-recession levels. The sector employed 13.7 million people in December 2007, a million more than are employed today.

Nonetheless, job creation picked up after Trump became president. The manufacturing sector only added 60,000 jobs in the two years before he assumed office.

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David Sivak

Fact Check Editor
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