Trump Brags ‘No Way I Can Lose Iowa and Nebraska,’ Citing Debunked Claim He Gave Farmers $28 Billion

During his Fox News town hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump repeated the widely debunked claim that the $28 billion he gave farmers comes from China. Trump also claimed the bailout to farmers, a result of his trade wars, was why he won states like Iowa and Nebraska.

After a discussion about the cocaine recently found in the White House, Trump lamented, “We were respected once.”

“Three years ago, this country was respected and Putin knew he couldn’t do it. And President Xi of China knew he couldn’t,” Trump said.

“You know, I gave Iowa and farmers the farm states $28 billion from China. 28 billion,” the GOP frontrunner continued, adding:

That’s why I said, you know, I go around, I don’t want to be too boisterous on this because you never know. Right. But I said, there’s no way I can lose Iowa and Nebraska.

Any of these states, there’s no way because I gave the farmers $28 billion from China. No person, no president’s ever gotten $0.10 from China. I got hundreds of billions of dollars. And I went to the secretary of agriculture….

The audience started applauding loudly and Trump pivoted again to address them and say, “Thank you. I love you, too.”

Notably, the claim has been roundly debunked for years, as U.S. consumers not China paid for the $28 billion.

Trump made the same claim when running against Joe Biden in 2020 and CNN fact-checked it then, concluding:

Trump’s claim about who is paying the tariff money is false. Study after study has found that Americans are bearing the cost of Trump’s tariffs on imported Chinese products. And American importers, not Chinese exporters, make the actual tariff payments to the US government.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.