Donald Trump pits his children against one another and has ever since their childhood. Both Ivanka Trump and Donald Jr. have been in a struggle to the death to get the White House should Trump, Sr. ever decide to leave. Then, there is the middle son Eric Trump.
Middle son Eric Trump has quite a social media following. One of his posts brought in almost 80,000 likes.
Eric Trump learned at his father’s knee how to lie. In one of his posts, he quoted actor Tim Allen’s Instagram page:
‘President Trump’s wall costs less than The Obamacare Website. Let that sink in, America.’
Unfortunately, there were a couple of issues with this Instagram. Of course, it was not accurate. Plus, Allen did not say those words.
So what is the deal? Beginning with Allen: he considered himself like a jewelry technician living in Franklin, VA. Still, people retweeted the Instagram attributing the quote to Allen as fact. His publicist Marleah Leslie confirmed that Allen did not author this post, according to The Washington Post.
The day prior to this post, Ted Nugent came out with a near-identical post. The celebrity posted almost the same list of statements. Nugent tried to get people to share the post.
What about the statement? Did the wall cost less than the Obamacare website? No.
This claim began on Facebook last March and started picking up speed. The government estimated the cost of the website, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell:
‘It is my understanding that as of February 28, 2014, CMS has obligated a total of approximately $834 million on Marketplace-related IT contracts and interagency agreements.’
Bloomberg News placed the cost in excess of two billion dollars, because the government links the spending limits on computer systems. Bloomberg even added contracts associated with the website project.
Trump cast the cost of his wall that Mexico was supposed to cover at eight billion dollars in 2016 on his presidential election campaign.
Thus far, Congress has appropriated $1.6 billion for the memorial wall. Then, Trump directed another $6.1 billion from already approved military construction projects under an emergency authority.
Considering that this could have been so easily disproven, PolitiFact checked into a related 2017 Breitbart article. It said that one year of Obamacare with subsidy payments and other costs would far exceed the cost of the wall. It estimated the website would be two billion dollars per the Bloomberg estimate.
The Washington Post gave the post four Pinocchios. Apparently, Nugent’s Facebook page had been copied by a man from Virginia also named Tim Allen. Then, Eric Trump picked it up and distributed it around the world.
The Post suggested that the president’s middle son delete the post.
‘The Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles.’
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
