It was only the second time since the summer that Donald Trump has used a teleprompter. But writing down his thoughts ahead of time didn't make them more accurate.
Trump's speech, billed as his major foreign policy rollout, was riddled with errors and contradictions. Here are four things he got wrong:
Trump claimed that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was unavailable to answer the phone when the Benghazi, Libya, consulate and CIA annex were attacked Sept. 11, 2012. He claimed she chose to "go to sleep" rather than to respond.
Here's part of what he said: "Then, instead of taking charge that night, Hillary Clinton decided to go home and sleep. Incredible. By the way, she was not awake to take that call at 3 o'clock in the morning."
Hours of witness testimony, as well and both independent and congressional reports, directly contradict his suggestion that Clinton was unavailable that day. First, there was no 3 a.m. call. The attacks occurred at 3:42 in that afternoon, ET.
By 6 p.m. ET, the president's national security team had consulted with the State Department and devised a three-pronged military response, which included staging a team in or around Benghazi.
Ultimately, the White House argued, through its military leadership, that no teams outside the country were able to get to Benghazi in time to save lives. That response was heavily criticized, but there is no evidence Clinton was unresponsive. Her own emails, recently released to the public, show that she was awake past 11 p.m. that night.
In the same breath that he falsely accused Clinton of sleeping through the Benghazi attack, Trump claimed that ISIS is now making millions of dollars off Libyan oil sales. "And now ISIS is making millions and millions of dollars a week selling Libya oil,” Trump said. "And you know what? We don't blockade, we don't bomb, we don't do anything about it. It's almost as if our country doesn't even know what's happening, which could be a fact and could be true."
He has made this false statement before, also in the context of blaming Clinton for destroying Libya. The fact is that ISIS does fund itself through the sale of oil, but not in Libya. The Washington Post did an entire piece on the inaccuracy of that and a similar statement he previously made, concluding ultimately that ISIS has not claimed any oil at all in Libya.
Donald Trump to deliver major foreign policy speech in Washington, DC Presidential Hopeful Donald Trump Flubs Pronunciation of 'Tanzania'"Although not in government service, I was totally against the war in Iraq, very proudly, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle East,” he said today.
It's true Trump was never in government service, but not true that he was totally against the war in Iraq. Months before the invasion, he was asked about the war on “The Howard Stern Show.” “Are you for invading Iraq?” Stern asked him. Trump answered, “Yeah, I guess so.”
Let's call this one a head-scratching contradiction. One of Trump’s main foreign policy talking points has been about NATO, the 28-member alliance founded in 1949. Today, he threatened that during a Trump presidency the United States might disband NATO if other countries didn't start spending more on national defense.
"Only 4 of 28 other member countries besides America, are spending the minimum required 2 percent of GDP on defense,” Trump said (the number is actually five).
"The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense, and if not, the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves," he addd. "We have no choice."
Yet just moments later, he talked about the importance of sticking with allies, this time in reference to Israel. "Your friends need to know that you will stick by the agreements that you have with them. You've made that agreement, you have to stand by it and the world will be a better place.”
Later he put it in a way that seemed to directly contradict his threats to NATO. “We've picked fights with our oldest friends, and now they're starting to look elsewhere for help. Remember that. Not good,” he added.