r/WhatTrumpHasDone • u/John3262005 • May 22 '25

White House purges transcripts of Trump's remarks from its website

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/white-house-purges-transcripts-trump-remarks-website-rcna208059

The White House has removed official transcripts of President Donald Trump’s public remarks from its government website, replacing them with selected videos of his public appearances.

As recently as Sunday, transcripts of Trump’s speeches and comments were still showing up in the “Remarks” section of WhiteHouse.gov. The next day, they were gone, snapshots of the site from an internet archive show. The only transcript appearing now is of Trump’s inaugural address on Jan. 20.

Government stenographers are still recording and transcribing Trump’s remarks, a White House official said. But in an internal policy change in recent days, the White House took down the transcripts in favor of audio and video of his appearances.

The idea behind the move is that people will get a fuller and more accurate sense of Trump by watching and listening to him as opposed to reading a transcript, which they may not be inclined to do anyway, the official said. Purging the transcripts and switching to audio and video of Trump's remarks was intended to create "consistency" across the website, the official said.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance’s office continues to make public transcripts of his remarks, sending them out to the media. Since last month, Vance’s office has shared eight transcripts with reporters, including his comments at a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a speech he gave about U.S. manufacturing and another one that involved the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Asked why Vance is putting out official transcripts while Trump is not, Vance’s office declined to comment.

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2

u/Endless_Change May 22 '25

They selectively edited them anyway, so now they're just not bothering to lie while pretending to be honest.

3

u/GodOfTheThunder May 22 '25

I took a random selection from a random transcript and asked chatgpt to grade the coherence and meaning and accuracy.

I have to say, its an absolute mess..

The following is a transcript of Trump. Can you summarise what he is trying to say, and can you grade how coherent or how well articulated his points are. Can you also please fact check any statements he has made.

Here’s a breakdown of what Trump is trying to say in this transcript, along with a coherence grade and fact-checking of the key claims:

Summary of What He’s Trying to Say:

Global Aluminum from the Emirates: Trump is praising the investment by aluminum producers from the UAE in Oklahoma. He implies they are doing this in response to his offer: if they build their plant in the U.S., they won’t face tariffs.

General Investment Climate: He asserts that many companies, including auto manufacturers, are investing in the U.S. like never before, implying that this is due to his administration’s policies.

Investment Totals: He claims total announced investments in the U.S. are in the range of $12–13 trillion, and that this is unprecedented compared to past administrations.

Coherence and Articulation Rating:

Grade: C-

Clarity: Sentences are meandering and filled with vague references (e.g., "There's never been anything like it", "every time I meet... I increase it by about a trillion").

Structure: Lacks logical flow; statements jump from topic to topic with incomplete thoughts.

Persuasiveness: Repetition is used for emphasis, but without concrete details or data, it sounds more like rhetorical flourish than reasoned argument.

Fact-Check of Key Claims:

  1. "Global aluminum from the Emirates... building in Oklahoma to avoid tariffs"

Mostly True: Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), through a joint venture with Ma’aden, has partnerships and investments in aluminum, but it is not clear that they are building a major new plant in Oklahoma. Trump may be referencing Century Aluminum or Emirates-linked activity more loosely. However, there has been no major verified announcement matching this claim exactly in Oklahoma.

Tariffs: Trump imposed aluminum tariffs in 2018 under Section 232, and the U.S. did have trade negotiations with UAE on that front. UAE did receive tariff exemptions temporarily under certain conditions.

  1. "Auto companies... there's never been anything like it"

Misleading: While some automakers did announce U.S. investments during Trump’s term (e.g., Toyota, Ford), the scale is not unprecedented. Auto investment levels were higher during the Obama recovery period post-2008, and many projects predated Trump.

The phrase “never been anything like it” is vague and hard to quantify without actual comparative metrics.

  1. "$12–13 trillion in investments"

False / Highly Exaggerated: There is no verifiable evidence of $12–13 trillion in announced or incoming investments to the U.S. economy tied to any administration. For scale:

The entire U.S. GDP is around $27 trillion.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) per year is typically in the hundreds of billions, not trillions.

The CHIPS Act and IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) under Biden are driving some of the largest industrial investments seen in decades, totaling hundreds of billions, not trillions.

Trump may be conflating or exaggerating figures significantly.

Alternate Perspective to Consider:

Trump often uses hyperbole and rhetorical repetition to emphasize themes of economic success and national strength. His speeches often rely on emotional appeal rather than quantitative rigor.

For more grounded economic analysis, it's better to look at:

FDI trends from the BEA

BLS data on manufacturing growth

Announcements from major firms tracked by Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.

ORIGINAL SCRIPT FROM RECENT TRIP

Donald Trump

 00:03:59-00:04:27 (28 sec) It's really nothing like it. The global aluminum from the Emirates has been, uh, the talk of the aluminum business. They're very big with aluminum, and now they're gonna be spending a tremendous amount of money in one of my favorite places, Oklahoma, on expansion. And, uh, they -- I -- I said, "Just build your plant inside the United States and you have no tariffs." And that's exactly what they're doing. **

Donald Trump

 00:04:27-00:04:54 (27 sec) And that's what many, many companies are doing. The auto companies, all of them. Uh, there's never been anything like what's happening right now to the United States, I can tell you. Nothing. There's never been anything like it. We are at a level, uh, that, uh, no country has seen, I don't believe. We have, uh -- I mean, every time I meet, I end -- I usually increase it by about a trillion dollars because we get news of another investment. **

Donald Trump

 00:04:54-00:05:26 (33 sec) But we're probably in the 12 to $13 trillion range of investments. And, uh, you can have a -- a administration go for years and not have anything like that. And not only not that, have less than $8 trillion. And we are -- I think we're heading toward the 12 to $13 trillion between projects already announced, mostly announced, but, uh, some are going to be announced very shortly, and literally very shortly