Donald Trump’s fantastical account of conflict with IranWe have a high bar for fact-checking statements by former president Donald Trump — any speech of his can contain dozens of falsehoods — but in a recent hour-long interview with Univision, the former president offered a tale of relations with Iran so startling that it begged to be explored. In Trump’s telling, when he was president, the United States retaliated after Iran destroyed an American drone, and then when Iran decided to hit back, it purposely missed a military base with U.S. troops. Not only that, Iranian officials called Trump and let their plans be known, apparently out of respect for him. Could this really have happened? Of course not. We reviewed the public record on both incidents. In the first case, Trump canceled a planned strike on Iran after it downed a $150 million drone, to the shock of his aides. In the second case, most of Iran’s missiles struck a base housing U.S. personnel in Iraq. No one was killed, though many soldiers suffered serious brain injuries, but the absence of deaths was more a result of a well-planned evacuation than Iranian targeting. A vague warning without a target had been given to the Iraqi president — but not to Trump. You can read our full report and find out the Pinocchio rating by clicking this link (but you’ve probably already guessed the rating). Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who’d like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we’ll check it out. Nikki Haley group misfires with false ad on DeSantis energy policiesIn the fierce battle between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for a strong showing (after Donald Trump) in the Iowa Republican caucuses, a group that backs Haley likes to air ads that accuse DeSantis of being a liar. That’s a strong word — one we rarely use here at The Fact Checker — and we expect such claims to be rigorously documented. SFA Fund’s new ad, accusing DeSantis of deceiving voters on his position on fracking and offshore drilling, fails that test. It twists DeSantis’s Florida policies to suggest he plans to bring them nationally — when in fact he says the opposite. He has made that distinction clear in debates, standing next to Haley. The ad also tries to claim DeSantis is a closet liberal on the environment, which is not true. Not only that, the ad relies on out-of-context video clips to make its case — what we label manipulated video. That makes this ad especially egregious. Click the link below to learn more and discover how many Pinocchios the ad received. The link also has a video that shows how the clips used in the ad were taken out of context. We’re always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. We’re also on TikTok. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. About the cats: It’s a Friday and sometimes our fact checks deal with heavy subjects. So we hope to bring a smile to your face. Scroll down to read other Trump-related fact checks | 
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