Trump Repeats Many Claims in Fox News Town Hall

In a Feb. 20 town hall in South Carolina that aired on Fox News, days before the state’s Republican primary, former President Donald Trump repeated several false and misleading claims we’ve fact-checked before. Trump and Ingraham at the Greenville Convention Center on Feb. 20. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. He also claimed, contrary to Russia’s track record, that Russian President Vladimir Putin would prefer President Joe Biden to win reelection. The most newsworthy item from the town hall was Trump comparing the civil lawsuits and criminal indictments against him to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died this month in a Russian prison. Biden has blamed Putin for Navalny’s death; Trump did not, when given the opportunity at the town hall. Instead, Trump said Navalny’s death was “a very sad situation” and “horrible,” and then called the civil fraud case in New York against Trump “a form of Navalny,” similar to a comparison the former president had made on social media. It’s not comparable, but we’ll leave that for political and legal commentators to parse. The town hall, held in Greenville, aired on Laura Ingraham’s show. Putin’s Preferred Candidate? In a discussion about U.S. presidents negotiating with foreign leaders,...