Fact check: Trump litters briefing with false, unsubstantiated claims on voter fraud, Covid response and Beirut explosion

Washington CNN — President Donald Trump’s Tuesday coronavirus briefing featured more Trump dishonesty about the pandemic, another repeated false claim about voter fraud and a sensational but uncorroborated claim about the deadly explosion in Beirut. Three Defense Department officials, who requested anonymity so they could speak freely, told CNN that as of Tuesday night there was no indication that the incident was an “attack.” The rise in cases and the rise in deaths CNN Trump said, “Thanks to substantial improvements in treatment and the knowledge we have gained about the disease itself, the recent rise in cases has not been accompanied by a significant increase in deaths.” Facts First: “Significant” is a vague word, but there was a major July spike in the number of US coronavirus deaths – which followed, as per the usual pattern, the recent spike in cases that began in mid-June. US coronavirus mortality rate without New York After a reporter pushed the President on his claims about the US coronavirus mortality rate, Trump claimed that “we’re at the bottom of the list.” He later implied that New York’s status early in the pandemic as a coronavirus hotspot was responsible for a large portion of the US deaths and cases, suggesting that by excluding those numbers, the US numbers are “among the lowest.” Facts First: Both with and without New York, the United States is not “at the bottom of the list” nor does it have among the lowest mortality rate by either of the two most common measures. New York voter fraud Referring to a New York state Democratic congressional primary that remains uncalled nearly six weeks after the June 23 election day, Trump again implied something nefarious happened, saying, “They don’t know what happened to them, is there fraud, is there – it’s a disaster.” Facts First: The election results have been slow because the state has had administrative problems – ranging from insufficient staffing to outdated technology – in trying to count a much larger than usual number of absentee votes.