President Donald Trump has made 16,241 false statements and counting. With such a stream of falsehoods deployed daily upon the public, it's easy to imagine that fact-checkers are constantly exhausted.
The ones at Politifact don't seem fazed.
At a Wednesday night rally in New Jersey, President Donald Trump revived his long-sought and heretofore undelivered promise that Mexico would pay for the southern border wall—a pillar of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump told the cheering crowd:
"But Mexico is in fact, you will soon find out, paying for the wall, okay? … The wall is ultimately and very nicely being paid for by Mexico."
How? Trump has previously claimed Mexico would pay for the wall through his newly signed U.S.M.C.A trade deal with Mexico, a claim Politifact found FALSE at the time.
So, after Trump repeated the claim Wednesday night, hours after signing the trade deal in question, Politifact got bluntly to the point:
"There's no evidence of this. We asked the Trump team for more details and haven't heard back. Trump previously claimed that Mexico would pay for the wall through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement...There is no provision for the wall in the free trade agreement."
Politifact writers weren't the only ones who had questions about the claim.
Not “Mexico is paying” again? https://t.co/5EAuPViGPB— Melissa Jo Peltier (@Melissa Jo Peltier) 1580260751.0
@ddale8 If Mexico is paying for the wall then why is Trump pilfering Pentagon and Government departments for funding ?— Stephen Elpop (@Stephen Elpop) 1580260165.0
Are you kidding me with this? His #Cult45 is so brainwashed. https://t.co/QF81zmDgkR— Sunshine Daydream (@Sunshine Daydream) 1580260891.0
He’s still on this. Incredible. https://t.co/pFce6uC5N1— Claude Taylor (@Claude Taylor) 1580261116.0
What? https://t.co/WkgzUOcVsB— Peter (@Peter) 1580269994.0
@ddale8 We're back to this canard again?— UCrane Alum Gracie St. Ives (@UCrane Alum Gracie St. Ives) 1580260851.0
@ddale8 He's back to this crazy lie again?— JGutierrezKrueger (@JGutierrezKrueger) 1580260116.0
The price of Trump's wall is around $11 billion. He's previously diverted money from the military to fund it.
You can buy A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig here.