PolitiFact: Trump wrong on CNN ratings, misstated gas price low

President Donald Trump participates in the Celebrate Freedom Rally at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on July 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump participates in the Celebrate Freedom Rally at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on July 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool via Getty Images)

PolitiFact last week looked at statements by the president on CNN ratings and low gas prices, and a comment by an that Trump had never promoted violence. Here are abbreviated versions of our fact checks. Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com.

CNN’s ratings are “way down.”

— Donald Trump on Tuesday, June 27th, 2017 in a tweet

Trump is flat wrong. Trump’s claim that CNN’s ratings are down raises the question: compared to what?

Because his tweet made no mention of other cable news networks, we assume Trump is comparing CNN’s current ratings to past ratings.

Television experts we spoke to about how to gauge CNN’s trajectory suggested we compare CNN’s numbers from one year to the next, based on data from the second quarter (in 2017, second quarter ratings went from March 27 through June 25).

To get a comprehensive view, we were told to look at ratings across several benchmark metrics, broken down by audience demographics and viewing times.

Bottom line: CNN is at a five-year high in each of the categories we looked at, according to data provided by the Nielsen Company.

Our ruling

Trump said CNN’s ratings are “way down.” In fact, CNN is at a five-year high in several key categories, according to data provided by the Nielsen Company.

We rate Trump’s statement Pants on Fire.

“Gas prices are the lowest in the U.S. in over ten years!”

— Donald Trump on Tuesday, July 4th, 2017 in a tweet

There’s value in comparing gas prices using a narrow window of time like the July 4 weekend, because comparing, for example, summer prices to winter prices is like comparing apples and oranges.

However, the way Trump phrased his tweet was more expansive. Rather than limiting the comparison to the July 4 weekend, the tweet suggests that at no point over the past decade-plus have gas prices been lower. And that would not be correct, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, a federal office.

There were 85 weeks in which gas cost less than $2.26 per gallon, the price it was at the time of Trump’s tweet. That means that for about one-sixth of the time over the past decade, gas cost less than it does now. (The EIA data does mirror AAA’s assessment for Fourth of July weekend prices.)

Indeed, gas cost less during much of President Barack Obama’s last year in office than it does now.

Our ruling

Trump likely meant to say that gas prices on the July 4 weekend are lower now than at any point on July 4 since 2005. But Trump tweeted something more sweeping, that gas prices haven’t been lower in more than a decade. That’s not correct.

So, we rate the statement Mostly False.

“The president in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence.”

— Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday, June 29th, 2017 in a White House press briefing

We’re not considering Trump’s tweet of a GIF showing him body-slamming a figure labeled CNN at a professional wrestling match, which Trump sent several days after Huckabee Sanders’ comment. However, the record several cases in which Trump has said things that we believe an ordinary listener would understand as encouraging violence.

For just one example, in March 2016 at a rally in Kansas City, talking about someone who had rushed the stage, Trump said, “I don’t know if I would have done well, but I would have been out there fighting, folks. I don’t know if I’d have done well, but I would’ve been — boom, boom, boom. I’ll beat the crap out of you.”

Whether Trump’s words would qualify legally as incitement to violence is questionable.Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union wrote concerning a lawsuit stemming from a Trump rally in Louisville, “Over time, the Supreme Court l … adopted a very speech-protective test to determine when incitement has taken place … It’s a high bar for a reason, and Trump’s conduct at the rally didn’t meet it.”

Our ruling

We found several examples in which Trump offered public musings that showed a tolerance for, and sometimes even a favorable disposition toward, physical violence. Trump's words may not meet a legal threshold for incitement to violence, but Huckabee Sanders' portrayal seriously distorts the record of Trump's past statements. We rate her statement False.