Originally posted by the Voice of America. Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America, a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in the public domain. AP Fact Check: Trump on N. Korea, Wages, Climate; Democrat Misfires Associated Press WASHINGTON - Straining for deals on trade and nukes in Asia, President Donald Trump hailed a meeting with North Korea's leader that he falsely claimed President Barack Obama coveted, asserted a U.S. auto renaissance that isn't and wrongly stated air in the U.S. is the cleanest ever as he dismissed climate change. He also ignored the reality in suggesting that nobody had implicated Saudi's crown prince in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump's own intelligence agencies and a U.N. investigator, in fact, have pointed a finger at the prince. The president's misstatements over the weekend capped several days of extraordinary claims, including a false one accusing special counsel Robert Mueller of a crime and misrepresenting trade in multiple dimensions. Democratic presidential candidates, meantime, stepped forward for their first debates and tripped at times on issues dear to them: climate change, health care and immigration among them. A look at the misstatements: AUTOMAKERS Trump: "Many, many companies -- including South Korea -- but many companies are coming into the United States. ... Car companies, in particular. They're going to Michigan. They're going to Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Florida. ... We hadn't had a plant built in years -- in decades, actually. And now we have many plants being built all throughout the United States -- cars." -- remarks Sunday to Korean business leaders in Seoul. The Facts: Car companies are not pouring into the U.S. as Trump suggests, nor does he deserve all the credit for those that have moved here. He's also wrong in saying that auto plants haven't been built in decades. A number of automakers -- Toyota, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen among them -- opened plants in recent decades, mostly in the South. Government statistics show that jobs in auto and parts manufacturing grew at a slower rate in the two-plus years since Trump took office than in the two prior years. Between January of 2017, when Trump was inaugurated, and May of this year, the latest figures available, U.S. auto and parts makers added 44,000 jobs, or a 4.6 percent increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But in the two years before Trump took office, the industry added 63,600 manufacturing jobs, a 7.1 percent increase. The only automaker announcing plans to reopen a plant in Michigan is Fiat Chrysler, which is restarting an old engine plant to build three-row SUVs. It's been planning to do so since before Trump was elected. GM is even closing two Detroit-area factories: one that builds cars and another that builds transmissions. Toyota is building a new factory in Alabama with Mazda, and Volvo opened a plant in South Carolina last year, but in each case, that was in the works before Trump took office. Automakers have made announcements about new models being built in Michigan, but no other factories have been reopened. Ford stopped building the Focus compact car in the Detroit suburb of Wayne last year, but it's being replaced by the manufacture of a small pickup and a new SUV. That announcement was made in December 2016, before Trump took office. GM, meantime, is closing factories in Ohio and Maryland. Trump can plausibly claim that his policies have encouraged some activity in the domestic auto industry. Corporate tax cuts freed more money for investment, and potential tariff increases on imported vehicles are an incentive to build in the U.S. But when expansion does happen, it's not all because of him. Fiat Chrysler has been planning the SUVs for several years and has been looking at expansion in the Detroit area, where it has unused building space and an abundant, trainable automotive labor force.Normally it takes at least three years for an automaker to plan a new vehicle. .