WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has painted a rosy picture of a smooth-running federal emergency lending program for small businesses that does not match reality and has yet revised the story on how seriously he took the coronavirus threat, suggesting he compared it to pandemic flu. He never did.

A look at his claims, also covering voter fraud:

ECONOMIC RELIEF

TRUMP: “To date, small businesses have processed over $ 70 billion in secured loans and will already provide much-needed relief to nearly a quarter of a million businesses… we’re ahead of schedule. »- press briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He conceals the reality. There have been significant delays, with few loans issued.

The $ 349 billion emergency loan program just started operating on Friday, but the rollout has been hampered by a host of issues. Small business owners have complained that they cannot contact the Small Business Administration or banks to apply for loans or that they are turned down by banks that say they only accept applications from businesses that are already customers of the bank.

Two of the country’s largest banks, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank, were not initially created to accept applications.

The SBA’s loan processing system then shut down earlier in the week, making it impossible to approve loans and distribute the money, as confusion spread over what documents lenders needed. customers to complete loan transactions. That’s according to a business group for community bankers and the CEO of an online lending marketplace.

As for the $ 70 billion, Trump seems to cite the value of requests received but not yet fully managed. SBA spokeswoman Carol Wilkerson said more than 275,000 applications had been received for loans valued at $ 75 billion since the program began.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin predicted last week that the loans could be canceled and the money transferred to corporate bank accounts the same day the requests were received.

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THE VIRUS THREAT

TRUMP, referring to his past comparisons of the coronavirus to the flu: “You said I said it was like the flu. So the worst pandemic we’ve ever had in this world was the flu. … That was in 1917, 1918. And 50 to 100 million people died. It was the flu, okay? So you could say I said it was the flu, or you could say, “The flu is not something to sneeze at. »- briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He’s reviewing history – both his own and that of the hundred-year-old pandemic.

Trump never suggested that the coronavirus was akin to the Spanish influenza pandemic, which spread from early 1918 to late 1920 and killed more than 50 million people around the world. On the contrary, he repeatedly dismissed COVID-19 from January to mid-March as being less dangerous than regular flu and something that would go away soon enough.

In February, he claimed that coronavirus cases would “drop very dramatically, not increase,” and told Fox Business that everything will be fine because “in April, supposedly, he died with the warmer weather. And it’s a great date to look forward to.

“It’s kind of like the regular flu for which we have flu shots,” he told reporters on February 26. “And we’ll basically have a flu shot for that in a pretty quick fashion.”

Two days before the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic, Trump still presented a sunny outlook on COVID-19.

“So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common flu,” he tweeted on March 9. “It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 a year. Nothing is stopped, life and the economy continue. Right now there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about it. ! “

And in a Fox News virtual town hall on March 24, Trump declined to compare the coronavirus to the 1918 pandemic. “You can’t compare that to 1918 when nearly 100 million people died. It was a flu, which – a little different, ”he said, exaggerating the likely death toll from this pandemic.

Trump now recognizes that the United States “may be” entering a recession, while the White House has predicted that there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the United States from the coronavirus even though the guidelines social distancing are maintained. Currently, there are over 400,000 cases and over 14,000 deaths nationwide.

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TRUMP, when asked about the wisdom of freezing funding for the World Health Organization during a pandemic: “I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but we’re going to look at it.” Said he had said a few minutes earlier that he would freeze the funding, he replied, “No, I didn’t. I said we were going to look at it. – briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: In fact, he said emphatically earlier in the briefing that he was going to freeze US funding for the organization.

“We are going to suspend the money spent on the WHO,” he said. “We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it.

He is not satisfied with the organization’s recommendations on coronaviruses. The United States contributed nearly $ 900 million to its budget for 2018-19, according to information on the agency’s website, an amount that represented one-fifth of the total WHO budget for those years.

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VOTING FRAUD

TRUMP: “Huge potential for electoral fraud. – tweet Wednesday.

TRUMP: “Postal ballots – they cheat. OKAY? People cheat. Postal ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they are cheaters. They will pick them up. They are fraudulent in many cases. – briefing Tuesday.

TRUMP: “You get thousands and thousands of people sitting in someone’s living room, signing ballots all over the place. … I think if you vote you should go. – briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: There is no evidence of widespread electoral fraud. His advice for in-person voting as in Wisconsin on Tuesday night during a pandemic also contradicts his task force’s social distancing guidelines, which urge Americans to maintain a 6-foot (1.8-meter) separation. and avoid crowds of more than 10 people.

It is true that some studies have shown a slightly higher incidence of postal vote fraud compared to in-person voting, but the overall risk is extremely low. The Brennan Center for Justice said in 2017 that the risk of voter fraud was 0.00004% to 0.0009%.

Ignoring his own advice, Trump voted by mail in the Florida Republican primary last month.

Asked about the contradiction on Tuesday, he said it was fine “because I have the right to” vote by mail and he didn’t expect to travel to Florida.

He previously claimed without evidence that illegal voter buses came from Massachusetts in 2016 to deprive him of a New Hampshire general election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton and that millions of people voted illegally in California, the people voting multiple times. A commission that Trump met after the 2016 election to investigate potential voter fraud has been dissolved without producing any findings.

In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but prevailed in the Electoral College to win the presidency.

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AP Business Writer Ken Sweet in New York contributed to this report.

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Editor’s note – A look at the veracity of the assertions of political figures.

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