Re: It's time to let go of Trump.
CNN is continuing to fact check the rest of his rally and this story will be updated.
The election
Trump claimed that he actually won the 2020 election but it was "rigged."
"We won in 2016. We won by much more in 2020 but it was rigged," he said. Later he reiterated the claim, saying "It's a rigged system. Like we had a rigged election."
Facts First: This is one of Trump's regular lies. He lost the 2020 election, fair and square. Democrat Joe Biden won a 306-232 victory in the Electoral College -- earning over seven million more votes than Trump, good for a margin of 51.3% to 46.8%.
The trade deficit with China
Trump went on to repeat a version of a false claim that he made more than 100 times as president -- that the US used to have a trade deficit with China of more than $500 billion. On Saturday he claimed that before he took office, "China was ripping us off, making $600 billion a year."
Facts First: The US has never had a $600 billion trade deficit with China, even if you only count trade in goods and ignore the services trade in which the US runs a surplus with China. The pre-Trump record for a goods deficit with China was about $367 billion in 2015. The goods deficit hit a new record of about $418 billion under Trump in 2018 before falling back under $400 billion in subsequent years.
Tariffs on China
Trump also repeated a trade claim he made frequently during his presidency. Speaking of China, he said he "did a little tariff hunting" with China and "we took in hundreds of billions of dollars. I got the farmers of our country $28 billion."
Facts First: Trump's claim about who is paying the tariff money is false. Study after study has found that Americans are bearing the cost of Trump's tariffs on imported Chinese products. And American importers, not Chinese exporters, make the actual tariff payments to the US government.
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