The White House press corps should ask these 2 questions every time

Every time President Trump asserts a fact at a podium, on a tarmac, or in the Oval Office, the White House press corps should respond with two questions, asked plainly every time: “How do you know that?” and “What does that mean?”

Used as a standing protocol rather than an occasional follow-up, they would do what shouted questions and next-day fact-checks have not managed to do — make evasion visible in real time and render “fake news” an insufficient reply.

Consider the record of the last 10 weeks. In his February 2026 State of the Union, Trump told the country that $18 trillion in new investment had poured into the U.S. since he resumed office. His own White House website put the figure at $9.7 trillion, a figure that was itself inflated by vague “bilateral trade” pledges.

Trump claimed that an accused killer of a Ukrainian refugee in North Carolina had entered through “open borders”; available evidence indicates the suspect is an American citizen. He asserted that Somali residents of Minnesota had “pillaged an estimated $19 billion,” a figure with no identifiable source and no stated methodology.

Weeks later, in an April interview on Fox Business, he offered false claims about NATO, NASA, taxes, and immigration; the interviewer let almost all of them stand.

Each of those statements would have buckled under the weight of “How do you know........

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