Times checks Trump on false claims

By AMANDA PRATS

The New York Times released a fact check in response to President Trump’s recent interview with Time magazine.

During the interview, Trump repeatedly falsely cited The Times to support his unsubstantiated accusations of wiretapping of his campaign office.

The statements involved his continued assertion that President Obama wiretapped the phones in Trump Tower during the election, a claim he has repeatedly made despite a complete lack of evidence and support from any intelligence officials.

In his interview, Trump said that The Times altered a headline on an article that originally read as, “Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides.” He went on to say that the headline was changed to drop the word “wiretap.”

In response to the statements, The Times’ fact check clarified that this was false, and that the original articles which appeared both online and in print were released with different headlines, neither of which were changed at any point. The Times included in its fact check screenshots of the cached website showing the article and headline, unchanged, at various times as the story developed.

The fact check refuted Trump’s usage of The Times’ headline to back his claims. “Neither the print nor online version of the article supports Mr. Trump’s accusation that Mr. Obama ordered surveillance on him,” The New York Times wrote, arguing that Trump’s statements were misleading.