'It's a lie': Trump's 'own campaign' failed to substantiate ex-president's new rally claim
Donald Trump's own presidential campaign has failed to substantiate the former president's Saturday rally claim about children and schools, according to CNN, which deemed the statement a "lie."
Trump recently spoke at a Moms for Liberty event where the former president made an eye-popping claim about transgender kids.
"The transgender thing is incredible... your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child," Trump said last week.
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This led political fact-checker PolitiFact to issue a "pants-on-fire" rating for the claim, saying, "If a surgical procedure at school sounds far-fetched, that’s because it is. Schools generally do not provide students with medical care without parental consent, let alone offer surgery. Parents, guardians and doctors, not schools, are the decision makers for health decisions involving minors."
Trump repeated a version of this same claim at a rally on Saturday. At a rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, which was filled with verbal slip-ups on which critics quickly pounced, the former president said, "Can you imagine you're a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school. And your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this?"
This led to extreme pushback on social media, including by a CNN fact checker.
Daniel Dale, CNN senior reporter on the fact-check beat, said, "Trump’s own campaign could not find a single example of this 'school secretly sends child for gender-affirming surgery without parental consent' thing having ever happened anywhere in the U.S."
Dale then added, "Experts say it has not and could not. It’s a lie."
Dale also linked to a CNN fact check article from the last time Trump made the claim.