WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s hot out there, politically speaking, with Hillary Clinton’s convention going full steam and Donald Trump refusing to stay quiet while Democrats put on their big show. Reality is sometimes getting warped in the process.
A look at some claims Wednesday and how they compare with the facts, on a day packed with a lengthy news conference by Trump and evening convention speeches by high-powered Democrats, President Barack Obama among them:
TRUMP: “I never met Putin, I don’t know who Putin is. … I’ve never spoken to him.” – Miami news conference, during a discussion of whether Russia had hacked into emails of the Democratic National Committee.
THE FACTS: Not so long ago, Trump bragged about well he knew Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now he says he doesn’t know him at all. That appears to be closer to the truth.
In November, when he was trying to burnish his foreign-policy credentials during a GOP primary debate, he said of Putin, “I got to know him very well because we were both on ’60 Minutes,’ we were stablemates, and we did very well that night. “