What President Trump Said
“By the way, in terms of the money, it got there two or three weeks ahead of schedule, long before it was supposed to be there.”
False. President Trump was wrong in asserting that his decision last year to suspend military assistance to Ukraine — a key component in his impeachment and upcoming trial — did not interfere with the schedule for delivering the aid.
The 2019 federal fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, the date by which all appropriated aid to Ukraine was supposed to be disbursed. But because of the freeze ordered by Mr. Trump, not all of the aid was spent before the deadline.
Congress had appropriated $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine — $250 million from the Pentagon and $141 million from the State Department — meant to be spent by the end of September. Though the Pentagon announced its plans to provide the aid in June, White House officials blocked its release in July. It remained frozen until mid-September, when Mr. Trump relented after pressure from lawmakers and administration officials.
With just two weeks left in the fiscal year, the Pentagon was unable to fully disburse the funds. According to testimony from Mark Sandy, an official in the Office of Management and Budget, about $35 million was left unspent. Congress then extended the deadline to the 2020 fiscal year to allow for the disbursement of the remaining aid.
“Had that provision not been included, then any unobligated funds as of Sept. 30 would have expired,” Mr. Sandy said.
What Mr. Trump Said
“We have thousands of ISIS prisoners that we’re keeping right now under lock and key. And we want Europe to take many of these prisoners because they came from Germany, France and other places — probably a few from Greece, in all fairness.”
This is exaggerated. Estimates from Mr. Trump’s own administration show that he is overstating the share of Islamic State fighters who hail from Europe.
James F. Jeffrey, the State Department’s special envoy for Syria, said in August that about 8,000 ISIS fighters from Syria and Iraq and another 2,000 foreign fighters were being detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the loose coalition of militias fighting the terrorist group.
Of those foreign fighters, about 800 are European and the rest are from former Soviet republics, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, according to a Pentagon inspector general report from August. The report and other analysts have noted that many of those places are hesitant to repatriate their citizens, fearing political backlash or hurdles in prosecution.
As for Mr. Trump’s contention that a “few” ISIS fighters are Greek nationals, the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project concluded that the number was “not well documented” but said that Greece had been used as a transit point for fighters of European origin. A July report from the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization estimated that women and children affiliated with the Islamic State numbered about 6,600 from Western Europe but none from Greece.
Mr. Trump previously received pushback from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, when he told Mr. Macron in December that “many” fighters come from France.
“Let’s be serious,” Mr. Macron said accurately. “The very large numbers of fighters on the ground are the fighters coming from Syria, from Iraq.”
Other claims
Mr. Trump also revived claims that The New York Times has previously fact-checked, including his often repeated falsehood that he opposed the Iraq war “in the first place” (he did not) and his exaggerated contention that European countries are not contributing assistance to Ukraine (they do).
Curious about the accuracy of a claim? Email factcheck@nytimes.com.