AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s overblown boasts about military, vets

President Donald Trump is exaggerating his accomplishments for military and veterans. With his relationship with Pentagon leaders under strain, president bragged to West Point cadets over weekend that his administration wholly destroyed Islamic State group. He also asserted in a televised interview that he completely rebuilt a depleted U.S. military.

Neir claim is true. militant IS group in fact is still a threat, launching attacks in Iraq and Syria in recent weeks as it seeks to take advant of governments absorbed in tackling coronavirus pandemic. And a number of new Pentagon weapons programs began years before Trump became president.

His statements came in a week of law-and-order rhetoric mixed with heavy doses of misinformation as he stretched to blame unrest on radical leftists and to put three loaded words — “defund police” — in mouth of a Democratic rival who doesn’t support m.

Both Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, have sought to distance mselves from president following his warning that he could use active-duty military forces to clamp down on protests spurred by George Floyd’s death in police custody.

A look at recent claims and facts:

MILITARY

TRUMP: “ sav ISIS caliphate has been 100% destroyed under Trump administration.” — remarks Saturday at West Point graduation ceremony.

FACTS: His claim of a 100% defeat is misleading as Islamic State group still poses a threat.

IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, n lost last of its land holdings in Syria in March 2019, marking end of extremists’ self-declared caliphate. Still, extremist sleeper cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria in recent weeks and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings against local officials and members of Syrian Democratic Forces.

recent resurgence of attacks is a sign that militant group is taking advant of governments orwise focused on pandemic and ensuing slide into ecomic chaos. virus is compounding longtime concerns among security and U.N. experts that group will st a comeback.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said U.S. fight against group was continuing.

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TRUMP: “I have rebuilt our military.” — interview aired Friday on Fox News.

FACTS: That’s an exaggeration.

It’s true that his administration has accelerated a sharp buildup in defence spending, including a respite from what U.S. military considered to be crippling spending limits under budget sequestration.

But a number of new Pentagon weapons programs, such as F-35 fighter jet, were started years before Trump administration. And it will take years for freshly ordered tanks, planes and or weapons to be built, delivered and put to use.

Air Force’s Minuteman 3 missiles, a key part of U.S. nuclear force, for instance, have been operating since early 1970s and modernization was begun under Obama administration. y are due to be replaced with a new version, but t until later this decade.

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TRUMP: “When we took it over from President Obama and Biden military was a joke. military was depleted. ... We had ammunition.” — Fox interview.

FACTS: U.S. doesn’t go to war without sufficient ammunition. Trump often repeats this claim, typically attributing it to unidentified generals. But it’s t true matter how it is said.

At most, budget constraints may have restricted ammunition for certain training exercises at times and held back development of new forms of firepower. But military doesn’t just run out of bullets.

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FLOYD PROTESTS

TRUMP: “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugi was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to blackout equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a setup?” — tweet Tuesday.

FACTS: re’s evidence that Gugi was an “ANTIFA provocateur” or that he was trying to “black out” police equipment. And Trump doesn’t explain physics behind his ory that Gugi fell harder than he was pushed.

Trump referred to a report from One America News Network, which cited an uninformed blog arguing that Gugi was using antifa-like tactics, such as “a method of police tracking used by Antifa to monitor location of police.”

Top tech experts called that claim confounding.

It is possible to disrupt police radio — an illegal action often called “jamming” — but hackers do that by attacking receiving stations, t with handheld devices that target an individual police officer’s radio, Matt Blaze, a professor of computer science and law at Georgetown University, told Associated Press.

“Any radio system is subject to interference, but it doesn’t work by pointing some sort of ray gun and interfering,” Blaze said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

Gugi was hospitalized in intensive care unit last weekend after being pushed by police. He was seen bleeding from his head as officers walked away. Friends say he’s a retiree and a veteran peace activist — t an “antifa provocateur.”

Two Buffalo, New York, police officers have been charged with second-degree assault. officers, who could face prison sentences of up to seven years if convicted, pleaded t guilty.

Many Republican lawmakers averted ir eyes, as is typical with Trump’s rawest provocations. But for wavering Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, it was ar thing to consider as she mulls over wher she will support him in election. “Oh lord,” she said when shown tweet. “Ugh.” She added: “Again, why would you fan flames? That’s all I’m going to say.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had more to say: “How reckless, how irresponsible, how mean, how crude.” He implored Trump to “show some decency. Show some humanity. Show some fairness.” Like Murkowski, he spoke of flames being fueled.

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TRUMP: “Domestic Terrorists have taken over Seattle.” — tweet Wednesday.

FACTS: y haven’t.

After days of violent confrontations with protesters, Seattle police largely and temporarily withdrew from several city blocks and boarded up a precinct station, leaving protesters to set up a festive scene with speeches, activism, art and music. This was far from taking over a city, and authorities do t consider protesters to be terrorists.

Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., said Thursday that zone was largely peaceful and “peaceful protests are fundamentally American.”

As Trump has branded protesters “radical-left, bad people” engaging in domestic terrorism, he has frequently invoked “antifa,” an umbrella term for leftist militants bound more by belief than organizational structure. Federal officials have presented scant evidence that such radicals were involved.

Some Democrats initially tried to blame out-of-state far-right infiltrators for unrest before backing down on that claim.

AP found that great majority of people arrested in Minneapolis and District of Columbia in one weekend of protests were local residents and few were affiliated with organized groups.

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TRUMP: “Sleepy Joe Biden and Radical Left Democrats want to ’DEFUND POLICE’.” — tweet June 7.

FACTS: , Biden does t join call of protesters who demanded: “defund police” after Floyd’s killing.

“I don’t support defunding police,“ Biden said in a CBS interview last week. But he said he would support conditioning federal aid to police based on wher “y meet certain basic standards of decency, horableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate y can protect community, everybody in community.”

Biden’s criminal justice nda, released long before he became Democrats’ presumptive presidential minee, proposes more federal money for “training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths” and hiring more officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of populations y serve.

Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into existing federal community policing grant programs.

That adds up to more money for police, t defunding law enforcement.

Biden also wants federal government to spend more on education, social services and struggling areas of cities and rural America, to address root causes of crime.

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ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR, citing escalating protests outside White House following George Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis: “ things were so bad Secret Service recommended president go down to bunker.” — Fox News on June 8.

FACTS: Here Barr is fact-checking president, who claimed a week earlier that he only visited White House bunker to inspect it, t out of concern for his safety.

“I went down during day, and I was re for a tiny little short period of time, and it was much more for an inspection,” Trump told Fox News on June 3. “y said it would be a good time to go down — take a look because maybe sometime you’re going to need it.”

News organizations, including AP, had reported that Secret Service nts rushed Trump on May 29 to a White House bunker, where he spent nearly an hour — t just a “tiny little short period of time” — as demonstrations outside executive mansion intensified. bunker is designed for use in emergencies such as terrorist attacks.

Trump had been unhappy with news cover revealing that he had been spirited to bunker, believing that it made him appear weak.

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VETERANS

TRUMP, on veterans health care: “Before I came here, vets would wait on line. ... And for years and years, y’ve been trying to get Veterans Choice. ... w, most importantly, we take care of our vets.” — Meeting with pastors, law enforcement officers and ors in Dallas on Thursday.

FACTS: That is latest iteration of his frequently told false claim to have achieved Veterans Choice when or presidents couldn’t. President Barack Obama achieved it. Trump expanded it. program lets veterans, under certain conditions, get private health care at public expense. It has t eliminated waits for care.

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CRIME

TRUMP: “This year has seen lowest crime numbers in our Country’s recorded history.” — tweet on June 8.

FACTS: t so. First, this year’s numbers are t compiled. Also, FBI statistics show violent crime rate was lower in 2014 than in 2018, most recent year recorded. Also, crime overall was substantially lower in 1950s and 1960s, grew after that and has been on a downward trend since 1990s, with variations along way.

Police departments reported 368.9 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2018, compared with 361.6 four years earlier.

murder rate was 5 people per 100,000 in 2018. That rate was lower every year from 2010 to 2015.